Using the VBScript Utilities Provided with IIS

IIS comes with several VBScript utilities that you can use to configure IIS from the command line. Most run under the cscript.exe interpreter, rather than wscript.exe. These scripts are ready to use right out of the box, so you don’t have to write your own VBScripts to manage IIS (unless you want to). They’re also written so you can administer local and remote computers using them.

These scripts are located in the %systemroot%\System32 directory:

• IISAPP.VBS Allows you to view any worker processes that are currently running. It displays them by process ID and by application pool ID.

• IISBACK.VBS Allows you to back up and restore your IIS metabase and schema files.

• IISCNFG.VBS Allows you to copy, import, and export your IIS configuration to and from other computers. It does this by copying the metabase and schema files.

• IISEXT.VBS Allows you to enable and disable your web service extensions. You can also add, delete, and manipulate the web service extensions.

• IISFTP.VBS Allows you to create, delete, stop, start, and perform other actions on FTP sites. You can also set FTP user isolation using this script.

• ISFTPDR.VBS Allows you to create and delete virtual directories on FTP sites. You can also list virtual directories with this script.

• IISVDIR.VBS Allows you to create and delete virtual directories on web sites. You can also list virtual directories with this script.

• IISWEB.VBS Allows you to create, delete, stop, start, and perform other actions on web sites. You can also list the web sites on a machine using this script.

Two additional VBScripts are located in the Inetpub\AdminScripts directory:

• ADSUTIL.VBS The big dog of the administration scripts, this script uses ADSI to administer IIS on this machine. It is written as the VBScript to use when you don’t want to write your own scripts. If you want to configure IIS with VBScript, it’s a pretty safe bet that you can use this script.

• SYNCIWAM.VBS This script is designed to sync the Web Application Manager account between the Security Account Manager (SAM) database and the COM database. This is the account that was used to launch out-of-process applications. Now it is used to launch worker processes. It’s not apparent whether the out-of-process issue still exists; this script may be included here for legacy purposes only.

Three more scripts are located in the %Systemroot%\System32\inetsrv directory:

• IIS_SWITCH.VBS Allows you to switch multiple machines in an FTP or WWW cluster. It helps to manage the switch-over. It uses the following two scripts:

• CLUSFTP.VBS Includes some functions that check to see whether the FTP service is alive, and can start it if it appears not to be running.

• CLUSWEB.VBS Includes some functions that check to see whether the web service is alive, and can start it if it appears not to be running.

If you’re new to scripting, the default scripts that come with IIS are an excellent place to start learning the syntax and commands that you can use to administer IIS (and Windows).