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Correcting 404 Errors in IIS 6 When Running an ASP.NET ASPX Page
Register ASP.NET with IIS
I was setting up a new Web Server that had been pre-installed with Windows 2003, IIS 6 and ASP.NET 2.0. The catch was that when I set up a new Web site on the server, I would get a 404 error page when the server was asked to serve up ASP.NET files (aka: files with the .aspx extension). Other files such as standard .html and .asp would render without problems.
I was a bit mystified until I realized that the setup of the pre-installed version of ASP.NET 2.0 on the server likely was done before IIS setup. Thus, although IIS showed ASP.NET 2.0 as an option, ASP.NET wasn’t properly registered with IIS.
At that point all one can do is to either: (more…)
Configuring a Web Server to Allow Excel File Creation via the Interop.Excel Namespace
In an earlier article I covered how to generate Excel reports on the fly using the Interop.Excel Namespace.
This is a really handy technique that also gives you full control over the minutia of the document you are creating. However the catch in using this technique is that you will need to update the configuration of your Web server to allow Web users to trigger Excel on your Web server. This can mean some pretty drastic security changes and possible loopholes in your Web server’s security so you should do a risk analysis before choosing this method.
In this article I will review the Web server security updates that need to be made to allow using the Interop.Excel Namespace to generate Excel documents for your Web site.
Please note that since I am developing this site for an Intranet, I am not as concerned with locking down the server. If you are working with a server that is exposed to the Web then you will want to review these security changes much more thoroughly.
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IIS6 – Change the ASP.NET Version Without Restarting the W3SVC Service Using Aspnet_regiis.exe
Changing the ASP.NET version of a Web site in IIS6 using the IIS Manager GUI requires a restart of the W3SVC service. This means that all sites on your Web server will be affected and sessions will be lost. This isn’t really desirable behavior if you are hosting more than one site on a Web Server.
Although one doesn’t often need to upgrade the ASP.NET version of a Web site, it’s important to know how to do so without affecting the remaining sites on the server.
Also, when you are creating a new Web site IIS6 doesn’t allow you to select the version of ASP.NET that you want to use. This is a problem since you must first set the site up, and IIS will default behind the scenes to an ASP.NET version of its choosing (usually the lowest version of ASP.NET you have installed on the server).
In either case of creating a brand new site, or upgrading an existing site it is important to know how to change the version of ASP.NET without needing to affect all of the sites on your Web server by restarting the W3SVC service.
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McAfee ePO Conflicts with IIS (and how to Resolve the Conflict)
It appears that McAfee’s ePO system causes conflicts with Web servers when it is hosted on the same machine as for example a Web server like IIS.
Why is this?
I experienced this conflict on a Windows Server 2008 R2 server that was set up with IIS 7 and McAfee’s ePO system.
Apparently McAfee’s ePO system runs on Apache behind the scenes and requires port 443 to be available. This causes a conflict with Web servers such as IIS which also need port 443, so either one or the other breaks if they are both up and running on the same server.
The fix for this is actually quite simple. Port 443 is not really necessary for the functioning of McAfee’s ePO system, so it can be manually commented out in the listen line of McAfee’s httpd.conf file. Although the ePO GUI does seem to provide an option to disable port 443 communications under configuration->server settings->ports, this does not actually work.
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IIS 7: Configure a New Web Site for ASP.NET 2.0 and Windows Integrated Authentication
Configuring a New Web Site in IIS 7
In this article I will review the steps needed to get IIS 7 (on Windows 2008 server) hosting ASP.NET pages. I cover the basic steps to set up IIS7 in a previous article at: http://jwcooney.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/iis-7-on-windows-7-setup-steps-to-get-iis-running-asp-net-files/
When working with a fresh installation of IIS 7 there are a few steps that need to be taken when setting up a new ASP.NET Web site. In this case I will show how to set up a new site running ASP.NET 2.0 that will use Windows Impersonation as an Authentication method.
1. First open IIS (‘Start’, then ‘All Control Panel Items’, then Administrative tools, then Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager).
2. For starters we will need to make sure ASP.NET 2.0 has been registered under the Application Pools section. The Application Pools section is right below the server name In IIS. (more…)
