Hosam Kamel : IIS 6.0

How to identify your application worker process (w3wp)

HosamKamel — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 04:43:05 GMT

When working with multiple application pools it’s being difficult to identify which worker process (w3wp.exe) you want to attach your debugger to while debugging your asp.net web application .

To identify your application worker process (w3wp), You have to get the correct worker process ID to do so:

For Window 2008 or Vista (IIS 7.0)

IIS 7.0 shipped with a new utility called AppCmd which serve as a command line server management utility.
This tool located in %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\AppCmd.exe
To list current worker process Id’s along with its corresponding site use the below command
```
AppCmd.exe list wps
```
once you got your application worker process Id, you select the correct worker process from “Attach to Process” dialog on Visual Studio.

For Window 2003 (IIS 6.0)

Use iisapp.vbs script, a command line tool included in IIS 6.0 is used to list worker processes
This script located in %SystemRoot%\System32\IIsApp.vbs
Run it by typing
```
cscript IIsApp.vbs
```
once you got your application worker process Id, you select the correct worker process from “Attach to Process” dialog on Visual Studio.

Hope it helps.

Windows 2008 AND IISRESET.EXE

HosamKamel — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:55:18 GMT

IISreset.exe is a magical command that resolves many problems! Err… well, yeah that command restarts all IIS related processes and thus essentially running it cleans up all the “mess”. So is there anything special about IISReset.exe in Windows 2008? Yes and I do not recommend using it and here’s very useful information that you must know about what this command does.

Secure File Download Area using IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0

HosamKamel — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:54:03 GMT

For IIS 6.0:

ASP.NET Forms authentication will only secure content that is processed by
the aspnet_isapi.dll (mainly .aspx files). If you need to replace other static file types (such as text files, video files, etc...), you can do that by mapping them to the aspnet_isapi.dll.

OR using

Peter Simple File Handler for ASP.NET 2.0 http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2005/12/01/499189.aspx

For IIS 7.0 (Integrated Pipeline mode):

The default configuration for all managed modules shipped with IIS 7.0, including the Forms Authentication and URL Authorization modules, uses a precondition so that these modules only apply to content that an (ASP.NET) handler manages. This is done for backwards compatibility reasons. (as mentioned in For IIS 6.0 section)

By removing the precondition, we make the desired managed module execute for all requests to the application, regardless of content. This is necessary in order to protect our static files, and any other application content with Forms-based authentication.

To do this, open the application's web.config file located in the %systemdrive%\inetpub\wwwroot directory, and paste the following lines immediately below the first <configuration> element:

   1:  <system.webServer>

   2:  <modules>

   3:      <remove name="FormsAuthenticationModule" />

   4:     <add name="FormsAuthenticationModule"

   5:  type="System.Web.Security.FormsAuthenticationModule" />

   6:      <remove name="UrlAuthorization" />

   7:      <add name="UrlAuthorization"

   8:  type="System.Web.Security.UrlAuthorizationModule" />

   9:      <remove name="DefaultAuthentication" />

  10:      <add name="DefaultAuthentication"

  11:  type="System.Web.Security.DefaultAuthenticationModule" />

  12:  </modules>

  13:  </system.webServer>

This configuration re-adds the module elements without the precondition, enabling them to execute for all requests to the application.

Check this article for more explanation http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/244/how-to-take-advantage-of-the-iis7-integrated-pipeline/

Hope it helps.