BillS IIS Blog

Why IIS7? Top 12 cool features…

bills — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:13:45 GMT

Every time I talk with customers in meetings or at conferences I’m struck by how many cool amazing new capabilities IIS7 has. I can go on for literally hours talking about the new features and benefits, and showing demos. And with each new IIS7 Extension, the list of new features just gets bigger and bigger. A few months ago I realized we didn’t have the top list of features written up anywhere, and so we started the process of distilling down the list to the top 10. We almost made it! We ended up with the top 12 reasons you should get IIS7 today. Check them out here:

http://www.iis.net/getstarted

Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding a cool demo for each of the reasons to show the features in action. Be sure to check back soon!

IIS7 Request Routing and Load Balancer Release Candidate Available for Download

bills — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:38:03 GMT

I’m excited to announce that IIS has released a Release Candidate of the new IIS7 Application Request Routing (ARR) extension! ARR enables Web server administrators to easily scale-out Web applications and improve reliability through HTTP-level, rule-based routing and load balancing. Read more about the cool new features in this new release and check out the updated documentation.

Download the RC release:

For those who are new to IIS7’s ARR module, here are the benefits it provides:

Balance loads more efficiently across servers to maximize resource utilization

By taking advantage of Application Request Routing, administrators have the ability to create powerful routing rules based on URL, HTTP headers and server variables to determine the most appropriate Web application server for each request. ARR makes request routing decisions at the application level, and can be used in conjunction with hardware load balancers as an added layer of control over HTTP requests. For example, using the Application Request Router, administrators are able to route all *.aspx requests to a dynamic group of dedicated Web application servers, which can scale up and down based on traffic demands, while requests for video content, images, javascript and other static content can be served from the ARR machine, or a separate group of servers.

Increase Security and Scalability of Application Servers

Administrators can use IIS7 and the Application Request Routing feature on a reduced-footprint Windows Server core machine(s) to handle incoming requests, and then place traditional Web Application Servers on a middle tier of machines, which can protected behind additional firewalls and not exposed directly to the internet. This protects feature-rich Web application servers from being directly exposed to internet hacking attempts, and enables to scale-out cpu-intensive Web application servers independently.

Manage and monitor multiple server farms more easily through IIS Manager

ARR lets administrators create, manage, and apply load balancing rules to server farms in IIS 7.0 Manager. Administrators can then easily add or remove servers from a server farm to match demand without impacting application availability. ARR also includes live traffic and URL test monitoring capabilities to determine the health of individual servers and configuration settings, while allowing administrators to view aggregated runtime statistics in IIS 7.0 Manager.

Optimize and scale server capacity through client and host name affinity

Administrators can use ARR to route all requests from a specific client to a specific Web application server in a server farm by creating an affinity between the client and server. ARR includes the ability to differentiate clients behind Network Address Traversal (NAT) firewalls and hardware load-balancers, so each client is treated independently. Host name affinity lets hosting providers optimize resources per server and offer scaled solutions by routing requests to servers based on host name.

Features

HTTP based routing decisions built using rules that examine HTTP request information
Sophisticated load balancing algorithms to determine appropriate servers to service the HTTP requests
Health monitoring for live traffic and specific URLs to determine the health of servers with a set of configuration parameters provided to calibrate baseline server health
Client affinity to direct all requests from a client to a specific server by using cookies.
Host name affinity to streamline administration for Web servers and to create additional business opportunities.
Management of multiple server farms to enable pilot management and A/B testing scenarios.
Management and monitoring of all configuration settings and aggregated runtime statistics through IIS Manager interface.
Support for Failed Request Tracing Rules

Find New IIS7 Extensions at http://www.iis.net/extensions/

bills — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:55:00 GMT

I’m happy to announce that IIS7 Extensions have found their home at http://www.iis.net/extensions

Every since IIS7 shipped 9 months ago, the IIS team has been cranking away adding new features to the platform. Last time I blogged about how we do this, I realized we didn’t have a single place to learn about all of them, so I kicked off an effort within the team to create this. Now that the pages are up, it is amazing to see how many new capabilities are already available on top of IIS7…which all by itself had more new features than any other IIS release in the history of the product. It is a testament to not only the ingenuity and hard work of the IIS team, but a real validation that IIS7 is not just a Web server, it is a server platform. All of these new features are built on top of public extensibility points that any developer can use, and provide a seamless runtime, configuration and administration experience that looks and feels like they were built into the product to begin with! Here they are:

Landing page: http://www.iis.net/extensions

http://www.iis.net/AdministrationPack

http://www.iis.net/ApplicationRequestRouting

http://www.iis.net/BitRateThrottling

http://www.iis.net/DatabaseManager

http://www.iis.net/FTP

http://www.iis.net/IISManager

http://www.iis.net/PowerShell

http://www.iis.net/SmoothStreaming

http://www.iis.net/URLRewrite

http://www.iis.net/UrlScan

http://www.iis.net/WebDeploymentTool

http://www.iis.net/WebPlaylists

http://www.iis.net/WebDAV

Check out the more than a dozen new features available today! Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding video demos of each feature and more new content. Stay tuned for many cool new features to come!

IIS7 URL Rewrite Extension is finished – download now!

bills — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:04:56 GMT

I’m excited to announce that the IIS7 URL Rewrite extension is finished and available for download. For more information on some last minute features we added, and how to download it, see Ruslan’s blog post here: http://blogs.iis.net/ruslany/archive/2008/11/10/url-rewrite-module-release-to-web.aspx

Many, many, many customers have asked me for URL Rewrite capabilities over the years, and I’m happy to finally provide a high performance, reliable, and fully supported solution from Microsoft. URL Rewrite has many very cool features for Web applications and makes managing URL Rewrite rules easier to create and manage than any other solution out there. If you have IIS7, and you care about having clean URLs that search engines love to index, you need URL Rewrite. Download it today!

Apache Emulation for IIS by Helicon Tech

bills — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:41:57 GMT

Now this is something you don't see every day! I ran across Helicon Tech's latest IIS module today, called Helicon APE, which stands for Apache Emulation. This looks like a very cool module for those who want to ‘emulate’ Apache’s runtime environment, including more than a dozen modules, as well as direct .htaccess support, inside IIS! It takes full advantage of the integrated pipeline of IIS7, by providing a managed code module that extends IIS7’s core processing pipeline and provides semantic emulation of some very popular Apache features! Not yet running IIS7? Helicon also supports using wildcard script-mapping to enable the module on Windows 2003/IIS6 platforms

The list of modules currently supported is quite impressive, including:

mod_auth_basic
allows the use of HTTP Basic Authentication

mod_auth_digest
allows the use of MD5 Digest Authentication

mod_authn_anon
configures anonymous users access authenticated areas

mod_authn_default
rejects whatever credentials if no authentication is set

mod_authn_file
provides authentication based on user look-up in plain text password file

mod_authz_default
rejects any authorization request if no authentication is configured

mod_authz_groupfile
allows or denies access to particular areas of the site depending on user group membership

mod_authz_host
allows access control to particular parts of web server based on hostname, IP address, or other characteristics of the client request

mod_authz_user
allows or denies access of authenticated users to portions of the web site

mod_core
implements core features of Helicon Ape

mod_env
allows control of the environment provided to CGI scripts and SSI pages

mod_expires
allows setting of Expires HTTP header and max-age directive of Cache-Control HTTP header in server responses in relation to either the time the source file was last modified, or to the time of the client access

mod_headers
enables modification of HTTP request and response headers

mod_proxy
implements forward and reverse proxy functions for your IIS server

mod_rewrite
allows rewriting of requested URLs on the fly based on regular-expressions-based rules and various conditions

mod_setenvif
allows setting environment variables depending on whether different parts of the request match specified regular expressions

mod_so
emulates loading modules functions

See the compatibility chart on their Web site for more specifics. Download the beta release and check it out today!

IIS’ Web Deployment Tool Beta 2 Released

bills — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:23:29 GMT

The Web Deployment team had a big ‘coming out’ party yesterday at the PDC and announced immediate availability of a new Beta of the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool.

MS Deploy - Fundamentals

If you aren’t familiar with this tool yet, you’re going to want to take the time to browse the documents and give it a try. It is one of the fundamental building blocks that IIS will be building on the next several years. In it’s current beta form, it can be used to:

Migrate entire servers or individual sites from one machine to another (IIS6 –> IIS7)
Sync Servers, Sites, and Applications (IIS6 –> IIS6, and IIS7 –> IIS7)
Create offline packages that can be used as backups, version control, and deployment units

New Beta Features

The new beta has several new and exciting features you’ll want to check out. The new release includes an all-new IIS Manager extension that enables you to create, and install packages from within IIS Manager. Imagine being able to right click on your Web site, create an offline ‘package’ of the site and all of it’s configuration, dependencies, etc., and then roll it out over any number of servers, locally or remote!

The beta also provides support for ‘delegated’ publishing, which enables Administrators to grant control to developers and Web site owners to do the packaging and publishing without being a machine administrator. This is going to be a huge boon for Shared Hosters especially, allowing richer application publishing than ever before. DiscountASP.net, one of our close hosting partners, is offering 2000 free accounts as part of a limited Beta which allows you to try out this new functionality – sign-up today, availability is limited.

The new beta also includes support for SQL Server, enabling you to include SQL databases (Schema + Data) as part of your deployment, both live server <-> sync as well as offline packaging!

And lots of bug fixes, performance improvements, etc. Please note: the last beta was released as a “GoLive” release, which means we felt it was ready for production use. This Beta includes so many new features for the first time that we have not marked it as “GoLive”. The migration and sync features should work as well, if not better than the previous release, but the new features are still under testing and we need your feedback to feel confident they are ready.

Visual Studio 10 Integration!

The team also announced integration with Visual Web Developer Express as part of the upcoming Visual Studio 10 release which will enable developers to create application packages at development/build time, which can then be deployed directly from within VS (one-click publishing to remote servers!) or offline as part of a staging process. Developers and IT Pros can rejoice with that one: no more 10-page instruction-custom-script-manual-deployments, do it all automatically with a perfectly repeatable deployment package created within VS using MSDeploy!

Thanks!

This beta release is a huge next step for MS Deploy, and the team worked very hard (including some late nights and weekends :) to get it ready for PDC. Please give it a try and help us make it better by giving us feedback! Some important links:

Web Deployment Tool forum: http://forums.iis.net/1144.aspx
Web Deployment Team blog: http://blogs.iis.net/msdeploy/

Downloads

x86 version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=109365
x64 version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=109366

Quick Starts:

1. Web Deployment Tool Overview (overview of the features)

2. Installing the Web Deployment Tool (installation and remote service options)

3. Create a Package (creating a package including content, databases and more)
4. Install a Package (deploying the package to a local or remote machine)

5. Configure the Delegation Service (enable deployment to an IIS 7.0 server)

More quick guides can be found at the Web Deployment Tool main page.

IIS7 Smooth Streaming Announced in Partnership with Akamai

bills — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:00:49 GMT

I am excited to announce an innovative new IIS7 feature called “IIS Smooth Streaming”, which will be available as a free IIS7 extension when released, with a public beta planned for early next year. Read John’s post (IIS Media PM) about Smooth Streaming and feature/benefits you can expect to see. As part of the announcement, we’re pleased to have Smooth Streaming available first through the world’s biggest content delivery network provider – Akamai. Having a world-class partner like Akamai is a huge boost for this feature and ensures it will meet the demands of all customers big and small upon final release. Akamai put up a demo site of Smooth Streaming in action, check it out at http://smoothHD.com and tell us what you think!

Back in April of last year I announced that the IIS team had taken over the charter of the Windows Media Server team, and would be working to build a world-class, fully integrated Web and Media server. This past year we’ve delivered a few IIS modules to enable more efficient media delivery with IIS, including the IIS7 Bitrate Throttling Module and the IIS7 Media Playlists. IIS Smooth Streaming is just the start of many new intelligent streaming media features to come which will catapult IIS7 to be a major player in delivering streaming media content on the Web.

It has been fun to watch IIS grow up over the years, and especially great to see big CDNs like Akamai so excited to deploy IIS7 again. It is a testament to the power and flexibility of the IIS7 platform that many of us spent the past five years building. It is also terrific to see the new IIS Media team stepping up and delivering innovative, new media capabilities to the market. Many thanks to all those involved in working toward this announcement.

In case you’re interested in reading some of the news on this feature, see links below:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-28-2008/0004912585&EDATE

Microsoft is introducing new Web server technology, called Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7.0) Smooth Streaming, that gives consumers instant start-up times and no buffering by adapting the quality of the video stream in real time based upon changing connectivity speed. This enables companies to boost brand awareness and advertising revenues by extending average viewing times. They can also benefit from unprecedented network scalability using distributed HTTP-based Web servers.

"Smooth Streaming is an evolution of proven Silverlight technology that has powered global online events," said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. "Our objective has always been to provide a platform that enables next-generation media experiences on the Web. Together with Akamai, we will take that a step further by offering a consistently superior adaptive streaming experience on a global scale."

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10791

In 2006, when the Microsoft Windows Media Services (WMS) charter was picked up by the Internet Information Services (IIS) group, the concept of large-scale HD streaming was still a ways in the future. Today, at the Digital Hollywood show, though, Akamai announced it would be one of Microsoft’s first customers for a new IIS 7.0 Web server technology named Smooth Streaming.

"We've seen firsthand the growing demand for HD online content among our customer base," said Tim Napoleon, chief strategist, digital media at Akamai, as part of the company’s press release announcing its use of the IIS technology for adaptive streaming of HD content

Akamai and Microsoft Attempt to Stream HD Smoothly

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10791

Microsoft, Akamai team up on high-def video streams

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10076949-93.html

Microsoft, Akamai Partner on “Smooth HD” Video; Alternative to Brightcove

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/10/28/microsoft-akamai-partner-on-smooth-hd-video-alternative-to-brightcove/

Akamai, Microsoft Team on Adaptive Streaming Service

http://www.xchangemag.com/hotnews/akamai-microsoft-adaptive-streaming-service.html

Akamai and Microsoft work to improve online video

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/10/akamai_and_micr.html

Microsoft, Akamai team up for “no buffer” video streaming

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/102808-microsoft-akamai-video.html

Digital Post Production: http://postproduction.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=562295

Microsoft, Akamai Introduce Adaptive HD Web Video

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6608899.html

Microsoft, Akamai Team On Web Video

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6609007.html?industryid=47171

Blog Posts:

Akamai and Microsoft Look to Improve Online Video Experiences Using Silverlight

http://www.tvover.net/2008/10/28/Akamai+And+Microsoft+Look+To+Improve+Online+Video+Experiences+Using+Silverlight.aspx

Microsoft and Akamai join forces for streaming HD

http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/microsoft-and-akamai-join-forces/2008-10-28

Akamai turns on the Silverlight

http://www.contentagenda.com/blog/1500000150/post/450035645.html?nid=3038

Microsoft, Akamai Stream Silverlight

http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=166623

Microsoft & Akamai Announce “Smooth Streaming”, New HD Video Delivery Via HTTP

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2008/10/microsoftakami.html

Microsoft Teams up With Akamai for High-def Video Solution

http://www.beet.tv/2008/10/microsoft-teams.html

Quick Install of the World’s Most Popular Web Applications on IIS7

bills — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:48:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I announced the availability of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (Web PI) in Beta. Web PI makes it easy to obtain and install the Microsoft Web Platform, including IIS, ASP.NET, Visual Web Developer Express, SQL Express and tons of other great IIS and other platform extensions in a single place. The Microsoft Web Platform provides everything you need to develop, deploy, host and operate powerful Web applications.

Speaking of powerful Web applications, today I’m excited to announce another tool that makes installing some of the world’s most popular ASP.NET and PHP applications on IIS7 a snap! The Microsoft Web Application Installer (Web AI) is a companion to Web PI, and provides a super easy way to download, install and configure many popular community and open source applications on IIS7. Available applications include DotNetNuke, Drupal, Gallery, Graffiti, osCommerce, PHPBB, and Wordpress, with more on the way. If you decide to try some of the PHP applications, you may want to check out this recent blog post on how to get PHP and MySQL installed as well. Try out Web AI today!

Web AI downloads each application from its original source, so if the application is updated, you know that Web AI will be pointing to the latest and greatest bits. In addition, Web AI will check for the presence of prerequisite components before installing the application, and after installation, it will offer configuration pages so that you can set up an associated database (another great reason why we included both SQL Server 2008 Express and the SQL Server driver for PHP in Web PI) and if needed, personalize your application by entering credentials and setting application options.

Remember, this is just a beta release, so you can expect to see more functionality and even greater integration as we update this tool in the months to come. And as with Web PI, we have created a Web AI forum where you can discuss Web AI and provide feedback or make suggestions to us, so do let us know what you think.

How to get MySQL and PHPMyAdmin working with IIS7 and Windows 2008

bills — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:56:18 GMT

Almost every popular PHP app that you may want to run on IIS7 requires MySQL. I just ran across a couple of really great articles which provide step by step instructions for how to get MySQL and PHPMyAdmin running.

First, learn how to get MySQL going on Windows 2008 by reading this tutorial: Install MySQL on IIS7 Server 2008

PHPMyAdmin, for those who haven’t used it before, is a handy PHP app that lets you do database administration via your Web browser. Handy for getting a database or user created, running ad hoc queries, and so forth. Learn how to install it by reading this tutorial: Install PHPMyAdmin on IIS7 and Server 2008

The TrainSignalTraining.com guys have a lot of really detailed, step-by-step tutorials on IIS7 for a variety of topics that are free and definitely work checking out.

Community Links 10/11/2008: URL Rewrite, ASP.NET, Extensibility, Diagnostics, WordPress

bills — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:01:14 GMT

Here are a few cool links I found today while catching up on my IIS reading:

URL Rewrite

In case you missed it, the IIS7 URL Rewrite extension is now licensed for production use in its final beta release. Deploy it today and get all the benefits from one of the most powerful IIS7 features around. Use it to clean up URLs, provide extension-less URLs, fix canonicalization issues with your site to improve search ranking, redirect incoming users and much, much more. This latest URL Rewrite release includes all new IIS Manager support for creating rewrite rules using templates, rule testing and more. Speaking of the URL Rewrite extension, check out these community links:

CarlosAg wrote a really awesome post on how to make your IIS7 site search engine friendly (SEO) with IIS7 URL Rewriter. Barry Wise, who has written a lot about SEO, did a follow-up post on the topic for IIS
Scott Hanselman writes about URL Rewriter as well on how he uses it to improve canonicalization including a scenario with ASP.NET MVC to remove trailing backslashes.
One of the powerful new features of this URL Rewrite release is the support for URL Rewrite templates. Check out Daniel’s post on how to extend the URL Rewrite Template support
RuslanY posted a walkthrough video of the URL Rewrite extension in action.
If you’re looking for a URL rewrite solution for IIS5/6/7, check out Helicon Tech’s isapiRewrite solution

ASP.NET

The ASP.NET team announced MVC Preview 5 of the new ASP.NET MVC Framework. Download the link on codeplex.
Also in the news, jQuery will now ship with with Visual Studio! This makes adding slick browser animations to ASP.NET applications a cinch.
ScottGu links to a bunch of related community links on the MVC and jQuery news in his recent blog post.
I’ve seen a lot of ASP.NET developers use wildcard script-mapping with IIS 6.0. As they move to IIS7, questions pop-up about whether *scriptmap is still supported, and how it relates to the new IIS7 integrated pipeline which allows .NET modules and handlers to run natively inside IIS’ core HTTP processing engine. RuslanY wrote an excellent article on this topic titled, wildcard script mapping and IIS 7 integrated pipeline

Misc

Tobin posted the source code up on codeplex for his very popular IIS7 logging UI which he released for Vista RTM (Vista SP1 now includes logging UI support by default). This is a good example of how to build UI extensions for IIS Manager
Tess wrote an in-depth post on how to diagnose performance issues using Failed Request Tracing and AppCmd.
TrainSignalTraining wrote a nice tutorial series on how to install WordPress on IIS7 in two parts (part 1, part2)

Where to download and buy IIS7 and Windows 2008

bills — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:14:00 GMT

I've heard several people ask where to buy IIS7 and Windows 2008. First, if you want to download and try before you buy, Microsoft has made Windows 2008 trial editions available, with just a few clicks and a live ID you can download them today.

If you are looking for the lowest cost, fully-featured Web server for the internet, look no further than Windows Web Server 2008, which is the enhanced version of Windows server specifically built for internet Web sites. It supports the full hardware specs of Standard Server (4 proc and 32GB RAM), has the full IIS7 Web Server feature-set, supports SharePoint and Windows Media Services, and even allows for local SQL Server installs to support Web applications. To compare it to other Windows 2008 editions, go here.

If you are ready to buy, Windows Web Server 2008 is available for purchase online and through all of the major OEMs. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of guy, check out NewEgg's listing for an OEM license here for $349, or purchase the full retail copy on Amazon for $429.

Once you've got Windows 2008 Web server installed on your PC/server, be sure to download the Microsoft Web Platform Installer to help you get IIS7, ASP.NET, SQL Server and even Visual Web Developer Express installed quickly!

Fast Download and Install of Microsoft's Web Stack: IIS7, ASP.NET, SQL Express, Visual Web Developer, and more...

bills — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Let's face it, getting Microsoft's Web server, framework and tools installed is much more painful than it should be. Visit 10 different web sites, download a dozen different packages, install them one at a time, and maybe in a few hours you are ready to get started. And then once you've got the stack installed, staying up to date and discovering new extensions is even more difficult. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just go to one place and get the whole stack, and stay up to date?

Introducing Microsoft's Web Platform Installer: a one stop shop for downloading and installing the Microsoft Web Stack including IIS, ASP.NET, SQL Server, Visual Web Developer, all of the current IIS Extensions and more! Once installed, this tool automatically discovers new additions and updates to the platform, keeping you up to date.

Install Today: Download the tool on the new http://microsoft.com/web site here and give it a try. Post any questions or problems to the Web PI forum.

New IIS7 Releases: URL Rewrite, Application Routing and Load Balancing, and PowerShell Cmd-lets

bills — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:59:19 GMT

In last a few weeks, the IIS team has released 3 IIS extensions updates:

· URL Rewrite Module CTP1

· Application Request Routing CTP1

· PowerShell Provider CTP2

URL Rewrite Module

URL Rewrite Module is a rule-based rewriting engine for changing request URL’s before they get processed by web server. It can be used to provide user and search engine friendly URLs for dynamic web applications, rewrite and redirect URLs based on HTTP headers and server variables, and control access to web site content.

· Additional information is available at Using URL Rewrite Module.

· Downloads:

X86

X64

· Support: URL Rewrite Module forum.

Application Request Routing

Application Request Routing (ARR) is a proxy based routing module that forwards HTTP requests to content servers based on HTTP headers and server variables, and load balance algorithms. It can be used to increase application availability and scalability, better utilize content server resources, and facilitate application deployment including pilot management and A/B testing. ARR also has a feature for shared hosters to change how shared hosting is provided today and create additional services to their customers.

· Additional information is available at Using Application Request Routing Module.

· Downloads:

X86

X64

· Support: ARR forum.

PowerShell Provider

PowerShell Provider allows the administrators to manage IIS using PowerShell. With this second CTP release, 40 new cmdlets have been added to enable day-to-day IIS tasks such as creating web-sites and web-applications, and installing and acquiring a certificate. The complete list of cmdlets are found here.

· Additional information is available at Managing IIS with IIS 7.0 PowerShell Provider.

· Downloads:

X86

X64

· Support: PowerShell forum.

Be sure to check them out and the other projects we have going at http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/06/02/how-iis-ships-software.aspx

How to Migrate from IIS 6 to IIS 7

bills — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:29:00 GMT

With so many cool new capabilities in IIS7, and even more new features coming out all the time, it's no wonder you want to move to IIS7. But you work for The Man, and everyone knows The Man wants ROI. He can't just let you go willy-nilly and adopt every cool new technology that hits the street. After all, He has a business to run. And that business currently runs on IIS 6. And he's paid you a lot of money (ok, not that much) to write the code, test the apps, deploy the servers, and keep those HTML pumping machines up and running 24x7x365. And things are running well, right? When was the last time you had to worry about metabase corruption? Or been forced to run IISRESET? Or been paged in the middle of the night with some glorious server 500 error and (of course) the developer who wrote the code is no where to be found?

Dear reader, I know your plight. I've been there before. I work for The Man too. And while he is a kinder, gentler boss as he moves into his old age (>30s!), he expects results.

This post is broken into three parts. 1) Sell the Boss 2) Get the Goods 3) Be the Hero (and migrate those servers!). If you're already sold on IIS7, jump to section 2 and 3 for instructions on how to actually migrate those IIS6 servers to IIS7 in a quick and painless way.

Sell the Boss

So how do you sell The Man on moving to IIS7? Here is my quick top 10 list, email me if you need more help:

IIS7 is faster and more efficient than any other version of IIS.
With IIS7 you can m anage whole Web farms from one place
IIS7 allows you to delegate management workload with site owners. Site owners can also remotely manage their sites and applications over HTTPS from Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. IIS7's XCopy deployment model even allows you to deploy applications preconfigured!
IIS7 is much more flexible and customizable than before, allowing you to fine tune the server (including server core!) to minimize security footprint and downtime due to patching.
You can save loads of time by automating more tasks with the interface that is right for you.
If you do run into issues, IIS7 makes it easy to resolve site issues faster, minimizing down time due to that bone headed developer on your staff.
IIS7 includes built-in support for PHP, making it the best Web server for both Open Source languages and .NET. Why would you want to deploy, manage, patch and troubleshoot that Linux+Apache server to support those PHP apps, when you can just use Windows!?
IIS7 makes it easy to publish content securely over FTP/SSL or WebDAV!
Windows and IIS7 are cheaper than ever with the new Windows Web 2008 product. This version of Windows is super inexpensive and supports all the great features of IIS, Sharepoint, SQL, Windows Media server and more for Internet facing sites!
And as if that isn't enough, IIS7 is getting better every day with new IIS7 Extensions like built-in progressive streaming and playlist support for media content, URL Rewrite capabilities, integrated database management, powershell support, and much much more.

Get the Goods

If your company already has access to Windows Server 2008, you've paid all the money you'll ever need to pay in order to get IIS7 up and running. Have a cheap boss who wants to see the results first? Get the Windows Server 2008 trial edition which lets you try before you buy. I recommend the Windows Web Server 2008 for Internet facing sites, or Standard server for intranet ones. Note: IIS7 also ships with Windows Vista, which you can use for development and testing of your applications.

Now that you've got IIS7, it's time to get the migration tool (x86) and (x64). Ok, it is a WHOLE LOT MORE than just a migration tool, but this article is about migrating, and the Microsoft Web Deployment tool was built specifically with migration from IIS6 to IIS7 in mind. Download it now, use it to not only migrate from IIS6 to IIS7, but to archive (snapshot) your entire site/server (including configuration, content, certificates, etc.). You can also use it to do live synchronization of your IIS6 or IIS7 sites or servers in a web farm. MS Deploy is going to be your new best friend, be nice to it.

Be the Hero (and migrate those servers!)

This step is documented very nicely in the learn.iis.net portal under deployment, but I'll shamelessly steal from there to make your life easier. If things don't work (any longer), you might want to check the official documentation for the latest updates, or see Troubleshooting MS Deploy. This section assumes you've already downloaded MS Deploy and have installed it successfully. (see "Get the Goods")

Part 1 - View dependencies of the source

1. Get the dependencies of the web site by running the following command:

msdeploy -verb:getDependencies -source:metakey=lm/w3svc/1

2. Review the output of the dependencies and look for any script maps or installed components in use by the site. For example, if Windows Authentication is in use by the web site, you will see <dependency name="WindowsAuthentication" />.

3. If your site is inheriting any script maps, these will not be listed in the dependencies and you should also review the script maps for your site manually.

4. Compile a list of the components needed on the destination.

For detailed steps on analyzing the output of getDependencies, see Viewing Dependencies of a Web site.

Part 2 - Configure the target or destination machine

1. Review the list of dependencies and install them on the destination server.

For example, let’s assume you had the following in use for your web site:

• ASP.NET

• Windows Authentication

• Anonymous Authentication

Based on analyzing your dependencies, you would install those components and modules.

Part 3 – To migrate the site to the source server

1. Always make a backup of the destination server. Even if you are just testing, it allows you to easily restore the state of your server. Run the following command to backup an IIS 7.0 server:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd add backup “PreMsDeploy”

2. Run the following command on the destination server to take an archive of the server for migration:

msdeploy -verb:sync -source:metakey=lm/w3svc/1 -dest:archivedir=c:\site1archive

3. Run the following command on the destination server to validate what would happen if a migrate was run:

msdeploy -verb:migrate -source:archivedir=c:\site1archive -dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/1 -whatif > msdeploymigrate.log

Note: If you don't wish to sync from an archive, you can sync using the remote service. Specify computerName with the name of your server, such as Server1. If you are not running on the default port and URL, you need to specify the full URL, such as http://Server1:8080/msdeploy. For example, change the source to
source:metakey=lm/w3svc/1,computerName=server1

3. After verifying the output, run the same command again without the whatif flag:

msdeploy -verb:migrate -source:archivedir=c:\site1archive -dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/1 -whatif > msdeploymigrate.log

Note: If you don't wish to sync from an archive, you can sync using the remote service. Specify computerName with the name of your server, such as Server1. If you are not running on the default port and URL, you need to specify the full URL, such as http://Server1:8080/msdeploy. For example, change the dest to
dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/1,computerName=server1

You are now done migrating your site. To verify, test browsing to the web site on the destination server. For troubleshooting help, see Troubleshooting MS Deploy.

How to manage IIS7 remotely from Windows Vista

bills — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:58:00 GMT

I just ran across a fantastic step-by-step walkthrough of how to manage IIS7 remotely from Windows Vista, written by Dave Lawlor over at Train Signal Training. Check out this article: http://www.trainsignaltraining.com/iis-7-remote-administration/2008-06-11/. There is also an article on IIS.NET which gives a pretty good overview of how to setup Remote Administration and Delegation. By the way, the remote administration tool also works great on Windows XP and Windows 2003!

I also ran across this great video posted on Channel9 by Drew Robbins showing off the new IIS7 Admin Extensions - all of which will work remotely once you've got the setup described above!