By Michael K. Campbell
One of the best things about IIS 7 is that it makes exclusive use of .config files to store all server, site, and application settings. This means that configuration with IIS 7 has truly become portable, and that backing up your ‘metabase’ now consists solely of making backups of the necessary .config files. If you haven’t had time to look into these new features yet, then a quick and comprehensive way to get a feel for exactly how configuration has changed with IIS 7 is to check out the Using the New IIS7 Configuration System Featuring Delegated and Remote Administration lab. Yeah, the name is a bit long and over-the-top, but it perfectly describes what you’ll learn with this quick and easy lab.
The lab itself starts off by having you create a backup using APPCMD.exe. Then, it jumps right in to exposing you to IIS 7’s new .config files and functionality.
This lab is really well thought out and gives you great and instant insights into how IIS 7 uses .config files by showing you how actions that you take in Internet Information Services Manager correspond to changes made, or reflected, in corresponding .config files.
Of course, the lab also makes sure to expose you to how changes made in .config files (i.e. manually typed, or entered, changes) end up being reflected in Internet Information Systems Manager as well. The lab also does a great job of showing you the relationship between individual Web.Config files and the sites that you see displayed in IIS Manager.
TIP: This lab also gives you a great tip on how to know which files you're currently adding.
Once the lab is finished covering the basics of editing and managing .config files, it then transitions to full-blown admin tasks and showcases one of my favorite new features of IIS 7: the ability to simply copy and paste .config files from one server to another.
At one point the lab also walks you through the execution of a .bat file that creates a handful of sites and then gets positively cool when it shows you how to back up your configuration with all of those sites in place. Then it shows how to get rid of all of the new sites by using AppCmd.exe’s Restore functionality (which just copies and pastes backup copies of your .config files back over the top of current .config files.)
From there, the lab turns its attention to showcasing delegation features and provides a high-level overview of the types of administrative functions that you can delegate.
It then walks you through the creation of a new site where you can set up delegation options and even gives you the chance to see what happens when you try to modify configuration settings in the .config files when you don’t have the necessary permissions.
The lab then transitions to showing you how to enable remote administration functionality by walking you through the process of enabling the IIS Management Service. This process helps in determining what kinds of access types you want to allow, and then creating your own IIS Manager User Accounts in order to allow remote users to access administrative capabilities without requiring Domain or Local user accounts.
Of course, once you’ve made those configuration changes to IIS, the lab walks you through the process of connecting to the site remotely where you can start playing around with some of the configuration options on your own – in order to constrain or enable configuration options by remote users.
So, if you’re looking for a way to lighten the administrative load around managing web workloads, IIS 7 has a number of insanely great options available to you – and Using the New IIS7 Configuration System Featuring Delegated and Remote Administration is a great lab that will expose those options to you in just a few minutes and give you great insights into just what’s possible.