Maintaining IIS

The IIS metabase is an information store that contains all IIS configurations. As such, it's important to maintain the IIS metabase to ensure the utmost reliability of the IIS server. Otherwise, a disaster could potentially cause unnecessary downtime or the inability to fully recover IIS and corresponding configurations.

The IIS metabase is no longer a proprietary information store. It is now an XML-based hierarchical store that contains configuration and schema information. As a result, the IIS metabase can be modified while it is running (that is, IIS services do not necessarily have to be stopped and restarted for changes to take effect). This feature is very useful to promote reliability and availability, but this functionality must be used with care; otherwise, a configuration change may cause failures. As a result, it's important to keep backups up to date.

Note

The ability to edit the metabase while running is not turned on by default. To enable this feature in the IIS Manager, right-click on server, select Properties, and then select Enable Direct Metabase Edit.

Windows Server 2003 automatically backs up the IIS metabase. However, you can back up the IIS metabase by using the IIS Manager as well as by using a backup product such as Windows Server 2003's Backup utility. To perform a manual backup using the IIS Manager, perform the following steps:

1.	Click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Internet Information Services (IIS) to start the IIS Manager.
2.	Select the Web server in the left pane.
3.	Select Backup/Restore Configuration from the Action, All Tasks menu.
4.	In the Configuration Backup/Restore window, you can see a listing of automatic backups that IIS has already performed. Click the Create Backup button to perform a manual backup.
5.	Specify the name of the backup in the dialog box and check the check box if this backup will be encrypted using a password, as illustrated in Figure 11.19. Figure 11.19. IIS backup configuration options settings.
6.	Click OK and then Close.

Backups are stored in the %SystemRoot%\System32\Inetsrv\MetaBack folder by default. It is also important to note that the IIS metabase can be imported and exported to an XML file.

IIS Logging

IIS logging should be viewed as a necessity rather than an optional feature of IIS. Logging helps to ensure IIS security and is also a great maintenance and troubleshooting function. Reviewing logs gives you intimate details of what is going on in the system. This information can then be used to review maintenance procedures and identify problems in the system.

IIS text-based logging, such as the W3C Extended Log File Format, Microsoft IIS Log File Format, and NCSA Common Log File Format, is controlled by Http.sys, a kernelmode process. This is a change from previous versions in which logging was a user-mode process. The other log file format, ODBC, is implemented using a user-mode worker process.

Note

To enable this feature in the IIS Manager, right-click on server, select Properties, and then select Enable Direct Metabase Edit.