IIS7 on Server Core - June CTP build released!

I'm excited to announce that a new build of IIS7 and Windows 2008 Server is available for testing by Beta testers.  This build includes updates and fixes made since the Beta 3 release earlier this year, and includes the previously announced IIS7 on Server Core configuration.  Important note:  This build is released as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) release, and has not been tested to the degree that we test full Beta or Release Candidate builds, so use at your own risk!

In response to customer feedback and bugs reports since beta 3, we've fixed almost a thousand bugs and made several notable changes:

 

IIS7 on Server Core

As previously announced, IIS7 is now the seventh role available in Server Core, the low footprint OS configuration.  This means you get an extremely modular, customizable Web server on a thin server OS, perfectly suited for appliance-like environments, or Web farm front-end servers where you want to blast a small, cloned image out and forget about it.

Mete, one of the senior Test leads on the team, just published a great blog post with helpful hints on how to get started with IIS7 on Server Core.  We've also posted this as an article on IIS.net, titled IIS7 on Server Core, which answers basic questions about this release and gives some helpful steps for how to get IIS7 up and running. 

 

Improved Diagnostics support for UNC paths in the UI

There is a new diagnostics option added to the UI where paths are configured (the physical paths you configure for sites, applications, virtual directories, etc.) which can help you diagnose problems with connections to these file server paths. 

test connection 

 

Kernel Caching support in the Output Caching UI

It is now possible to enable kernel caching as part of the output caching feature in the UI. 

 

Improved support for IPv6 addresses

IIS has supported wildcard IPv6 bindings since IIS6, but with this build IIS also supports the ability to provide specific IPv6 bindings for a site or server.

 

Demand start threshold based on memory limit

IIS7 now supports the ability to dynamically adjust AppPool timeout values based on memory limits.  This enables greater density AppPool configurations ensuring that the most active AppPools stay active, while more aggressively timing out stale AppPools when available memory becomes low.

 

Improved Default Document UI

This very common feature gets some usability improvements and performance help.   

 

And several other hidden gems. :)  There has never been a better time to try out IIS7! 

6 Comments

  • Do you know if the FTP for IIS7 module has be integrated in this version of the Server 2008 build? In the previous, beta 3, the new FTP was a separate download.

  • Hi Seth -

    The plan for the FTP7 server is to ship it as a web download. Unfortunately, due to resource / schedule constraints it did not make the cut-off for Windows 2008. It will run on Vista, however, as well, once we release it.

  • SSL supported in the FTP service with IIS 7 ?

  • Hi Aaron -

    Yes, the new ftp server (http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1454) supports FTP over SSL and will be installable on server core. The current beta only supports beta 3, and will not install on this latest CTP, but will be updated in the future. The built-in FTP server does not support FTP/SSL, however.

  • Having posted on a wrong blog entry I'll enter it here too :-)

    Again, this is great, great, great news. I would be shocked if you guys could please check out what Dare has posted on Google infrastructure.

    Being thin and having an extremelly low memory footprint (thin as in NT 3.51 or 4.0 or similar) is certainly the way forward. No shell, no page faults, no RPC rountrips, no hangs, no WMI, nothing that eats stability or exposes more surfaces.

    PE 2.0 is a great start but not enough.

    People are building their own boxes and out of Linux pieces and it is all about cost and overhead and total control. I hope this attempt, long overdue, finally nails it

    Also having MSMQ infrastructure iincluded (please, please without any AD or Domain controller RPC synchronicity) along with fastest path to net I/O (whether HTTP(S), TCP with easy stream crypto or even some forms of reliable multicast PGM or anything) should be a HUGE selling point.


    I have posted the below on the wrong blog :
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    I cannot believe it, no plans for .NET framework: AWESOME! YES!

    If you guys could only get the footprint down to under 32MB on core install that would be even more cool.

    Please, please, please make this OS the fastest and thinnest by default.

    No WMI either please.

    No junk that isn't required, so we have an answer to Linux.

    No RPC or AD or shell junk that blocks the entire box. Or a CD-ROM or floppy disk hang Windows is famous for. No Name Resolution by default would be GREAT!

    We only need the fastest TCP/IP and HTTP stack on the planet (and lowest latency otherwise what's it the point).

    Cheers.

  • Oh yes, the affinity, CPU control, pool control and similar especially for multihomed environments should make this even more attractive.

    Some Winsock2 overhaul would be ideal so we can cater for Web and internal I/O without any synchronisation on any path.

    Cheers

Comments have been disabled for this content.