How Is This Book Organized?

Microsoft IIS 6.0 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant is designed to be used in the daily administration of IIS, Indexing Service, FTP, SMTP, POP3 Service, and Web Service Extensions, and, as such, the book is organized according to job-related tasks rather than service features. If you’re reading this book, you should be aware of the relationship between Pocket Consultants and Administrator’s Companions. Both books are designed to be a part of an overall administrator’s library. While Pocket Consultants are the down-and-dirty, in-the-trenches books, Administrator’s Companions are the comprehensive tutorials and references that cover every aspect of deploying a product or technology in the enterprise.

Speed and ease of reference is an essential part of this hands-on guide. The book has an expanded table of contents and an extensive index for finding answers to problems quickly. Many other quick reference features have been added to the book as well. These features include quick step-by-steps, lists, tables with fast facts, and extensive cross-references. The book is broken down into both parts and chapters. The parts contain a part-opener paragraph or two about the chapters grouped in that part.

Part I, “Web Administration Fundamentals,” covers the fundamental tasks you need for IIS administration. Chapter 1 provides an overview of IIS administration tools, techniques, and concepts. Chapter 2 explores core IIS administration. You’ll learn about administration components, Windows services, Internet Services Manager, and server configurations.

In Part II, “Web Server Administration,” you’ll find the essential tasks for administering Web servers running IIS. Chapter 3 details management techniques for Web sites and servers. You’ll also learn how to create and manage virtual directories. Customizing IIS is the focus of Chapter 4. In this chapter you’ll learn about managing individual pages, browser redirection techniques, custom headers and footers, server error messages, and more. Chapter 5 discusses techniques and procedures you’ll use to run IIS applications on your Web servers. Chapter 6 extends this discussion to cover ASP.NET, worker processes, and application pools.

Chapter 7 covers Web site and server security. To manage server security, you’ll create user logins, configure directory permissions, and assign operators. The permissions and operator privileges you assign determine the actions users can perform as well as what areas of the Web site they can access. The final chapter in this section explores server certificates and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). You use certificates to enable secure Web communications. SSL is used to protect sensitive information by encrypting the data sent between client browsers and your server.

Essential services administration is the subject of Part III. Chapter 9 covers techniques for managing File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers. You’ll find information on configuring FTP servers, controlling access to directories, enabling anonymous uploads and downloads, and more. Chapter 10 focuses on key issues related to working with SMTP and POP3 e-mail services. Chapter 11 continues this discussion with a look at advanced configuration issues. The final chapter in this part examines indexing services. You’ll learn all about the latest indexing techniques, creating and managing catalogs, tuning performance, and creating index service query forms.

Part IV, “Performance, Optimization, and Maintenance,” covers administration tasks you’ll use to enhance and maintain IIS. Chapter 13 provides the essentials for monitoring Web server performance and solving performance problems. Chapter 14 starts with a look at common tasks for tracking user access and then dives into configuring server logs. Chapter 15 explores IIS optimization, and Chapter 16 covers IIS backup and recovery. You’ll learn how to update registry settings for IIS and how to work with the IIS metabase.