Examining Optional IIS Components

IIS now forces the administrator to consider each and every option before installing a component. This way, the administrator can avoid unnecessary security risks by not installing unnecessary components or services that might lead to vulnerabilities if not kept in close watch. With regard to optional IIS components, most components are optional. However, several services are considered separate entities although they are a part of IIS. These services are SMTP Service, NNTP Service, and Indexing.

SMTP Services

The Simple Mail Transport Protocol Service is a messaging service that allows email messages to be sent from the Web server. In essence, the IIS Web server can also be an email server. To install the SMTP Service, do the following:

1.	Double-click Add or Remove Programs within the Control Panel.
2.	In the Add or Remove Programs dialog box, click Add/Remove Windows Components.
3.	Within the Windows Components Wizard, scroll down and then highlight Application Server.
4.	Click Details, and then in the Application Server window, highlight IIS.
5.	Click Details again and then select SMTP Service, as shown in Figure 11.16. Figure 11.16. SMTP Services configuration options.
6.	Click OK twice.
7.	Click Next and wait for Windows Server 2003 to install the SMTP Service.
8.	Click Finish when you're done.

NNTP Service

IIS can host internal or external newsgroups through the use of the NNTP Service. Newsgroups are still a popular way to extend communications to a large audience. The newsgroups can be used for a variety of tasks, including sharing information and data.

The News Service provides newsgroups using the Network News Transport Protocol, which is the protocol responsible for managing the messages for each newsgroup. It's unlike mass emailing, though, because the messages are exchanged either server-to-server or client-to-server, never server-to-client. In the first scenario (server-to-server), messages can be exchanged between two NNTP servers. A common example is an internal NNTP server requesting messages from an external server from an ISP. Clients can subscribe (and unsubscribe) to newsgroups to read and post messages.

An NNTP server requires additional disk and network capacity due to the high disk space utilization and potentially high bandwidth requirements. To install a news server, you can follow the same procedures as you did installing the SMTP server, except you need to select the NNTP Service rather than the SMTP Service.

Indexing Internet Services

Indexing is a Windows Server 2003 component that has been separated from IIS. If this service is installed on the Web server, all content can be indexed to provide faster search results of Web-based information.

Tip

Many people wonder how to search for content in Adobe Acrobat PDF files located on a Web site. The Indexing Service provided with Windows Server 2003 doesn't provide this functionality, but a driver located on Adobe's support site provides this functionality for free. Visit http://support.adobe.com and search for iFilter.