A quick overview of Internet Information Services

It may be useful at this stage to take a quick look at the properties for the default web site. You can view the properties for the default web site by completing the following:

1. Select the Default Web Site by opening up the list below the server name in the MMC for IIS and then left clicking on “Default Web Site” so that it is highlighted.

2. Get the options for the Default Web Site by Right Clicking and then from the list of options select “Properties”.

3. The Default Web Site Properties Box should open and look like Figure 2 below.

Figure 2

You can see that within the properties there are a number of tabs, each of which provide you with a host of information. For the moment we will highlight a couple of the things which may be useful for you to be aware of.

· Web Site Tab

As you are probably aware, when your computer is added to a computer network it is allocated an IP address from a DHCP Server, whether this is from the local area network or from your internet service provider (obviously a production web server will have a fixed IP address). On the “Web Site” tab you can see or select the IP address which is assigned to this web site. The default setting for IIS will listen for web page requests on all IP addresses assigned to the computer which are not otherwise assigned to other web sites (i.e. All Unassigned). What this means in practise is that a web request, which is addressed to any IP address allocated to the computer, will be responded to by this default web site. So for example if the allocated IP address for this computer is 192.168.0.2 then you could, by typing http://192.168.0.2 into the address bar of any web browser on a computer on the same network, open the default page of the default web site.

As they are not intended as production web servers, on Windows 2000 and XP Pro computers only one web site can be created, although a number of Virtual Directories or sub webs can exist within that web site. However, on the Windows 2000 and 2003 Server multiple web sites can be created and each web site can be allocated a different IP address from those IP addresses allocated to that computer. So if a Windows 2003 Server computer was allocated three IP addresses, the computer could host three web sites and each could be allocated one of the three IP addresses. By typing each IP address into the address bar of web browser you could open each of the web sites.

· Home Directory Tab

If we now look at the “Home Directory” tab you will be able to see the physical location where the files for the web site are stored on the computer. By default this is c:\inetpub\wwwroot but could be any location chosen during the installation process. If you open “Windows Explorer” and navigate to this location then you will notice that the file structure mirrors that of the default web site as seen through the IIS Management Console.

Notice also that you could redirect this physical location to a URL somewhere else on the computer network or a share located on another computer by selecting one of the options shown above the file path. The information for the web site does not necessarily need to be located on the web server.

Finally, on this tab you can see the options for the web application settings. In this instance, as this is the default web site and it has already been configured, the settings have already been set and are likely to be correct.

· Documents Tab

If we now select the “Documents” tab you will be able to see the options for the default pages for this web site and the sequence in which they will be displayed. When a web request takes place (http://mywebsite.com) unless a specific web page is specified (i.e. http://mywebsite.com/mypage.htm) the web server will serve the default web page for that folder. You can use this list to specify what you would like your default web page to be. The default settings are normally something similar to default.htm or index.htm but could be changed to any other file name that you would prefer. What is more relevant to us at the moment (as we are developing a web application in ASP.Net) is that our default web page is likely to be something similar to default.aspx. We should therefore ensure that at the very least, default.aspx is included in the list and probably ensure that it is at the top of the list so that the web server serves this page in preference to any other.

· Server Extensions Tab

The final tab which may be of interest to us at the moment is the “Server Extensions” tab. This tab allows us to configure a number of settings including those on how email should be sent. If you click on the “Settings” button you can enter the options with settings which are relevant for your set up.

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