Recipe 13.4. Using the IIS MMC Snap-in to Manage Your Internet Servers

Problem

You want to manage the configuration of your IIS Internet servers.

Solution

You administer your web site by using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) IIS snap-in. To run it, from the Control Panel go to Administrative Tools and double-click Internet Information Services. The Console tree, shown in Figure 13-1, shows the structure of your web and FTP sites and gives you control over those sites.

Figure 13-1. The IIS snap-in for MMC displays the structure of your Internet sites and gives you the tools to manage them

To rename your web and FTP sites and to customize other aspects of the site, double-click on the site name (for example, Default Web Site), choose Properties, and then choose the tab that corresponds to what you want to customize. For example, to change the web site's name, IP address, and enable logging and several other features, choose the Web Site tab, shown in Figure 13-2, and make your new choices.

Figure 13-2. Use this tab to customize your web site name, its IP address, and many other site functions and features

You can perform actions on any component of your web site listed in the snap-in in the same way: right-click on it, choose Properties, choose the proper tab, and fill in the form to perform an action. For example, to change the name of the home page for your site, right-click on Default Web Page, choose Documents, and edit the name on the screen.

Discussion

IIS automatically creates default web and FTP sites and default locations. The web site is located at C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot and the FTP site is located at C:\Inetpub\Ftproot. The default names are, not surprisingly, Default Web Site and Default FTP Site.

The folder structure shown by the IIS snap-in includes both real and virtual folders (the snap-in refers to folders by their older name, directories). You can tell virtual from real directories in the snap-in by looking in the right pane at the path listing. Virtual directories will have a path listed, because the path will be different from the name of the directory. You can also right-click on a directory and choose Properties to see whether it's virtual or not virtual directories include a Virtual Directory tab, while real directories have a Directory tab.

Keep in mind that managing IIS from an XP workstation has many limitations.