MVolo's Blog : IIS News Item

The IIS 7.0 Resource Kit Book

mvolo — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:59:00 GMT

The IIS 7.0 Resource Kit Book is out! Coming straight from yours truly, the IIS 7.0 team, and some of our best MVPs, this book has all the conceptual background and details you'll need to understand the principles behind the web server platform, and take full advantage of it.

The book covers:

IIS 7.0 architecture
The new configuration system
Using the IIS Manager, and command line tools
Managing IIS 7.0 web sites, applications, and other intrinsic objects
Managing the web server extensibility, including web server modules, configuration extensions, and IIS Manager plugins
Integrating application development frameworks with IIS 7.0, including in-depth coverage of ASP, ASP.NET, and PHP
Hardening IIS 7.0 security and using the security features
Logging, troubleshooting, and performance tuning
and more ...

Get the full scoop on the book at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2008/05/01/The-IIS-7.0-Resource-Kit-Book.aspx.

Thanks,

Mike

IIS 7.0 is the number one reason people want Windows Server 2008

mvolo — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:24:00 GMT

According to an InformationWeek study, IIS 7.0 is the feature that most interests customers in Windows Server 2008.

More at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2008/02/22/IIS-7.0-_2D00_-the-number-one-reason-customers-want-Windows-Server-2008.aspx.

Thanks,

Mike

MSDN Magazine: Extend IIS 7.0 end-to-end

mvolo — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:06:00 GMT

In this month's launch edition of MSDN magazine, we celebrate the release of Windows Server 2008. It's been a long road and we are finally done!

Of course, this celebration wouldnt be complete without a juicy article on IIS 7.0 - this time, showing off the complete extensibility of the Web server by building a full-blown Web server feature with configuration and IIS Manager components. The article shows off my latest project, the Response Modification Framework, which is pretty cool on its own ...

Read the article, learn about RMF, and more at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2008/02/18/MSDN-Magazine_3A00_-Extend-IIS-7.0-End_2D00_to_2D00_End.aspx.

Thanks,

Mike

MSDN Mag: Enhance Your Apps with the ASP.NET Integrated Pipeline!

mvolo — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:53:00 GMT

At last, my MSDN article about using the ASP.NET Integrated Pipeline is out in MSDN Magazine. This article is all about using existing ASP.NET features and building new ASP.NET modules to improve existing applications.

What's more, I do this without touching a single line of the application itself, which happens to be a PHP application using the IIS 7.0 FastCGI support.

So go read the article for an in-depth look at using the power of ASP.NET Integrated pipeline to add features, improve security, and turbo-charge performance of your applications. Then head over to my blog to learn more about doing this yourself for your apps on IIS 7.0 - starting with building your own modules and handlers.

Article highlights and more at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/12/20/MSDN-Magazine_3A00_-Enhance-Your-Applications-with-ASP.NET-Integrated-Pipeline.aspx.

Thanks,

Mike

Breaking Changes for ASP.NET 2.0 applications running in Integrated mode on IIS 7.0

mvolo — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:12:00 GMT

ASP.NET 2.0 applications on IIS 7.0 are hosted using the ASP.NET Integrated mode by default. This new mode enables a myriad of exciting scenarios including using super-valuable ASP.NET features like Forms Authentication for your entire Web site, and developing new ASP.NET modules to do things like URL rewriting, authorization, logging, and more at the IIS level.

As you know, with great power comes great responsibility. Similarly, with making ASP.NET applications more powerful in IIS 7.0 comes the responsibility of making sure that existing ASP.NET applications continue to work. This has been a major challenge for us as we re-architected the entire core engine of ASP.NET, and in the end we were highly successful in meeting it.

This post lists the changes in behavior that you may encounter when deploying your ASP.NET applications on IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Read the detailed list of breaking changes at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/12/08/IIS-7.0-Breaking-Changes-ASP.NET-2.0-applications-Integrated-mode.aspx.

Thanks,

Mike

Deploy your PHP applications today with the IIS 6 FastCGI Go-Live release!

mvolo — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:13:00 GMT

At last, the IIS FastCGI Go-Live release is here! This release enables you to begin hosting PHP applications in production on your existing IIS 6.0 servers immediately, and brings multiple fixes and performance improvements over the previously released Technical Preview 2.

Read more about it and all the resources you need to get started here: http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/09/24/Deploy-your-PHP-applications-today-with-the-IIS-6-FastCGI-Go_2D00_Live-release_2100_.aspx.

Mvolo.com is back!

mvolo — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:01:00 GMT

After several weeks of move-related outages, mvolo.com is back online at its new home at MaximumASP.

The server ran Windows Server 2008 beta 3 for 5+ months in my friend's garage without a single reboot, while the only access I had to it was through the blog's publishing interface. The new specs are orders of magnitude better than what I had before, so I am pretty excited to see the improvements in responsiveness.

New IIS7 modules, Hosting roadshow, MSDN magazine, IIS7 Resource Kit, and more

mvolo — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:01:00 GMT

I've haven't had a chance to post much over the past few weeks - its pretty frustrating at times to look at the ever-increasing backlog of juicy IIS7 topics that I want to cover and no time to actually do them justice.

I've been working on a few interesting things lately, that have been taking my extra time.

Read more at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/09/09/End-of-summer-update_3A00_-New-IIS7-modules_2C00_-Hosting-roadshow_2C00_-MSDN-magazine_2C00_-IIS7-Resource-Kit_2C00_-and-more.aspx.

Developing IIS7 web server features with the .NET framework

mvolo — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 07:38:00 GMT

This article, the first in the IIS7 .NET Developer series, focuses on getting started with developing IIS7 web server features based on the .NET Framework. Learn about the options you have for your development environment, how to set up your Visual Studio project, when to build a module vs. a handler, and more. By the end of the article, you would have built and deployed a simple IIS7 managed handler and module.

Read the entire article at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/08/15/Developing-IIS7-web-server-features-with-the-.NET-framework.aspx.

IIS Authentication plugin for the Wordpress PHP blogging engine

mvolo — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:05:00 GMT

This weekend, I was working on an MSDN magazine article and happened to install the Wordpress PHP blog app on IIS7. Of course, I used the latest FastCGI bits available in the box in in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3, and the latest Windows-optimized PHP 5.2.3 build from www.php.net. Long story short, I ended up writing a Wordpress plugin that allows Wordpress to use IIS authentication methods, including forms authentication.

Read about installing Wordpress on IIS7, the Wordpress extensibility model, and get the IIS Authentication plugin here: http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/08/12/IIS-Authentication-plugin-for-the-Wordpress-PHP-blogging-engine.aspx.

IISSCHEMA.EXE - A tool to register IIS7 configuration sections

mvolo — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:53:00 GMT

IIS7 configuration extensibility allows you to create custom configuration sections that can be used side by side the IIS configuration sections. However, setting this up requires a few steps that may be difficult to accomplish, especially in a automated way from a script or an installer.

This post describes the IIS7 configuration extensibility, the steps to create and register your custom configuration sections, and provides a downloadable tool you can use to simplify and automate this process.

Read all about it and download IISSCHEMA.EXE here: http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/08/04/IISSCHEMA.EXE-_2D00_-A-tool-to-register-IIS7-configuration-sections.aspx.

Troubleshoot IIS7 errors like a pro

mvolo — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:43:00 GMT

Dealing with server errors can be frustrating. Thankfully, IIS7 comes with many improvements to help diagnose errors when they occur, and help resolve them - however, its important that you know how to property use these capabilities.

This post gives you what you need to know to troubleshoot IIS7 errors like a pro.

Read all about it at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/07/26/Troubleshoot-IIS7-errors-like-a-pro.aspx.

Anatomy of an IIS7 configuration path

mvolo — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 04:53:00 GMT

If you have worked with IIS6 and previous versions of IIS, you are most likely familiar with the IIS metabase paths. You know, the ones that look like LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT. These metabase paths serve as a mechanism to identify a part of the IIS website hierarchy, or a url therein, for the purposes of read/writing their configuration settings.

As you know, IIS7 repaces the metabase with a whole new configuration system, based on a distributed hierarchy of XML configuration files also used by the .NET Framework/ASP.NET. This confguration system is fundamentally different from the metabase, and so it should come as no suprise that the way configuration paths work is also different.

The concept of configuration paths is fundamental to managing and operating an IIS server, so I wanted to spend some time explaining it in hope that this can help everyone enjoy their IIS7 server just a little bit more :) If you have come here wondering exactly what the hell is MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST, you have come to the right place.

Read all about IIS7 configuration paths at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/07/21/Anatomy-of-an-IIS7-configuration-path.aspx.

Creating IIS7 sites, applications, and virtual directories

mvolo — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:40:00 GMT

In the course of IIS7 development, the team and I have answered an infinity of questions about IIS7 on any possible topic imaginable. Ironically, neither I nor anyone else I know on the team has ever answered the most basic question - what is the minimum set of steps necessary to get a website running with IIS7?

This post answers this exact question, and explains the key IIS7 concepts of sites, applications, and virtual directories (vdirs), which must be created before your IIS7 server can serve a single request. It also provides the steps necessary to create IIS7 sites, applications, and virtual directories, and options for configuring them.

Read more at http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/07/12/Creating-IIS7-sites_2C00_-applications_2C00_-and-virtual-directories.aspx.

At last, Visual Studio patch for F5 debugging on Windows Vista has been released

mvolo — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:12:00 GMT

A Visual Studio patch that fixes the Visual Studio F5 debugging of IIS7 applications on Windows Vista Home Premium and above has been released!

This patch solves the "An authentication error occurred while communicating with the web server. Please see Help for assistance.", and "Debugging failed because integrated Windows authentication is not enabled. Please see Help for assistance" errors, that until now had to be worked around using the instructions in my previous post on this matter.

Read more and get the patch information from my older post on this subject, Fix problems with Visual Studio F5 debugging of ASP.NET applications on IIS7 Vista.