Installing and Configuring IIS
Earlier I’ve done a couple of How Tos which require IIS to already be installed. so I suppose I should cover this in a How To aswell.
To install IIS in Server 2003 you must add the “Application Server” role from the “Manage your server” page.
Select the “add role” option and then “application server”. Here you are asked if you wish to add Frontpage extensions and ASP.Net support. I always add the ASP support but tend not to use FP extensions. If in doubt, add both, or neither, or just one of them. A Lot of the projects I have done are built on databases, and ASP is essential for this.
You now have an IIS server.
Now, open up “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager” from your Admin Tools Menu.
Lets create our first simple site.
Under the server name select the “Web Sites” folder and you should see a “Default Web Site”. Right clcik on this an open up its properties. The first thing I suggest doing is change the Description to something meaningful. On the “Home Directory” tab change the path to the folder you wish to use as your website. If you don’t already havea site to use, create a directory and point to that. Windows defaults to putting the websites within the C: drive of the server, however I suggest that this is moved onto a data drive to make backups easier and to allow plenty of space for big sites.
Now we can close IIS as we have our default site set up. Open up the directory you set for the site (assuming this is empty) create a new file called index.htm and add the code;
<html>
<head>
<title>Test Page </title>
</head>
<body>
<h2> This is a test page </h2>
</body>
</html>
We can now go to another pc on the LAN and in a browser open http://servername, in my case http://garydc and a test page should be displayed.
Posted in How To
GaryMay 11th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
you can’t install IIS on my DC.
GaryMay 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
also, isn’t installing your DC as a webserver going against best practice?
StevpMay 14th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
That is a very good point MrGary, for a production site I really wouldn’t want to have IIS on a domain controller. A DC should be doing as little else as possible, also opening up a DC to the outside world through the internet has “bad idea” written all over it.
gumbaldMay 17th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
“If in doubt, add both, or neither, or just one of them.”
Nothing like covering your options.
GaryMay 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
“If in doubt, add both, or neither, or just one of them.”
this doesn’t help me.