Half Blood Programmer, MSFT Chapter

We still need good tools to help troubleshoot SSL issues on IIS 7 and IIS 7.5. Then we have two choices,

Use The Official SSL Diagnostics Tool for IIS 6

1. Turn on IIS 6 Compatibilities features on IIS 7.*.

2. Install SSL Diagnostics 1.1 for IIS 6.

3. Run SSL Diagnostics tool as administrator.

Use This Non-official SSL Diagnostics Tool for IIS 7.*

My colleague Vijayshinva created this small tool for IIS 7.* and it works fine without IIS 6 compatibilities,

http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1926

There are a lot of questions on IIS.net forums about running Tomcat Connector on IIS. Sounds like in many cases such configuration will fail.

I am not a Tomcat user, so it is not easy to check on the details, but just found this horrible notice published on Apache site under Supported Configuration section,

The IIS-Tomcat redirector was developed and tested on:

• WinNT4.0-i386 SP4/SP5/SP6a (should be able to work with other service packs), Win2K and WinXP and Win98
• IIS4.0 and PWS4.0 (numerous people have working IIS 5 and IIS 6 configurations)
• Tomcat 3.2 and later, Tomcat 4.x, Tomcat 5 and 5.5 and Tomcat 6

The redirector uses ajp12 and ajp13 to send requests to the Tomcat containers. There is also an option to use Tomcat in process, more about the in-process mode can be found in the in process howto.

Wow, that sounds like an echo from almost 8 or more years ago. Hope those guys can utilize latest IIS versions (IIS 6, 7, 7.5) and upgrade the connector wherever necessary.

Note

I fully understand what “numerous people have working IIS 5 and IIS 6 configurations” does mean, but if I treat it as an answer to “numerous people have problems with IIS 5 and IIS 6 configurations”, I find it horrible.

The user experience for this open source module (or the whole project) can be harmed in this way, as there is no hint that the module becomes obsolete. Therefore, testing it on latest IIS versions is necessary if not mandatory.

And this also reflects a not-so-well habit for some open source consumers. Why not check at least the supported platforms for an open source project before trying it out? A simple check can save you a lot of time and prevent a lot of frustration.

(Updated: )

Actually for IIS 7 users, you can now use ARR from Microsoft to replace the out-of-date Tomcat Connector. Its information can be found here,

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

If I were not a support engineer at Microsoft, obviously I could not know there are so many applications/programs crashing all around the world. So what to do when the application crashes on your machine when you need it the most?

No, please don't burst into tears or crying out on any internet forums (either sponsored by Microsoft or not). That can neither resolve the problem magically nor bring you some comfort.

If you are luckily running on latest Windows versions, Windows Error Reporting system can collect relevant information and automatically check if Microsoft database has a corresponding solution archived. This already helped me several times in the past (including a few BSOD cases, but BSOD should be treated differently*).

Although Microsoft hosts a large database, in theory it is impossible to have solutions for all crashes. Then the following steps are recommended,

1. Learn about one of these tools (DebugDiag or ADPlus) about how to capture a crash dump**.
2. Reproduce the application crash and capture a crash dump.
3. Now you can analyze the dump (a) with your team mates or (b) ask for help from Microsoft support/the application vendor.

Note that you can even contact Microsoft support at first if you like, and our support engineers can assist you to capture dumps.

This is not rocket science but what anybody can study, so hope it helps when you meet such problems in the future.

*Generally speaking BSOD is caused by kernel mode code, which requires another approach I am not familiar with.

** a) DebugDiag (Debug Diagnostic Tool) 1.1 is available here. The instruction on how to use it is available in this KB article, which uses IIS processes as an example.

b) ADPlus is a script included in Debugging Tools for Windows. The instruction on how to use it is available in this KB article.

Server Side Commands

FTP 7.5 accepts the following FTP commands.

214-The following commands are recognized (* ==>'s unimplemented).
    ABOR
    ACCT
    ADAT *
    ALLO
    APPE
    AUTH
    CCC
    CDUP
    CWD
    DELE
    ENC *
    EPRT
    EPSV
    FEAT
    HELP
    HOST
    LANG
    LIST
    MDTM
    MIC *
    MKD
    MODE
    NLST
    NOOP
    OPTS
    PASS
    PASV
    PBSZ
    PORT
    PROT
    PWD
    QUIT
    REIN
    REST
    RETR
    RMD
    RNFR
    RNTO
    SITE
    SIZE
    SMNT
    STAT
    STOR
    STOU
    STRU
    SYST
    TYPE
    USER
    XCUP
    XCWD
    XMKD
    XPWD
    XRMD
214 HELP command successful.

FTP shipped for IIS 6 supports a shorter list of commands,

214-The following  commands are recognized(* ==>'s unimplemented).
   ABOR
   ACCT
   ALLO
   APPE
   CDUP
   CWD
   DELE
   FEAT
   HELP
   LIST
   MDTM
   MKD
   MODE
   NLST
   NOOP
   OPTS
   PASS
   PASV
   PORT
   PWD
   QUIT
   REIN
   REST
   RETR
   RMD
   RNFR
   RNTO
   SITE
   SIZE
   SMNT
   STAT
   STOR
   STOU
   STRU
   SYST
   TYPE
   USER
   XCUP
   XCWD
   XMKD
   XPWD
   XRMD
214  HELP command successful.

Client Side Commands

FtpWebRequest.Method accepts the following commands based on WebRequestMethods.Ftp documentation.

RETR  
NLST  
LIST  
STOR  
STOU  
APPE  
DELE  
MDTM  
SIZE  
RENAME
MKD   
RMD   
PWD   

(in fact if you use FtpWebRequest/FtpWebResponse to develop an FTP application, you will see other commands from the conversation. That’s because they are embedded in the underlying code).

How To Check Which Command Supported By Server

To see what commands are supported by an FTP server, you can

1. Open a command prompt.
2. Type “ftp server_name” to launch ftp utility shipped with Windows.
3. Log in by providing user name and password.
4. Type “remotehelp” in ftp context.

Actually when we use remotehelp here, ftp utility translates that to a HELP command and send to the server.

You can try to use “literal HELP” in ftp context. Of course, the same information is printed out.

FTPS Support

FTP 7.5 introduces full support to FTP over SSL (FTPS). However, FtpWebRequest class available in .NET Framework does not (though it covers some scenarios).

If you need to develop a full FTPS capable client software with .NET, I suggest you visit this open source project.

I have been support engineer for almost a year, but I still find myself shallow in the field, as I cannot do dump analysis alone.

This is an art of troubleshooting, but I bet obviously not everyone in the programming world would like to perform such a task daily. So masters of this art are hidden somewhere.

But what if you meet a very complicated case and have to resort to dump analysis? I have answered such queries several times on IIS.net forums with my own answer, “open a case via http://support.microsoft.com”. Obviously that’s the easiest way to involve an expert to help.

You cannot always satisfy all people around the world, as someone would like to perform that task by himself/herself. Well, nothing is impossible.

To prepare yourself for that, digest every words available in this field may be a good start. The following are the useful link I found today, and hope they can assist you along the way.

• DumpAnalysis.Org is a portal that aggregates a lot of useful articles.
• Memory Dump Analysis Anthology (Volume 1 and 2) by Dmitry Vostokov.

When you thought the whole world is using multi-core micro-processor, remember that I still have a single-core computer at home. Likewise, we still see legacy web applications who use Access as database. But it is time to upgrade to a real powerful database for web applications, guys.

I cannot count how many times I put down the words in a forum in the past, but it is today that I found the words written in a Microsoft whitepaper. I know it is an old one, but the words are clear enough.

Access isn't designed to create Web sites. The Data Access Pages are of limited use in intranets, but not on the Internet. The underlying Jet engine is also not useful, except when the number of simultaneous users is low. Access is optimized for Windows, and not for the Web.

(from Page 14 of “What’s Right in Your Organization”, which can be found from this page)

I would like to have a secure server, so why not block all unknown file extensions? I can easily achieve that by setting allowUnlisted to false in applicationHost.config file on <system.webServer\requestFiltering\fileExtensions> tag.

But why I cannot access my site via http://(server_name)/! Why the rule starts to block default document?

The single DOT can save you again. Simply create a new rule under <fileExtensions> tag like this,

<add fileExtension="." allowed="true" />

And you are done.

Well, what if I want to serve files without extensions on IIS 7?

A small test will give you a 404 error page, as this MIME type is not set up yet.

So, why not go and add one rule? What! How can I add such as rule, if the file has no extension!

Calm down. All you need is to use “.” (a single and easy DOT) in the extension field, and you are done.

Well, the goodness of being a support engineer is that you can receive both “Holy Sh*t” and “Thanks a ton” from the same guy.

IIS 7 does introduce a new custom error mode, as documented in the following article,

How to Use HTTP Detailed Errors in IIS 7.0

You must pay much attention to digest the words. Otherwise, confusions can happen.

One simplest confusion is like this,

As a developer, you set up Visual Studio and IIS 7 on a Windows Vista machine. Then you configure custom error pages as usual. But, WHAT! Why in the browser you still see the ugly error page by IIS?

Please don’t mess up your configuration. Actually all you need is to change errorMode from DetailedLocalOnly to Custom in applicationHost.config.

If you rather use IIS Manager, please do the following,

1. Find the web site,
2. Click Error Pages icon in the middle.
3. Click Edit Feature Settings… button in the left.
4. Now please choose Custom error pages.

It’s simple, and I think most developers will like this non-default setting.

But why the IIS team set DetailedLocalOnly as default? The intention is part of the article mentioned above, so please read the article through and master the key points it states.

Personally speaking, I believe this mode is great for the deployment environment.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

It is an interesting question about how to install only FTP server on Win 7 RC. But my research reveals a few interesting points.

You can install only FTP server related items in the dialog.

OK, if you don’t choose IIS Management Console like I do, then after installation you will find no place to configure FTP sites. Right?

Aha, in fact you can still configure FTP. The ways are,

• Manually edit %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config.
• Playing with %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe.

You can get familiar with both the config file schema and appcmd syntax from IIS.net.

Enjoy it.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Back in January my colleague Mai-lan blogged about IIS 7.5 new features. One of them is the long-awaiting warm up feature for some users, as he wrote,

Support for application pool warm-up for large applications that want to "prime" an application pool for better performance on the initial request.

Many guys, including me, were wondering where is it in Windows 7 7000. I could not find it as in IIS Manager there is no place to configure that.

It is today that I finally come across the ASP.NET 4.0 whitepaper here, which reveals the sample configuration. I couldn’t help trying them out and WOW it works as expected!

The only limitation is that any change must be made to applicationHost.config file directly. This is normal as it is always not easy to have everything that visual.

As Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 is around the corner, we can finally put our fingers onto the bits. Cool!

*Updated*

Now Scott has a better post here and we have an IIS.net article covering all details,

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/688/getting-started-with-the-iis-75-application-warm-up-module/

How to capture IIS 7 worker process crash dumps without installing anything on the server?

This sounds like a tough question to answer, as Debug Diagnostics which is a very nice tool to use for such cases needs to be installed on the server before any action.

What about Debugging Tools for Windows? If you are familiar with that, then adplus.vbs is another nice choice. But wait a minute! I cannot use –iis switch to capture IIS dumps.

You are not in the middle of nowhere, as Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 has a built-in tool to accomplish the task.

Please pay a visit to this MSDN article, and configure it to use FULL dumps and you are done. What a nice feature!

You may already that using "iisreset (server name) /restart" can restart IIS services on that remote server. But why such a command can give you this error message?

>iisreset myserver /restart

The RPC Server is unavailable.

I go ahead and turn off Windows Firewall on my server and now everything is fine. This reveals that actually iisreset was blocked by one of the rules.

Updated:

Actually DCOM related applications need more attention than I showed above. Please follow this article to set up DCOM port range and firewall rules.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/217351

I need to move my sticky notes from one machine to another. But there is no import and export buttons for me to click.

However, using Process Monitor I finally located my data and here is the tips,

• The data file is %systemdrive%\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes\StickyNotes.snt
• Note that this is the file name for my domain account, and I am not sure if data for local accounts are stored differently.

I simply copy this file to the new machine and open Sticky Notes from Start menu. Wow, they are there.

As Sticky Notes is a great tool to help you go green, I hope you find this post useful.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

If you configure IE to work under offline mode, and then try to configure your WinINet applications to bypass/ignore that setting, please don’t use INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE.

Such attempts will not work, as my colleague Brian Combs already provided more details here.