I'll never forget the moment I finally gained a true understanding of IIS 7.0. It was when Bill Staples, Microsoft's product-unit manager for IIS, explained to me, "We took the capability of IIS 6.0 and broke it up into modules, then integrated ASP.NET into the pipeline." Abruptly, I realized what he meant, and I knew that nothing in IIS would ever be the same.
If you've used IIS in the past, you're going to be fascinated by what Microsoft has done with IIS 7.0, which will let you do far more than any previous IIS version permitted. Many of the intriguing details of the new version cluster around the modular core and .NET integration—without a doubt, huge new features that you need to understand. My first instinct is to walk you through the new features, one by one, but on second thought, I'd like to approach IIS 7.0 from a more practical perspective.
If you're like me, when you obtain a major upgrade of software you know and use, the first thing you do is start the UI and see what the new version looks like. Doing so helps drive discovery in a task-oriented way that's well suited to administrators. So, for this IIS 7.0 overview, let's start at the beginning—with a look at the new Internet Information Services Manager tool. (As we take this tour through IIS 7.0, please bear in mind that some of the details you're about to see might change before the official product release.)
The IIS Manager Interface
My experience with the IIS 6.0 interface was that it was obviously just a modified IIS 4.0 console. In contrast, I had no problem recognizing the IIS 7.0 IIS Manager interface, which Figure 1 shows, as an entirely new application. IIS Manager is a rich client experience written as a Winform application. Because it isn't a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, typical Microsoft networking isn't necessary to connect to and manage remote IIS 7.0 servers. Communication from the IIS Manager tool occurs over HTTP or HTTP Secure (HTTPS) to a Web service listening on the IIS 7.0 server. You can, of course, configure the service to secure, limit, or reject remote connections.
IIS Manager's left column, Connection Manager, displays any IIS 7.0 servers that IIS Manager is connected to. For ease of use, connections can be named, and the default name is the server name. In this case, the connection name is ITProMagazine. The server name is LH-63X2OGRFBG2F, as you can see at the top of the center column.
The icons and descriptions in IIS Manager's center column represent the new grouping of properties and settings. Gone are IIS 6.0's familiar but somewhat oddly organized tabs. Because IIS 7.0 is a more complex solution, you'll find many more settings, and, unlike previous IIS versions, every setting is exposed. You can toggle the display mode for the Name and Description columns to show the Detail view (as you see in Figure 1), Icons, Tiles, or List view.
IIS Manager lets you nimbly filter the display to show only the choices you want to see. You can click one or more entries in the Areas and Categories boxes to instantly filter the list to just the indicated options.
Task Oriented
If you click the server name, then click Sites, IIS Manager presents a display that should make you feel right at home: a tree view of sites in the Connection Manager pane and the Web sites listed in the center. On the right, you now see Tasks, listing the most common activities. The All Properties entry under the Edit Site task is one of my favorites, letting me quickly and directly edit any setting rather than needing to wade through a bunch of screens.
In the All Properties window, which Figure 2 shows, you can edit all the property settings for any item you select. In this example, I'm setting the Log File to Daily. To modify this setting, all I needed to do was select Sites, click All Properties, and find the entry I wanted in the All Properties window.
A New Metabase
So far, I've talked about some ways that IIS 7.0 improves on existing features. Now, I want to talk about something very impressive that's new to IIS 7.0. In the Sites pane, when I right-click the Web site and select Connect to Site Configuration (web.config), a new Default Web Site entry appears (as Figure 3 shows). This entry lets me edit settings and contents for the Default Web Site. You might ask, What's going on here? Why can I now edit settings in two places?
When you're creating and configuring sites at the Sites level, IIS now records the changes you make in a new data store called ApplicationHost.config. This XML text file completely replaces the old IIS metabase. ApplicationHost.config is human-readable, well formed, and fully configurable through a set of exposed APIs that lets developers more easily write code that manages and creates Web sites. As with the metabase, administrators shouldn't need to directly edit ApplicationHost.config very often, particularly because all IIS properties and many ASP.NET properties are configurable in the IIS Manager.
In addition to using ApplicationHost.config, you can store IIS configuration settings in a web.config file that resides in the Web root folder. You can, for example, set up a unique default document for a Web site in the web.config file. Then, if you copy the content to a new server, the default document setting moves (via the web.config file) with the content. IIS 7.0 sees this setting and reads in the changes (providing the administrator permits it). Extend this delegation concept to nearly any setting on the Web site, and you get an idea of the power of this functionality. You no longer have to be an administrator to manage a Web site's configuration. Of course, you can prevent the use of any web.config settings, and delegation is disallowed by default.
Now you understand why Figure 3 shows two Default Web Sites. When you're editing at the Sites level, you're editing ApplicationHost.config. When you "connect" to the Default Web Site and edit the resulting node, you're editing the web.config file. Very cool.
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MulengaM2006 May 05, 2006 (Article Rating: