Steve Schofield Weblog

UNC content with IIS 7 and Samba

2009-07-02T23:16:00Z

Here is another thread on forums.iis.net that discusses UNC content, IIS 7 and Samba.

http://forums.iis.net/p/1158781/1909100.aspx

Great stuff!

Added to my collection of UNC based posts and articles.

http://weblogs.asp.net/steveschofield/archive/tags/UNC/default.aspx

Steve

Probably the coolest site of the year - LMGTFY.com (let me google that for you)

2009-06-05T02:15:00Z

A friend showed me http://www.lmgtfy.com , which for us who are in the IT field would work great for family members. Anyone who works in computers probably have a least one time been at a family outing, "Hey you work in computers, I have a question". Or the family will call you "out of the blue" (almost like you won the lotto). Now you can email them a pref-ormated link

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=iislogs

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=iis

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=How%20do%20I%20turn%20my%20computer%20on

PS - I checked for www.bing.com It's coming!

Cheers,

Steve Schofield
Microsoft MVP - IIS

One more reason to run IIS 7 - Thanks IIS team for the SEO toolkit!

2009-06-04T01:30:00Z

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit provides a set of tools that can be used to improve Web site’s relevance in search results by making the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis of site's structure and content and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps files.

Features
There is a lot of useful features included in the toolkit that will help webmasters and web developers in making their sites search engine friendly.

· Site Analysis is a tool that analyses your web site for compliance with SEO best practices and provides a comprehensive site intelligence data. It has the following key features:

o Fully featured site crawling engine - in order to perform detailed analysis of site's structure and content, Site Analysis tool uses a built-in web crawler, called "iisbot", to download and cache all the publicly available web site content. The web crawler is fully compliant with robots exclusion protocol.

o Report summary dashboard - the results of site analysis are presented in an easy to use dashboard page that serves as a start page for various types of analysis. In addition this page includes a large set of pre-built queries for most common reports.

o Query builder - Site Analysis tool includes a powerful and flexible query builder user interface that lets you create any custom queries that are run against the cached web site content.

o Detailed URL information - you can obtain various detailed information about every URL in your web site, such as response headers and content, the pages that link to that URL as well as all the referenced URLs.

o Detailed Violations descriptions - each content or SEO violation found on a web site has a detailed description as well as a recommended corrective action.

o Word Analysis - any web page can be analyzed with regards to the most commonly used words and phrases within the content of that page. The results of that analysis can be used to select the keywords that most accurately describe the content of the page.

o Route Analysis - unique routes to any page can be displayed in a separate report. This kind of information helps better understand how search engine and site visitors reach a particular page on your web site.

· Robots Exclusion - is a tool for managing the content of robots.txt file for your site. Its key features include:

o User interface for editing robots.txt file - the content of the robots exclusion file - robots.txt - can be edited by using IIS Manager GUI

o Selecting URL paths from physical view of web site - the paths that are specified for "Allow" and "Disallow" directives in robots.txt file can be selected from the physical file system layout of your web site.

o Selecting URL paths from virtual view of web site - the paths that are specified for "Allow" and "Disallow" directives in robots.txt file can be selected from the logical view of your web site obtained from the results of site analysis.

· Sitemaps and Sitemap Indexes - is a tool for managing sitemap and sitemap indexes files for your site. It includes:

o User interface for managing sitemap and sitemap indexes files - the content of the sitemap and indexes files can be edited by using IIS Manager GUI

o Selecting URLs from physical view of web site - the URLs that are specified within a sitemap can be selected from the physical file system layout of your web site.

o Selecting URLs from virtual view of web site - the URLs that are specified within a sitemap can be selected from the logical view of your web site obtained from the results of site analysis.

Cheers,

Steve Schofield
Microsoft MVP - IIS

Application Pool warm-up

2009-05-30T08:06:00Z

I had a post the other day on forums.iis.net that I did some research and wanted to share. It was regarding Application Pool warm-ups. Currently, there is no settings to help after a recycle, crash of an app pool etc. http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/aspnet40/#_Toc223325464 ASP.NET 4.0 has some configuration posted here. I know IIS 7.5 will have the plumbing to support this. A few searchs on the internet (Google, Live) shows there is plenty of Sharepoint warm-up scripts and ideas. Sharepoint is dreadfully slow on warm-up. Here are a couple of handle links I found.

Here is my response in the forum.

"The app pool warm up architecture is a weakness that will be address in Win 2008 r2 with some warmup architecture. Until then, the only way would be to A) Use SCOM (System Center Operations Manager) to send an HTTP request on a recycle. It can watch for events and send requests based on an additional management pack. SCOM is pretty pricey and not all people deploy it. B) Would be to have some script that makes an http request to a webpage that runs every X number of seconds (vbs file scheduled with task scheduler). C) Have some external monitoring htting the website doing screen scrapes. B) and C) are poor mans options and it's a 'shot in the dark', but it'll at least be hitting your site on a continual basis minimizing potential perfmon issues.

To help minimize app pool recycles, you can set the recycle event to a specific time (say in the middle of the night). On a webfarm, make sure to stagger so not all are hitting at once. Set the virtual memory limits higher so you don't accidentally get a lot of resets. I'd look at the application pool properties (advanced) and see what stands out. The memory limits and controlled recycle times are two that strike me right off. Under recycle event log entry, you can experiment with logging everything and build some log parser queries to look for specific events to see if there are issues. the long short of the story nothing easy, I see searching google there are some Sharepoint ones, these might be something to try, but nothing specific to generic IIS. (Sharepoint warm-up times are terrible).

http://weblogs.asp.net/steveschofield/archive/2006/09/28/Schedule-a-task-to-call-a-webpage-using-Task-scheduler_2E00_.aspx"

I look forward to R2's feature for this, it's long overdue and will help with performance on many data driven and ASP.NET websites. If you have a method that you've found successful, I'd like to here. Drop me a line at steve AT iislogs.com

Cheers,

Steve Schofield
Microsoft MVP - IIS

Configure Passive (PASV) ports for FTP 7 - w/pictures

2009-05-16T02:58:00Z

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, in this case it's worth every one. Recently in the forums @ http://forums.iis.net, a few posts came up people trying to setup FTP over SSL with an external firewall. They were running into issues where they could connect, but couldn't get a directory list. After answering a few threads stating the configuration to support FTP over SSL with PASV ports. I thought I would blog what few steps to complete the config. This blog isn't meant to be the 'end all be all', but will be a targeted post to help people visually.

I'm assuming you've installed FTP 7. If not, here is an article to install FTP 7. This is a great starter article and one I'd recommend for people looking for a secure FTP over SSL solution. (Assuming you have Windows Server 2008 / FTP 7.x of course)

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/263/installing-and-troubleshooting-ftp75/

Also, I'm assuming you configured your server to use an SSL certificate. If not, here is an article that can assist setting this up.

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/304/using-ftp-over-ssl/

First thing: Define a range of PASV TCP ports on your router or firewall. From my days of running WS-FTP server, they used ports 4900 - 4910 by default. I got hooked and use these ones. The ports can be anything. If you are not sure, check with your network admin.

Secondly - Open IIS Manager, select the computer name, open FTP Firewall Support

Next, type in the Data Channel Port Range and external IP address. The External IP address can be left blank and filled in at a site level. The port range will be inherited by each site. Assuming you have static IP address on each site, there won't be an issue sharing this range across multiple FTP sites.

TEST, TEST, TEST

You can use FileZilla, CoreFTP to test your connections.

Between the two articles on http://learn.iis.net, and this added tidbit, you should have a secure FTP solution over port 21. I've not tried using port 990 for FTP recently, I've done it in the past but it's been too long, so I stick with port 21, require SSL and open a few PASV ports.

Hope this helps,

Steve Schofield

Microsoft MVP - IIS

Resources.

http://blogs.iis.net/jaroslad/archive/2007/09/29/windows-firewall-setup-for-microsoft-ftp-publishing-service-for-iis-7-0.aspx

http://support.ipswitch.com/kb/FS-20051115-DM01.htm

Check out Robert's blog (IIS Team FTP guru)

http://blogs.iis.net/robert_mcmurray/default.aspx

IISLogs Comparison

2009-05-14T03:34:00Z

Here is a comparison document on the various versions of IISLogs.

This can help determine which version of IISLogs can help your business.

http://www.iislogs.com/comparison.aspx

Cheers,

Steve

Metabase ACL's reference KB

2009-05-11T03:04:00Z

This is one of those KB articles I stumbled across on Metabase ACL's. I know IIS 7 doesn't formally have the metabase except for compat reasons, but this is handy for IIS 6 and below.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326902

Cheers,

Steve

Using CSVDE to export computer accounts from AD

2009-04-08T11:34:00Z

I was putting together some documentation and need an export of all computer accounts in Active Directory.

Export Computer Accounts - This will export the DN (distinguishedName, CommonName)
csvde -f output.csv -d "DC=Steve,DC=Schofield,DC=com" -r "(objectClass=computer)" -l cn -j c:

All objects in a specific OU.
csvde -f output.csv -d "OU=My EmailContacts,OU=EmailStff,DC=Steve,DC=Schofield,DC=com" -r "(objectClass=*)" -l mailNickName,cn -j c:

Hope this helps.

Steve

Relay Restrictions and SMTP service, IISOLE.dll reference

2009-04-08T09:32:00Z

This is one of *those* posts I refer to from time to time. There have been a few posts on http://Forums.iis.net regarding how to manage relay restrictions in SMTP service. I've used the IISOLE.dll against an IIS 6 server with no issues. I've not tested on IIS 7, so mileage may vary. Make sure to install the IIS 6.0 compat modules and test on a non-production box. If nothing else, download a trial version and create an instance using vmware, hyper-V or Virtual PC.

http://forums.iis.net/p/1148477/1865759.aspx

On a side note for SMTP questions. I'd recommend checking the SMTP / NNTP newsgroup host by Microsoft. This is an active and targeted source of information for the SMTP service.

http://tinyurl.com/c96eww

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Steve

Day of .NET summary

2009-04-04T20:30:00Z

Attending a local event such as Code Camp, Day of .NET or something similar can be a great way to keep up-to-date on technologies you don't work with everyday. These events are usually one day, free of charge and contain a lot of great information. I attended our local version put on by Chris Woodruff. I attended the Sharepoint session put on by Rick Kierner My current role has me doing a lot of Sharepoint / WSS, among other technologies. Mostly what I'm doing is infrastructure and administration, attending the Day of .NET event introduced me to the developer side. Here are some links mentioned.

http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/148.aspx

Rick Kierner
http://rickdoes.net

40 templates available from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/templates.mspx

WSP Builder on codeplex
http://www.codeplex.com/wspbuilder

Looking for a place to start (Download the VPC)
www.Mssharepointdeveloper.com

Sharepoint dev wiki
http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com

Sharepoint logs
http://tinyurl.com/3ng88v

I was glad to see Sharepoint has rich logging capabilites, IISLogs (component I wrote) can handle and process logs to keep things under control. Sharepoint has the ability to automatically clean up logs (which is great!). However, if you want to keep a few weeks around and zip them up, IISLogs can do the trick. IISLogsLite 2.0 can handle .log files.

Thanks again Chris, Bill Miller and speakers for putting on a great event.

Cheers,

Steve Schofield

Microsoft MVP - IIS

Poor FTP performance when sourcing files from network share - fix

2009-04-04T02:39:00Z

Here is a great thread on FTP poor performance and a workaround.

http://forums.iis.net/p/1155312/1899362.aspx

Cache profile links in MOSS

2009-04-03T02:49:00Z

I was working in MOSS recently and couldn't see the Caching links. After I activated the Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature, the three Caching links didn't show up. I can access them directly. Here are the links.

Output Caching
http://example.com/_Layouts/sitecachesettings.aspx

Object Caching
http://example.com/_Layouts/objectcachesettings.aspx

Caching Profiles
http://example.com/Cache%20Profiles/AllItems.aspx

Additional Resources

Caching in MOSS
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298466.aspx

Output Caching and Cache Profiles
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa661294.aspx

Response.write saves the day. Display the last X number of event log records using ASP.NET on a remote machine.

2009-04-03T02:11:00Z

It's been a while since I wrote an ASP.NET app, at least 5 years. :) I needed to query remote servers to get the last X numbers of Event log entries. One snag I ran into was trying to use the DataGrid or GridView controls. I kept getting "Index out of bounds" error when trying to write the Message (Description) part of an event log message. I reverted to my 'old Classic ASP' days and used response.write. I never did find a solution using the built-in controls. For those who want to allow others to view event logs w/o granting local access, your application pool needs the appropriate permissions. I setup the application pool to run as a user that can access event logs. Hope this helps. PS: I even have color coding! :)

Default.aspx

<html>

<table class="style1">
    <tr>
     <tr>
        <td class="style2">
            Number of records:</td>
        <td>
            <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList3" runat="server" TabIndex="0">
                <asp:ListItem Selected="True">10</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>25</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>50</asp:ListItem>
            </asp:DropDownList>
        </td>
    </tr>
        <td class="style2">
            Machine Name:</td>
        <td>
            <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList2" runat="server" TabIndex="0">
            <asp:ListItem Selected="True">ServerX</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>ServerY</asp:ListItem>
            <asp:ListItem>ServerZ</asp:ListItem>
            </asp:DropDownList>
        </td>
</tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="style2">
            Event Log</td>
        <td>
            <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" TabIndex="1">
                <asp:ListItem Selected="True">Application</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>Security</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>System</asp:ListItem>
            </asp:DropDownList>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>
 <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" />
    <asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False"
        DataKeyNames="TimeGenerated" EnableTheming="False" EnableViewState="False"
        PageIndex="1" PageSize="11">
        <Columns>
            <asp:BoundField DataField="Message" />
            <asp:BoundField DataField="TimeGenerated" HeaderText="Daetime"
                SortExpression="TimeGenerated" />
            <asp:BoundField DataField="Source" HeaderText="Source"
                SortExpression="Source" />
            <asp:BoundField DataField="EntryType" HeaderText="EntryType"
                SortExpression="EntryType" />
        </Columns>
    </asp:GridView>
<asp:DataGrid id="LogGrid" runat="server"
    BorderColor="black"
    BorderWidth="1"
    GridLines="Both"
    CellPadding="3"
    CellSpacing="0"
    Font-Name="Verdana"
    Font-Size="8pt"
    HeaderStyle-BackColor="#aaaadd"
    AutoGenerateColumns="False"
PageSize="25"
Font-Names="Verdana"
>
    <Columns>
      <asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="TOF" DataField="EntryType" />
      <asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Date/Time" DataField="TimeGenerated"/>
      <asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Source" DataField="Source"/>
      <asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="Message" DataField="Message"/>
    </Columns>

</body>

</html>

Default.aspx.vb

Partial Class _Default
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
       Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        If Page.IsPostBack = True Then
          Response.Write(DropDownList2.Text.ToString() & "<br>")

            Dim aLog As New Diagnostics.EventLog
   dim z as integer = DropDownList3.Text
            aLog.MachineName = DropDownList2.Text
            aLog.Log = DropDownList1.Text

'LogGrid.DataSource = aLog.Entries
'LogGrid.DataBind()

            'GridView1.DataSource = aLog.Entries
   'GridView1.DataBind()
            Dim y As Integer = 0
            Response.Write("<table border=2 cellpadding=2 width='100%'>")
            Response.Write("<b><tr><td>Counter</td><td>TOF</td><td>TimeGenerated</td><td>Source</td><td>Message</td></tr></b>")
            Dim item As Diagnostics.EventLogEntry
            For Each item In aLog.Entries
                y = y + 1
                If y = z Then
                    Exit For
                End If
                Response.Write("<tr>")
                Response.Write("<td>" & y & "</td>")
                Response.Write("<td>" & aLog.Entries.Item(aLog.Entries.Count - y).EntryType.ToString() & "</td>")
                Response.Write("<td bgcolor='#FFFF99'>" & aLog.Entries.Item(aLog.Entries.Count - y).TimeGenerated.ToString() & "</td>")
                Response.Write("<td>" & aLog.Entries.Item(aLog.Entries.Count - y).Source.ToString() & "</td>")
                Response.Write("<td bgcolor='#FFFF99'>" & aLog.Entries.Item(aLog.Entries.Count - y).Message.ToString() & "</td>")
                Response.Write("</tr>")
            Next
            Response.Write("</table>")
        End If
    End Sub
End Class

Here is the event log class reference on MSDN

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.eventlog.aspx

Cheers,

Steve

Grad student needs volunteers for short survey.

2009-03-31T10:45:00Z

Found this on Linked in. Thought I would help out.

"Hello all. I am a Ph.D. student at Capella University. My specialization is IT Management. I am in the last phase of my dissertation and seeking volunteers in North America to participate in an online survey.

The subject of the survey is the level of effort for the management, administration, maintenance, and/or security of Network Servers. If you are a technical professional familiar with the efforts required to keep network servers going on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, please take my survey. This includes technicians, administrators, managers and executives."

Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/czf9yj

Thanks,

Steve

RichCopy released - robocopy's cousin

2009-03-23T03:12:00Z

Looking for a free tool for file copy. Here you go!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.04.utilityspotlight.aspx?pr=blog

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/03/22/richcopy-bulk-file-copy-tool-released-get-it-here.aspx