Resources for securing Internet Information Services

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282060

Security Guidance for IIS

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd450371(WS.10).aspx

Chapter 16 – Securing Your Web Server

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302432.aspx

Securing Your IIS Log File Folder

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee810489(v=CS.20).aspx

Chapter 6: Hardening Web Services

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc264459.aspx

IIS 6.0 Technical Reference

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc775635(WS.10).aspx

Overview:
Application Request Routing v2.5 improves the performance and the scalability of ARR in its disk caching scenarios.   In addition to fully incorporating the enhancements described in KB 2406763, it includes additional optimizations to balance the use of memory and disk caching.   The use of this release is especially recommended to those who are extensively using the disk caching features in ARR.

Download ARRv2.5 from:
ARRv2.5 is available only via Web Platform Installer (WebPI). Download ARRv2.5 via WebPI here.
The download pages for ARRv2.5 can be found at:

• Microsoft Application Request Routing Version 2.5 (x86) here.
• Microsoft Application Request Routing Version 2.5 (x64) here.

Features:
ARRv2.5 is mostly a performance and scalability focused release, so there is little functional difference between ARRv2.1 and ARRv2.5.   However, when it comes to disk caching performance and scalability, including latency improvements, there are significant differences between ARRv2.1 and ARRv2.5.
One functional change that is worth mentioning is the ability to set the client affinity cookie on the main domain name.   This particularly interesting if the site has multiple sub-domains, such as images.contoso.com, members.contoso.com and so on.   On such sites, in order to maintain client affinity across sub-domains, the client affinity can be set on the main domain, .contoso.com.

Support:
ARRv2.5 is a fully release version and therefore the support is provided via Microsoft Support.   In addition, the ARR forum is a great place to connect with the community, including the ARR product team.

Deploying ASP.NET MVC Application

Using ASP.NET MVC with Different Versions of IIS

IIS for ASP.NET Videos

Developing and Deploying in Shared Hosting
Working with IIS7 Delegated Admin
Feature Specific Delegated Management
Troubleshooting Production ASP.NET Apps
Creating a Site with IIS7 Manager
Installing FTP 7
Bit Rate Throttling
IIS 7 Playlists

Hosting Tutorials

ASP.NET Hosting Options
Determining What Files Need to Be Deployed
Deploying Your Site Using an FTP Client
Deploying Your Site Using Visual Studio
Config Differences Between Dev and Production
Differences Between IIS and the ASP.NET Development Server
Deploying a Database
Configure the Prod App to Use the Prod Database
Configuring a Website that Uses Application Services
Strategies for Database Deployment
Displaying a Custom Error Page
Processing Unhandled Exceptions
Logging Error Details with ASP.NET Health Monitoring
Logging Error Details with ELMAH
Precompiling Your Website
Users and Roles On The Production Website

IIS for ASP.NET Videos

Hosting Tutorials

Overview – http://www.iis.net/overview

Feature Training – http://learn.iis.net/ 

IIS 7 Operations Guide – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732976(WS.10).aspx

Docs – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753433(WS.10).aspx

Accessing Online Help – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725788(WS.10).aspx

ASP.Net & PHP Support   http://www.iis.net/overview/ASP.NETandPHPSupport

Building and Running ASP.NET Applications – http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/23/building-and-running-aspnet-applications/

Planning Your IIS 7 Architecture  http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/38/planning-your-iis-7-architecture/

IIS7.x configuration reference is here http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference

Achieving High Availability and Scalability – ARR and NLB – http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/511/achieving-high-availability-and-scalability—arr-and-nlb/

Thanks to Zoher Bharmal (Support Engineer IIS/ASP.NET) for this list.

We just released IIS Media Services 3.0, a set of extensions for Internet Information Services 7 (IIS) that provide an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform. 

This includes the new IIS Live Smooth Streaming and the separate IIS Advanced Logging package. 

In addition, we released the beta of the Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit, which allows developers to easily create Smooth Streaming experiences using Silverlight.   Supported features include PlayReady, DVR controls, instant replay, slow motion, multiple camera angles, alternate audio tracks, content protection, ad integration, in-stream data feeds, and more.

Since April, 2009, key broadcasters around the world have used beta versions of IIS Media Services 3.0 to successfully broadcast some of the world’s premier live events.

These include the Tour de France and the Roland Garros 2009 International French Open Tennis Tournament on France Télévisions; the IAAF Athletics World Championships and FINA Swimming World Championships on both France Télévisions and RAI; the FIFA Confederations Cup South Africa 2009 on RAI; and Champions League Soccer on BSkyB; as well as events such as the Michael Jackson Memorial on Sympatico/MSN inMusic and SKY News.

In a combined effort with Microsoft, NBC Sports and others, Wimbledon Live delivered more than 6,500 minutes of live and on-demand Smooth Streaming video via a high-definition (HD), interactive online video experience.  Each Sunday this Fall, NBC and Microsoft are broadcasting Sunday Night Football on-line in HD, utilizing live DVR controls, multiple camera angles, slow motion, ad integration, analytics, and other cutting-edge features.  26 such trial deployments are currently highlighted on the Smooth Streaming Showcase.

What’s available now:

With this release, the key elements of the IIS media server platform now include:

· Smooth Streaming, adaptive streaming of media over HTTP

· Live Smooth Streaming, for live adaptive streaming of broadcast events

· Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit, for creating custom clients

· Bit Rate Throttling, meters the speed that media is delivered to a player

· Web Playlists, secure sequencing of media content

· Advanced Logging, with real-time client- and server-side logging

· Application Request Routing (ARR), providing HTTP proxying and caching

Download the latest IIS Media offerings

You can download all of the IIS media server platform components, and the Smooth Streaming PDK, using the Web Platform Installer button on the IIS Media page (http://www.iis.net/media).

Key new features:

See these blog posts to learn more about the key new features that are part of this release:

· IIS Live Smooth Streaming:  http://blogs.iis.net/jboch/archive/2009/10/09/rtw-of-live-smooth-streaming-is-now-live.aspx

· IIS Advanced Logging:  http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2009/10/12/iis-advanced-logging-1-0-released.aspx

· IIS Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit – Beta 1:  http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2009/10/09/iis-smooth-streaming-player-development-kit-1-0-beta-1-released.aspx

Give the IIS Media server platform a try, and let us know what you think on our Forum.

Today the Microsoft IIS team has released the beta of the Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP.

The Windows Cache Extension for PHP is a PHP accelerator, that is used to increase the speed of PHP applications running on the Windows operating systems.

Any PHP application can take advantage of the functionality provided by the Windows Cache Extension for PHP without any code modifications. All that is required is that the extension is enabled and loaded by the PHP engine.

Install the Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP – Beta

or, download:

Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP 5.2 – Beta

Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP 5.3 – Beta

Follow the instructions at “Using Windows Cache Extension for PHP” to install, enable and configure the extension.

Note:

• The extension can only be used with non-thread-safe builds of PHP
• The extension can only be used when IIS is configured to run PHP via FastCGI
• The Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP 5.3 can only be used with the x86 VC9 build of PHP 5.3.

Benefits and Features

The extension includes three caches that can be enabled or disabled independently of each other:

• PHP opcode cache – PHP is a script processing engine, which reads an input stream of data that contains text and/or PHP instructions and produces another stream of data, most commonly in the HTML format. This means that on a web server the PHP engine reads, parses, compiles and executes a PHP script each time that it is requested by a Web client. The reading, parsing and compilation operations put additional load on the web server’s CPU and file system and thus affect the overall performance of a PHP web application. The PHP bytecode (opcode) cache is used to store the compiled script bytecode in shared memory so that it can be re-used by PHP engine for subsequent executions of the same script.
• File cache – Even with the PHP bytecode cache enabled, the PHP engine has to accesses the script files on a file system. When PHP scripts are stored on a remote UNC file share, the file operations introduce a significant performance overhead. The Windows Cache Extension for PHP includes a file cache that is used to store the content of the PHP script files in shared memory, which reduces the amount of file system operations performed by PHP engine.
• Relative file path cache – PHP scripts very often include or operate with files by using relative file paths. Every relative file path has to be converted to an absolute file path by the PHP engine. When a PHP application uses many PHP files and accesses them by relative paths, the operation of resolving relative paths to absolute paths may negatively impact the application’s performance. The Windows Cache Extension for PHP provides a Relative File Path cache, which is used to store the mappings between relative and absolute file paths, thereby reducing the number of relative path resolutions that the PHP engine has to perform.

More information

• Windows Cache Extension for PHP on IIS.NET
• Using Windows Cache Extension for PHP

Use the Windows Cache Extension for PHP Forum to ask questions, report bugs and provide feature suggestions.

Microsoft Application Request Routing (ARR) for IIS 7.0 is a proxy-based routing module that forwards HTTP requests to application servers based on HTTP headers, server variables, and load balance algorithms.  

ARR Version 2 Beta 2 is an incremental release that includes all of the features from Version 1, and adds support for disk-based cache. More specifically, this feature allows IIS to compete as a cache proxy in a whole new market place:

• Enhance ARR Version 1 scenarios with disk cache.
• Use ARR as a cache proxy as a cache node in a CDN/ECN environment.
  • Use ARR as an edge/child cache node.
  • Use ARR as a parent cache node.

Download ARRv2 beta 2 from:

· Microsoft Application Request Routing Version 2 for IIS7 Beta 2 (x86)

· Microsoft Application Request Routing Version 2 for IIS7 Beta 2 (x64)

What’s new in ARRv2 beta 2:

• Disk-based caching (Improved in Beta 2)
  In addition to the kernel memory cache in ARR Version 1, Version 2 Beta 2 adds support for disk-based cache.  This feature is improved in Beta 2 with an introduction to secondary cache concept.

• Cache hierarchy management
  Define and manage relationships between cache nodes, including support for the Cache Array Routing Protocol (CARP).  

• Cache proxy node in CDN/ECN environment   (Improved in Beta 2)
  Because ARR is a proxy-based HTTP request routing module with support for disk cache and CARP, ARR can be used as a cache proxy in a CDN/ECN environment. This feature is improved in Beta 2 with support for more advanced routing rules, such as being able to set host headers to route requests accordingly.

• Caching compressed objects
  Disk-based cache stores compressed objects so that the objects do not have to be compressed in real time for every request.  

• Browse cached contents using IIS manager (New in Beta 2)
  Browse through cached contents across multiple drives in one consolidated graphical view in IIS manager.

• Remove cached contents (Improved in Beta 2)
  Delete cached contents by matching URL patterns.

• Override cache-control directives (New in Beta 2)
  Manually override the cache-control directives in the response header to change the cache behavior.

• Warm up cache node (New in Beta 2)
  Proactively warm up your cache node with contents that will be in demand before they are requested.

• Intelligent byte-range support
  ARR converts the byte-range request into manageable segments to increase cache hit/miss ratio without sacrificing response time.

• Intelligent live request support (New in Beta 2)
  ARR is designed to work with Live Smooth Streaming to support live content requests without over-loading the live streaming server.

• Caching while serving response
  Caching large content, such as a movie clip, may take some time. ARR Version 2 Beta 2 is capable of caching the content while serving the response immediately.

Support:

· Support for the beta release is available only on the forum.

Check out http://www.iis.net/configreference

IIS 7.0 Configuration Reference

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 introduces a new XML-based configuration system for storing your IIS settings that replaces the metabase that was used in IIS 6.0 and earlier. This new configuration system was introduced with ASP.NET and is based on a hierarchical system of management system that uses *.config files. The configuration files for IIS 7.0 are located in your %WinDir%\System32\Inetsrv\Config folder, and the primary configuration files are:

• ApplicationHost.config – This configuration file stores the settings for all your Web sites and applications.
• Administration.config – This configuration file stores the settings for IIS management. These settings include the list of management modules that are installed for the IIS Manager tool, as well as configuration settings that any management module uses.
• Redirection.config – IIS 7.0 supports the management of several IIS servers from a single, centralized configuration file. This configuration file contains the settings that indicate the location where the centralized configuration files are stored.

Note: Settings can be delegated to Web.config files, which may override settings in the ApplicationHost.config file. In addition, settings that are not delegated cannot be added to Web.config files.

This is a comprehensive reference guide to the IIS configuration system.  For each element in config, you’ll find an overview, compatibility & setup information, step-by-step usage information, detailed reference, config examples, and sample code.  The navigation will let you view the elements alphabetically, or in the config  order.

Now available for download: Release Candidate of IIS PowerShell Snap-in

The Release Candidate of the IIS PowerShell Snap-in now available.

A lot of work was done between Tech Preview 2 and now.

The team focused mainly on augmenting the PowerShell Provider with almost 70 task-oriented cmdlets useful for day-to-day administrative tasks.

Here is a quick categorization of the task-oriented cmdlets:

• Mangement of Sites/Apps/Vdirs/AppPools (create/start/stop/remove/convert/recycle)
• Management of site bindings (add/change/remove)
• Management of Handlers and Modules/Managed Modules (add/change/remove)
• Enablement of Request Tracing
• Backup and Restore of IIS configuration
• Locking/unlocking of sections/elements/attributes
• Getting file system path for config files and web application content
• Access to run-time data, e.g.
• —Exploring currently executing requests
• —AppDomain Management

http://www.iis.net/extensions/PowerShell

My blog is hosted at MaximumASP.

For a year or so my blog has been hosted in a VM. (A Virtuozzo Instance).

Virtual accounts are awesome because it’s way cheaper than a dedicated server but you have full control over the server.  

Virtuozzo has been ok but I’ve had some issues with it (I don’t know if my problems are the software or the implementation.)

Recently MaximumASP launched MAXV. A new virtualization offering based on Microsoft Hyper-V – IT ROCKS. 

(Full post on my MaxV / Hyper-V experience coming soon !)

So I took advantage of MaximumASP’s new offering to migrate my Virtual Server running Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6 to MAXV running Windows Server 2008 32-Bit and IIS-7 (but you can choose 64 bit or 2003)

IIS7 ROCKS! Especially if you you’re running multiple sites or applications. 

So I did a complete backup of misfitgeek.com, migrated my domain name and restored my blog content.

My blog runs on the DasBlog engine.

After I migrated my blog, the home page was fine but ALL the post links failed with 404 errors.

The problem? IIS 7 has enhanced it’s innate security in a number of ways that include enhanced url filtering.

My DasBlog version replaced spaces with “+” and IIS 7 filters them.

A friend on Twitter let me know that I could add a setting to the  <system.webServer> section of my configuration.

<security>

      <requestFiltering allowDoubleEscaping=”true” />

</security>

This didn’t seem like a good idea to me since I didn’t write the code for DasBlog and didn’t know if Double Escaping would create any application security issues. (I’ve had no security issues with DasBlog)

Luckily the latest version of DasBlog has an update that solves the problem.

I uploaded the new version, (I had already backed up my blog), restored by updated theme, merged my web.config, my site configuration, and my security settings.

And the world was fine again.

Here is some more detailed information about IIS 7 and the Plus Sign !

http://blogs.iis.net/thomad/archive/2007/12/17/iis7-rejecting-urls-containing.aspx

http://zajon.blogspot.com/2008/11/plus-sign-in-iis-7-url.html

http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&i=1691&g=6 is ok for a download link but is meaningless to a search engine !

The answer to SEO friendly URLs is to change the URL to something that has semantic context.

For IIS we have the IIS Re-Writer.

Some of the features are ….

• Rules-based URL rewriting engine. Rewrite rules are used to express the logic of what to compare/match the request URL with and what to do if comparison was successful. Web server and site administrators can use rewrite rule sets to define URL rewriting logic.
• Regular expression pattern matching. Rewrite rules can use ECMA-262 compatible regular expression syntax for pattern matching.
• Wildcard pattern matching. Rewrite rules can use Wildcard syntax for pattern matching
• Global and distributed rewrite rules. Global rules are used to define server-wide URL rewriting logic. These rules are defined within applicationHost.config file and they cannot be overridden or disabled on any lower configuration levels. Distributed rules are used to define URL rewriting logic specific to a particular configuration scope. This type of rules can be defined on any configuration level by using web.config files.
• Access to server variables and http headers. Server variables and HTTP headers provide additional information about current HTTP request. This information can be used to make rewriting decisions or to compose the output URL.
• Various rule actions. Instead of rewriting a URL, a rule may perform other actions, such as issue an HTTP redirect, abort the request, or send a custom status code to HTTP client.
• Support for IIS kernel mode and user mode output caching. IIS 7.0 output caching provides significant performance improvements for web applications. URL rewrite module is fully compatible with both types of output caching. This means that it is possible to safely cache responses for rewritten URL’s and thus boost the performance of web applications that rely on URL rewriting.
• Lower case conversion. A lower case conversion function called “tolower” can be used within rewrite rule to convert any rule input string or substitution URL to lower case.
• Rewrite maps. Rewrite map is an arbitrary collection of name-value pairs that can be used within rewrite rules to generate the substitution URL during rewriting. Rewrite maps are particularly useful when you have a large set of rewrite rules, all of which use static strings (i.e. there is no pattern matching used). In those cases, instead of defining a large set of simple rewrite rules, you can put all the mappings between input URL and substitution URL as keys and values into the rewrite map, and then have one rewrite rule which references this rewrite map to look up substitution URL based on the input URL.
• Failed Request Tracing support. IIS7.0 Failed Request Tracing can be used to troubleshoot errors related to URL rewriting.
• Rule templates. Rule template is an extension for URL rewrite module user interface, that simplifies creation of rewrite rules for a particular task.  The GoLive release of the module includes 3 built-in rule templates, plus it allows plugging in any number of custom templates.
• UI for testing of regular expression and wildcard patterns. A GUI tool for testing rule patterns is included into the module’s user interface. The tool can be used to quickly check how the regular expression or wildcard pattern works. Also, it can be used for troubleshooting and debugging of problems related to pattern matching.
• UI for managing rewrite rules and rewrite maps. Rewrite rules and rewrite maps can be added, removed and edited by using “URL Rewrite Module” feature in IIS Manager.
• GUI tool for importing of mod_rewrite rules. URL rewrite module includes a GUI tool for converting rewrite rules from mod_rewrite format into an IIS format.

[ Click HERE to get the IIS URL Re-Writer ]

FastCGI for IIS has launched.

This is HUGE for developers in heterogeneous environments and developers that “get” the power of ASP.NET but also want to leverage the great PHP applications that are available out there.

· FastCGI is a free download and you can get it at http://www.iis.net/php

· FastCGI allows IIS to reuse CGI processes for multiple requests to PHP applications, enables PHP hosting on Windows with comparable reliability and performance to Linux.

· Microsoft is embracing the PHP community and to help bootstrap early adopters of PHP on Windows, we’ve been validating the popular PHP applications on Windows and publishing walkthroughs that give step by step instructions on how to setup and install the most popular PHP apps on top of FastCGI and IIS/Windows.

Get it here – http://www.iis.net/fastcgi

Here is the official “Press Release” !

“Microsoft is eager to announce the release of Microsoft FastCGI Extension for IIS 6.0 (FastCGI Extension) as a free download from the IIS community site, www.iis.net.  For the first time, Microsoft is providing its customers full support for a stack of technology that enables reliable, scalable PHP hosting on production Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS 6) Web servers.” 

“Furthermore, Zend has validated their Zend Core offering, a certified and supported version of PHP, on this release of FastCGI and found PHP on Windows performs comparably to PHP on Linux.  Andi Gutmans, Chief Technology Officer of Zend states, ‘We have been testing PHP on this FastCGI technology for over a year and we are very pleased with this official release from Microsoft.  There is finally a PHP solution for Windows that offers a comparable level of stability and throughput as PHP on Linux.’ “

“This release could not have come at a more exciting time for the technology: previous beta releases on IIS.NET have had over 14,000 downloads and no less than six hosting partners have already begun offering PHP hosting on IIS 6 with the FastCGI Extension.  In addition to the downloads, the www.iis.net community site also has a very active forum of users exchanging ideas and providing feedback about the FastCGI Extension. “

“With Microsoft’s implementation of the FastCGI open standard, IT Professionals will be able to host PHP applications on Windows Server® 2003 and IIS 6 with increased reliability, scalability, and security.    Customers also know that they will be able to count on Microsoft to stand by and service the Microsoft FastCGI Extension.  By supporting the open standard, Microsoft has made it possible for PHP and other CGI compliant languages to be hosted efficiently and effectively on Windows Server 2003 and IIS.  With the addition of FastCGI, IIS reliably and performantly hosts ASP.NET; classic ASP and PHP Web applications, making it easy for IT Professionals to standardize on IIS and Windows Server as their Web platform of choice.”

“This FastCGI Extension release is supported on IIS 6 in Windows Server 2003 for a fully scalable production environment and runs on IIS 5.1 in Windows XP in order to support developers who build their Web applications on Windows client machines.  This provides developers easy access to build and deploy a broader range of Web applications on the Microsoft platform.   To further facilitate application support, the IIS product group is working with the community to test and optimize popular PHP applications on this platform.  The IIS product group will make available ‘getting started’ guides for the most popular PHP applications as part of the release to help developers and Web hosters evaluate.”

“Looking ahead, betas of Windows Server 2008, already include the FastCGI Extension as a completely integrated feature of Internet Information Services IIS 7.0 (IIS7).   The new modular architecture introduced in IIS 7 will provide additional functionality to PHP applications by enabling them to take advantage of new managed code services.   In fact, Hostway has already deployed a PHP offer on Windows Server 2008 and Senior Architect, Matthew Baldwin, claims ‘IIS7’s integrated PHP support lets us offer our customers a host of new application options, with the same IIS infrastructure so there is no increase in support costs.’ ” 

“These results demonstrate how Microsoft is embracing PHP hosting on Windows.  As a result of these efforts, the PHP community will be able to take advantage of the increased reliability of PHP on Windows and simplified administration available on the Windows platform.  Furthermore, this work multiplies the opportunities available on the Windows platform to partners and developers.  Regardless of the development or licensing model, today’s successful companies are choosing Windows.”

Want a kick in the performance bucket ?

IIS FastCGI is the tcket.

DiscountASP (http://www.discountasp.net/)

CrystalTech (http://www.crystaltech.com/)

ActiveHost (http://www.activehost.com/)

Hostway / Affinity (http://www.affinity.com/)

Hostbasket (http://www.hostbasket.com/)

HUGE KUDOS to the IIS team for their hard work and innovation (technical and political) for making FastCGI a reality.)

If your a developer that needs to use a CGI based platform (Like PHP) and work on Windows – then this is a godsend.

They guys went into over-drive to get this ready before the upcoming Zend-Con. 

Here are the official particulars.

Since early 2006, Microsoft and Zend have been working together on a technical collaboration with the PHP community to significantly enhance the reliability and performance of PHP on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.  As part of this collaboration, the IIS product group has been working on a new component for IIS6 and IIS7 called FastCGI Extension which will enable IIS to much more effectively host PHP applications.  

We’re  eager to announce availability of the Go Live release of Microsoft FastCGI Extension for IIS 5.1/6.0 (FastCGI Extension) as a free download from the IIS community site, www.iis.net.  The Go Live release is the last step in the Microsoft beta process and represents the highest level of quality and reliability.  For the first time, customers have a license that permits them to deploy the FastCGI Extension on their production Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS 6) Web servers. “

This release could not have come at a more exciting time for the technology: previous beta releases on IIS.NET have had over 14,000 downloads and no less than six hosting partners have already begun offering PHP hosting on IIS 6 with the FastCGI Extension.  In addition to the downloads, the www.iis.net community site also has a very active forum of users exchanging ideas and providing feedback about the FastCGI Extension. “

With Microsoft’s implementation of the FastCGI open standard, IT Professionals will be able to host PHP applications on Windows Server® 2003 and IIS 6 with increased reliability, scalability, and security.    Customers also know that they will be able to count on Microsoft to stand by and service the Microsoft FastCGI Extension.  By supporting the open standard, Microsoft has made it possible for PHP and other CGI compliant languages to be hosted efficiently and effectively on Windows Server 2003 and IIS.  With the addition of FastCGI, IIS reliably and performantly hosts ASP.NET; classic ASP and PHP Web applications, making it easy for IT Professionals to standardize on IIS and Windows Server as their Web platform of choice.

This FastCGI Extension release is supported on IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003 for a fully scalable production environment and on IIS 5.1 on Windows XP in order to support developers who build their Web applications on Windows client machines.  This provides developers easy access to build and deploy a broader range of Web applications on the Microsoft platform.   To further facilitate application support, the IIS product group is working with the community to test and optimize popular PHP applications on this platform.  The IIS product group will make available ‘getting started’ guides for the most popular PHP applications as part of the release to help developers and Web hosters evaluate.

Looking ahead, betas of Windows Server 2008, already include the FastCGI Extension as a completely integrated feature of Internet Information Services IIS 7.0 (IIS7).   The new modular architecture introduced in IIS 7 will provide additional functionality to PHP applications by enabling them to take advantage of new managed code services.   In fact, Hostway has already deployed a PHP offer on Windows Server 2008 and Senior Architect, Matthew Baldwin, claims ‘IIS7’s integrated PHP support lets us offer our customers a host of new application options, with the same IIS infrastructure so there is no increase in support costs.’

These results demonstrate how Microsoft is embracing PHP hosting on Windows.  As a result of these efforts, the PHP community will be able to take advantage of the increased reliability of PHP on Windows and simplified administration available on the Windows platform.  Furthermore, this work multiplies the opportunities available on the Windows platform to partners and developers.  Regardless of the development or licensing model, today’s successful companies are choosing Windows.

Highlights

·         FastCGI is now available for IIS6 as a Go Live release, meaning customers have a free license to deploy this production-quality release on Windows Server 2003 today.

·         Microsoft embraces PHP hosting on Windows by building the enabling technology but also by working with the PHP community to ensure that popular PHP applications will run performantly on the Windows platform.

·         FastCGI will ship in Windows Server 2008 as a built-in IIS component for the first time, sparing customers the hassle of downloading, installing and patching 3^rd party products.

·         FastCGI allows IIS to reuse CGI processes for multiple requests to PHP applications; this alone dramatically improves the performance of PHP on Windows without any drop in reliability whatsoever.

·         The IIS Team expects all PHP applications built to run on Windows through CGI/ISAPI to work flawlessly with the FastCGI Extension for IIS6/7. 

·         To help bootstrap early adopters of PHP on Windows, the IIS team will be publishing “how to” articles that give step by step instructions on how to setup and install the most popular PHP apps on top of FastCGI and IIS/Windows.

Resources

http://www.iis.net/php

http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=1000051

http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2007/05/19/how-to-install-fastcgi-and-php-on-iis7-beta-3-video.aspx

http://www.iis.net/articles/view.aspx/IIS7/Hosting-Web-Applications/PHP/Using-FastCGI-to-host-PHP-applications-on-IIS7

I place VERY tempered confidence in statistics and have never been a huge fan of the Netcraft numbers as I think they are often used to make arguments that their predicate data does not support. 

Still, this is interesting.

NetCraft web server survey says …..

Microsoft continues to increase its web server market share, adding 2.6 million sites this month as Apache loses 991K hostnames.

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/08/06/august_2007_web_server_survey.html

The Internet Information Services 6.0 Migration Tool is a command line tool that automates several of the steps needed to move a Web application from IIS 4.0, IIS 5.0 or IIS 6.0 to a clean installation of Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 and Windows Server 2003.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO.

My friends over at MaximumASP.net (one of my AWESOME hosting partners) is gearing up to support Longhorn server and IIS 7.

As Bruce Lee said, “You can’t learn to swim standing on the beach”.

So MaximumASP.net is getting their IIS 7 experience using the Betas.

They have LIMITED FREE beta test accounts available.

You can apply here (no guarantees, limited offer, restrictions apply, etc, etc, etc.)

http://iis7.maximumaspbeta.com/

The IIS team delivered an amazing product with IIS 6 but they sure haven’t rested in their laurels since then.

They’ve been doing all sorts of great work, not the least of which is IIS 7.

So I thougt I’d share this list of IIS Resources that I keep my eye on.

IIS.net

IIS-Resources.com

IIS FAQ

IIS Answers

IIS Toolshed

IIS MVP Blog

IIS Product Site

Port80 Software, a Microsoft partner, has released a new survey showing that the Microsoft Internet Information Services 6 Web server has overtaken the Apache open-source Web server among Fortune 1000 Web sites.

In the survey released on Oct. 11, Port80 Software said IIS 6 more than doubled its market share over the last year, to 27 percent. However, IIS 5 remains the most popular Web server among Fortune 1000 users, according to the survey.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2029153,00.asp