Category: IIS6

.Net, ASP.NET, Excel, Excel 2003, Excel 2007, Excel 2010, IIS, IIS6, MS Office, Outlook, Security, Web Development, Web Server, WebForms

Configuring a Web Server to Allow Excel File Creation via the Interop.Excel Namespace

Justin Cooney

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.

Continue reading “Configuring a Web Server to Allow Excel File Creation via the Interop.Excel Namespace” →

Advertisement
.Net, ASP.NET, Deployment, IIS, IIS6, Web Development, Web Server

IIS6 – Change the ASP.NET Version Without Restarting the W3SVC Service Using Aspnet_regiis.exe

Justin Cooney

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.

Continue reading “IIS6 – Change the ASP.NET Version Without Restarting the W3SVC Service Using Aspnet_regiis.exe” →