Robert Lucero IIS Testing Blog : IIS7

Client Certificates, Now with a UI!

rlucero — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:42:35 GMT

Dave , a test lead at IIS, sent me a link to Puneet Gupta’s blog post about the Client Certificates UI that he developed. One of the more common requests we get on the IIS 7 UI team is for a Client Certificates UI Module. Puneet took advantage of...(read more)

IIS Database Manager – Version 1.0 Released!

rlucero — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Today, the IIS team is releasing version 1.0 of the IIS Database Manager. It allows you to administer website and web application databases with the existing connection string or a custom client connection with an IIS UI extension. Major Features: Viewing...(read more)

Certificate Renewals in IIS 7

rlucero — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:53:10 GMT

Certificate renewals have changed from IIS 6 to IIS 7. Specifically, IIS 7 generates a different type of certificate renewal. The way it was… IIS 6 creates a PKCS #10 type of renewal. This is essentially just a new request with the information...(read more)

IIS 7.0 Administration Pack - Version 1.0 Released!

rlucero — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:03:04 GMT

Back on March 18th, during the MIX releases, the IIS team released the IIS 7.0 Administration Pack. About a year ago we released Technical Preview 1 of Admin Pack; the modules have gone through a couple iterations since then. Admin Pack...(read more)

Database Manager for IIS 7.0 - RC Released!

rlucero — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:56:23 GMT

Adding to the MIX release madness, the IIS team has released DB Manager RC! This RC version is a big step forward from the previous Technical Preview 2 release almost 9 months ago. Database Manager integrates with the IIS 7 Management Console UI...(read more)

IIS 7 Remote Management Virtual Lab

rlucero — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:03:54 GMT

I just ran across this Microsoft ISV Training Course that describes how to enable and use web application remote management. IIS 7's remote management is a really cool way to allow non-administrator users privileges to administer their sites and...(read more)

IIS7 Administration Pack and Database Manager Technical Preview 2

rlucero — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:44:00 GMT

Today we have released the IIS7 Administration Pack and Database Manager Customer Technical Preview 2. This is a collection of IIS 7 Manager plug-ins and extensions which we hope that you will find useful. So, what's special about Technical Preview 2...(read more)

Clarifying the Confusion: IIS 7 Manager vs. IIS 7 Web Server

rlucero — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:26:37 GMT

This issue has been surfacing on the forums a lot recently, so I think some clarification is in order. The general question that is seen on the message boards is this: I installed IIS7 on Windows XP but it doesn't work. Can anyone help? First, IIS...(read more)

IIS7 Administration Pack Technical Preview

rlucero — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:32:00 GMT

Yesterday, we released the IIS7 Administration Pack technical preview. This is a collection of extensions to the IIS7 Administration UI which we hope you the customers will find useful.

Here is a quick rundown of the added features:

ASP.NET Authorization Rules UI
ASP.NET Error Pages UI
Configuration Editor - Check out Script Generation
Database Manager - Manage your Database remotely through the IIS7 UI
FastCGI UI
IIS Reports - Don't want to use log parser? Try out the extensibility features here
Request Filtering - Lock down your server using our new UI module

Please note that this is in fact a technical preview and what we really need from everyone is to download it, try it out and leave some feedback. Post your comments here on our blogs and in our Admin Pack forum.

Essential Links:

IIS7 Administration Pack (x86)
IIS7 Administration Pack (x64)

Informational Step-by-Step Guides for Admin Pack

IIS7 Administration Pack Forum - Requires IIS.NET account to post

You can expect to see more postings around how to use these new features as well as some tips and tricks around them. Remember, we need your feedback to improve!

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 Manager is Now Available

rlucero — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:00:12 GMT

The final release of IIS 7.0 Manager (a.k.a. Remote Manager for IIS 7.0) is now available.

This tool is pretty cool because it allows you to connect to a remote IIS server and administer it using the same familiar IIS 7 management console found on the server itself.

You can find the appropriate installers here:

X86: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1626

X64: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1633

The requirements to run are:

Vista Service Pack 1 and Internet Information Services Management Console Installed or...
XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
.Net Framework 2.0

Make sure that you download the correct bit version because the 32-bit version will not install on a 64-bit operating system.

As many of you well know, Vista Service Pack 1 is not widely available at this point. It is available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers, but for a majority of users it is not available. For more information on the public release status of Vista Service Pack 1 please look here:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/11/windows-vista-sp1-availability-for-technical-customers.aspx

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Client-Server Extensibilty Notes

rlucero — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:37:00 GMT

This is just an overview of my personal experience with IIS7’s Extensibility capabilities.

I’m breaking this down into 3 sections:

1. Tips and Tricks with the GAC and how to avoid being confused

2. What’s in an Async Call?

3. Advantages of breaking the new module into two separate DLL’s

1: Tips and Tricks with the GAC

This is more about troubleshooting your GAC entry and including your GAC information in the module provider section of administration.config. Recently, I ran into a problem with porting and modifying an experimental module and the GAC information was my sticking point. My problem was registering the module in administration.config.

Here are the steps for making sure your module is in the GAC and in IIS:

1. Follow the steps given in the Extensibility Demos. Specifically, make sure that the binaries are signed and the Post-Build event is:

CALL "%VS80COMNTOOLS%\vsvars32.bat" > NULL

gacutil.exe /if "$(TargetPath)"

2. Use gacutil to determine the information needed for administration.config. For example:

C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL>gacutil /l ExtensibilityDemoMicrosoft (R) .NET Global Assembly Cache Utility. Version 2.0.50727.12Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

The Global Assembly Cache contains the following assemblies: ExtensibilityDemo, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=3a197a7356d6a88, processorArchitecture=MSIL

Number of items = 1

The essential line is the assembly information line. Also make sure that the name of the class and the assembly name match exactly.

3. Figure out the name of the Module Provider class and name it something very clear.

4. Add the new line with the into administration.config in the following manner:

NameSpace.ModuleProviderClassName, AssemblyName, Version, Culture, PublicKeyToken

Now the created module should appear inside of the IIS UI.

2. What’s in an async call?

Again, while developing an experimental module and following the steps used in the demos a stumbled on another point. The demo module makes a single StartAsyncTask call in order to read the config. My experimental module was reading a number of config sections so I decided that instead of having one single call I should make one call per UI section I was displaying. This way if there are any remote failures or timeouts I’ll get some settings. My example had nine individual StartAsyncTasks. This is bad for the following reasons:

1. Every async task takes a thread away from the thread pool. This means I was using nine threads from a limited pool.

2. Only one asynchronous task is supported at a time. If another async task starts the first one will be canceled. I haven’t been able to prove that, but that is something that Carlos explained to me.

3. This method doesn’t take full advantage of Property Bags.

The best practice for accessing multiple config sections is to fill a single property bag.

3. Advantages of breaking the new module into two separate DLL’s.

In the Extensibility Demo Articles it isn’t perfectly clear what is happening with the client and server portions. If these steps are followed literally the resulting project will contain a single DLL. It is important to note that this works, but it limits functionality in remote scenarios.

To create two separate DLLs two separate projects should be created within a Visual Studio Solution. The naming convention around here is <ModuleName>UI for the server component and <ModuleName>UIClient for the client code.

ModuleNameUI Contains: The module provider code (i.e. DemoModuleProvider.cs in the demos), the module service code (i.e. DemoModuleService.cs in the demos) and other code used to interpret the config or server information.

ModuleNameUIClient Contains: The actual module, with appropriate UI code and the Module Service Proxy