More goodness from the IIS team.

Two more updates from the IIS team are available.

A new one that has not been seen before by the public is a "Media Pack" that adds bit rate throttling to to IIS 7. In other words, if you have .WMV on your site that people play, why send it faster than they can play it? This little gem can instantly reclaim bandwidth that is wasted when the client clicks away and tosses unplayed bits they recieved but did not use. 

Also, a stand alone IIS Manager that you install on client systems to do remote authentication has been released.

These are "technical previews", not fully released code so if you want to provide feedback, please do. The Forums on IIS.net is a good place to that.

New IIS7 Modules: IIS7 Remote Manager for Windows Server 2008 RC0 and Media Pack Bit-Rate Throttling Module Tech Preview - Mai-lan's Blog

This new FTP service incorporates many new features that enable web authors to publish content better than before, and offers web administrators more security and deployment options.

·         Integration with IIS 7.0: IIS 7.0 has a brand-new administration interface and configuration store, and the new FTP service is tightly integrated with this new design. The old IIS 6 metabase is gone, and a new configuration store that is based on the .NET XML-based *.config format has taken its place. In addition, IIS 7.0 has a new administration tool, and the new FTP server plugs seamlessly into that paradigm.

·         Support for new Internet standards: One of the most significant features in the new FTP server is support for FTP over SSL. The new FTP server also supports other Internet improvements such as UTF8 and IPv6.

·         Shared hosting improvements: By fully integrating into IIS 7.0, the new FTP server makes it possible to host FTP and Web content from the same site by simply adding an FTP binding to an existing Web site. In addition, the FTP server now has virtual host name support, making it possible to host multiple FTP sites on the same IP address. The new FTP server also has improved user isolation, now making it possible to isolate users through per-user virtual directories.

·         Extensibility and custom authentication: The new FTP server supports developer extensibility, making it possible for software vendors to write custom providers for FTP authentication. Microsoft is using this extensibility feature to implement two new methods for using non-Windows accounts for FTP authentication for IIS Managers and .NET Membership.

·         Improved logging support: FTP logging has been enhanced to include all FTP-related traffic, unique tracking for FTP sessions, FTP sub-statuses, additional detail fields in FTP logs, and much more.

·         New supportability features: IIS 7.0 has a new option to display detailed error messages for local users, and the FTP server supports this by providing detailed error responses when logging on locally to an FTP server. The FTP server also logs detailed information using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), which provides additional detailed information for troubleshooting.

Additional information about new features in FTP7 is available in the "What's New for Microsoft and FTP?" topic on Microsoft's www.iis.net web site.

The following prerequisites are required to install this new version:

1. You must be using Windows Server 2008 (code name "Longhorn") Release Candidate 0 (RC0) or later.
2. Internet Information Services 7.0 must be installed.
3. If you are going to manage the new FTP server using the IIS 7.0 user interface, the administration tool will need to be installed.
4. You must install the new FTP server as an administrator.
5. IIS 7.0 supports a new shared configuration environment, which must be disabled on each server in a web farm before installing the new FTP server for each node. Note: Shared configuration can be re-enabled after the FTP server had been installed.
6. The FTP server that is shipped on the Windows Server 2008 DVD must be uninstalled before installing the new FTP server.

To help you get started using the new FTP server, the following walkthroughs have been published on the www.iis.net web site:

• Installing FTP7:
• Installing and Troubleshooting FTP7
• Working with FTP Sites:
• Creating a New FTP Site
• Add FTP publishing to an existing Web site
• Configuring Security Features:
• Configure FTP over SSL
• Configure FTP User Isolation
• Configure FTP virtual host names
• Configuring FTP Firewall Settings
• Advanced Administrative Features:
• Using FSRM Folder Quotas with FTP
• Configure IIS Manager Authentication
• Administering the New FTP Service using the IIS 7 Configuration Files

Lots of IIS 7 online events coming up in October.

If you want the latest info on these features, these kinds of events are essential information. Great stuff and hear tips from the IIS PMs that are often very useful in practice.

Check it out. 

Keith Combs' Blahg : Key IIS7 trainings in October

In case you missed it, RC0 released yesterday.

This is a very big milestone and IIS 7 with FastCGI and all the other goodness therein is included.

There are a few known issues posted on Mai-lan's blog at http://blogs.iis.net/mailant/archive/2007/09/24/windows-server-2008-rc0-available-now.aspx

You can find the bits at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb687945.aspx .There's even a VPC there so no excuses about not having hardware!

Why do I want you to check this out? Cause IIS 7 is not your typical version number increase release.
It is, in effect, an entirely new web server with new capabilites.

Enjoy!

- brett

Did you know that Microsoft.com is fully deployed on IIS 7?

Here's what they like about IIS 7. It's a good read as these guys are straight shooters, and they don't be paid to sell servers- just to keep them running - which they are great at.

Here's the top 10

Simple, Configurable Command Line Setup

Great Compatibility Story

No More Metabase!  (ye-haw!)

Centralized Configuration

Delegated Configuration

AppCmd and Other New Management Options

Failed Request Tracing

Request Filtering

UNC Content

Output Caching of Dynamic Content

Microsoft.com Operations : The Tasty Morsels Found In Dogfood… MSCOM OPS Top 10 Changes In IIS7.0

Ok, so I haven't posted in a bit, cause I'm working far to hard on the roadshow content.

Which - BTW, will be the best ever hands on labs for IIS 7 every produced in the history of the universe. Of course, since there's only been a couple that I know about, and I was involved with those, there isn't a lot of competition.

The hosting road show labs will be available on line so even if you're not a hoster, you can do these and will learn some of the cool goodness that is built into IIS 7. I gotta say, this thing ROCKS. It's a different sort of bird than you might expect after working with IIS 6, but it will do so much more for you and your business that you're going to have to get there sooner than you think.

Next week there will be some NEWS. I can't tell you what the NEWS is. We know that RC0 is coming out so put on your thinking cap and imagine what the IIS team is doing. (.........) times up.....

You'll find out soon.... And be prepared to see some goodness. I piece of the NEWS I am particularly excited about will will really help when you XXXXXXXXXXXXX servers in  in XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXx sceanrios. [sections edited by my new IIS7 module I wrote called "KeepEmployed". It filters out information I can't talk about......]

Hey... whose that at my door.?.. What? Let go of that comptuer.! .sd,vs,vc,./kvcvcvb

Just in case anyone is reading this, you might have seen the posts from my EMEA web summit tour. Well, for some reason in Poland they decided to record the entire day.

Here are the links to the lectures and slide decks.

List of all session links to Web Administration Summit 2007:

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/itsshowtime/result_search.aspx?event=69&x=13&y=2

WEB ADMINISTRATION SUMMIT

IIS 7 Web Server Platform- Windows Server “Longhorn”

Microsoft’s Next Generation Web Server: What’s New in IIS 7 for IT Pros

Isaac Roybal, Product Manager, Windows Server, Microsoft Corporation

This overview session will highlight the key points of interests for IT Pros in Internet Information Services version 7.  IIS7 modularity increases security by allowing a reduced installation footprint and creation of specialized, streamlined servers. Application Pools are now “sandboxed” by default.  You’ll see how IIS7 eases administration with a new IIS Manage UI, delegated administration, and new tools for automating administrative tasks. Applications run more reliably as they are easier to troubleshoot with built in tracing and diagnostics. Finally, multiple servers can use a single configuration file with the shared configuration feature for web farms.

IIS7 Administration: The New IIS Manager

Brett Hill, IIS Sr. Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

IIS7 Administration centers around the new task-oriented IIS Manager. This redesigned administration tool has many major new capabilities including the ability to delegate features, edit .NET configuration and has significantly improved performance when managing many sites. The IIS Manager itself is an extensible, modular application that administrators can customize and developers can extend.  In this presentation we’ll explore how use and control the IIS Manager with a special focus on Delegated Administration. In addition, we’ll explore how to use Granular Locking to fine tune your delegated settings beyond those available in the UI.

IIS7 Administration: Shared Configuration, Remote Control, and Automated Tools

Isaac Roybal, Product Manager, Windows Server, Microsoft Corporation

For web farms, IIS7 has a powerful new feature – Shared Configuration. This allows you to configure multiple servers to share a single configuration file. The benefits are clear - all web servers have identical configuration so there’s no need to do configuration replication.

In addition, IIS Manager has built in remote administration capabilities. Using https between the IIS Manager and the remote server, this feature includes the ability to define trusted users in IIS Manager and have identities securely stored in the IIS configuration, Windows SAM or AD, or a .NET provider.

Of course, many organizations need to automate administration tasks.  APPCMD is the new powerful, general purpose command line utility for controlling configuration, state for site and pools, and querying status. WMI has been improved specifically for IIS management, and there’s a new managed code API Microsoft.Web.Adminsitrationis that makes it easy for developers use .NET to write IIS management tools. PowerShell can use the managed API or WMI, giving you a superior command line and scripting environment for managing your servers.

IIS 7 Security: Less Exposure, Greater Control

Brett Hill, IIS Sr. Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

IIS7 security improvements can be found in many areas. In addition to the ability to control the server footprint, security is improved with the new URLFiltering and URLAuthorization capabilities. Also, you can now use Forms authentication with any content while leveraging .NET role and membership providers. In addition, there are key changes in the user principles and groups used by IIS7 that will make the server both easier to manage and more secure.  Finally, application pool sandboxing helps to improve the security boundary between application pools.

IIS 7 Troubleshooting: Failed Request Tracing

Isaac Roybal, Product Manager, Windows Server, Microsoft Corporation

One of the most exciting features in IIS 7 for administrators is the new built-in failed request tracing capabilities. You can configure IIS 7 to automatically create a detailed trace log of events that occurred in the request processing pipeline when specific error codes are seen and/or if a request takes more than N seconds to complete. This is configurable at the server, site, application, or file level, and can be configured in the UI or with a command line tool. The resulting trace log is ideal for identifying bottlenecks. Like everything in IIS 7, it is extensible and can be customized with new events.