Internet Information Services (IIS) - formerly called Internet Information Server - is a web server A web server is a computer program that delivers content, such as web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over the World Wide Web. The term web server can also refer to the computer or virtual machine running the program application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8 for use with Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal. It is the world's second most popular web server A web server is a computer program that delivers content, such as web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over the World Wide Web. The term web server can also refer to the computer or virtual machine running the program in terms of overall websites behind the industry leader Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (. As of March 2010^[update], it served 24.47% of all websites according to Netcraft Netcraft is an Internet services company based in Bath, England.^[1] The protocols supported in IIS 7 include: FTP File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over a TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications, which solves the problem of different end host, FTPS FTPS is an extension to the commonly used File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that adds support for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocols, SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is an Internet standard for electronic mail (e-mail) transmission across Internet Protocol (IP) networks. SMTP was first defined in RFC 821 (STD 15) (1982), and last updated by RFC 5321 (2008) which includes the extended SMTP (ESMTP) additions, and is the protocol in widespread use today. SMTP is specified for, NNTP The Network News Transfer Protocol is an Internet application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (netnews) between news servers and for reading and posting articles by end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the University of California, San Diego and Phil Lapsley of the University of California, Berkeley authored RFC 977,, and HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a networking protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web/HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with the SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server. HTTPS connections are often used for payment transactions on the World Wide Web and for sensitive transactions in corporate information systems. HTTPS.

Versions

• IIS 1.0, Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 3.51 is the third release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems. It was released on 30 May 1995, nine months after Windows NT 3.5. The release provided two notable feature improvements; firstly NT 3.51 was the first of a short-lived outing of Microsoft Windows on the PowerPC architecture. The second most significant available as a free add-on
• IIS 2.0, Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996 . It is a 32-bit Windows system available in both
• IIS 3.0, Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996 . It is a 32-bit Windows system available in both Service Pack 3
• IIS 4.0, Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996 . It is a 32-bit Windows system available in both Option Pack
• IIS 5.0, Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Released on 17 February 2000, it was the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the final release of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation. It was succeeded by Windows XP for desktop
• IIS 5.1, Windows XP Professional Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, and media centers. It was first released in August 2001, and is currently one of the most popular versions of Windows. The name "XP" is short for "eXPerience.", Windows XP Media Center Edition
• IIS 6.0, Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005. Its successor, Windows Server 2008, was released on 4 February 2008 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition In March 2004, the European Commission fined Microsoft €497 million and ordered the company to provide a version of Windows without Windows Media Player. The Commission concluded that Microsoft "broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server
• IIS 7.0, Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is one of Microsoft Windows' server line of operating systems. Released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and officially released on February 27, 2008, it is the successor to Windows Server 2003, released nearly five years earlier. A second release, named Windows Server 2008 R2, was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009 and Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system expressed in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn." Development was completed on November 8, (Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate Editions)
• IIS 7.5, Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009., launched on October 22, 2009. According to the Windows Server Team blog, the retail availability was September 14, 2009. It is built on Windows NT 6.1, the same core operating system used with the end-user oriented Windows and Windows 7 Windows 7 is a version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than

IIS is not turned on by default when Windows is installed, but it can be selected from the list of optional features. It is available in all editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, including Home Basic, but some features are not supported on client versions of Windows.

History

The first Microsoft web server A web server is a computer program that delivers content, such as web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over the World Wide Web. The term web server can also refer to the computer or virtual machine running the program was a research project at European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre (EMWAC), part of the University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It was the fourth university to be established in Scotland, making it one of the ancient universities of the United Kingdom in Scotland Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland, and was distributed as freeware Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee. Software referred to as freeware is almost always proprietary. Software that is commercial is occasionally referred to as payware.^[2] However since the EMWAC server was unable to scale sufficiently to handle the volume of traffic going to microsoft.com, Microsoft was forced to develop its own webserver, IIS.^[3]

IIS was initially released as a set of web-based services for Windows NT 3.51. IIS 2.0 followed, adding support for the Windows NT 4.0 operating system; and IIS 3.0 introduced the Active Server Pages Active Server Pages , also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. Initially released as an add-on to Internet Information Services (IIS) via the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, it was subsequently included as a free component of Windows Server (since the initial release dynamic scripting environment.^[4]

IIS 4.0 dropped support for the Gopher protocol The Gopher protocol is a TCP/IP Application layer protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents over the Internet. Software using this protocol was a predecessor of the World Wide Web. The protocol offers some features not natively supported by the Web and imposes a much stronger hierarchy on information stored on it. Its and was released as part of an "Option Pack" for Windows NT 4.0.^{[citation needed]}

The current shipping version of IIS is 7.5 for Windows 7 Windows 7 is a version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than and Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009., launched on October 22, 2009. According to the Windows Server Team blog, the retail availability was September 14, 2009. It is built on Windows NT 6.1, the same core operating system used with the end-user oriented Windows, 7.0 for Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system expressed in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn." Development was completed on November 8, and Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 is one of Microsoft Windows' server line of operating systems. Released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and officially released on February 27, 2008, it is the successor to Windows Server 2003, released nearly five years earlier. A second release, named Windows Server 2008 R2, was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, 6.0 for Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005. Its successor, Windows Server 2008, was released on 4 February 2008 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition In March 2004, the European Commission fined Microsoft €497 million and ordered the company to provide a version of Windows without Windows Media Player. The Commission concluded that Microsoft "broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server, and IIS 5.1 for Windows XP Professional Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, and media centers. It was first released in August 2001, and is currently one of the most popular versions of Windows. The name "XP" is short for "eXPerience.".

Windows XP has a restricted version of IIS 5.1 that supports only 10 simultaneous connections and a single web site.^[5]

IIS 7.0 on Vista does not limit the number of allowed connections as IIS on XP did, but limits concurrent requests to 10 (Windows Vista Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise Editions) or 3 (Vista Home Premium). Additional requests are queued, which hampers performance, but they are not rejected as with XP.

IIS 6.0 added support for IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol that is designed to succeed IPv4, the first publicly used implementation, which is still in dominant use currently[update]. It is an Internet Layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks. The main driving force for the redesign of Internet Protocol is the foreseeable IPv4. A FastCGI FastCGI is a protocol for interfacing interactive programs with a web server. FastCGI is a variation on the earlier Common Gateway Interface ; FastCGI's main aim is to reduce the overhead associated with interfacing the web server and CGI programs, allowing a server to handle more web page requests at once module is also available for IIS 5.1, IIS 6.0^[6] and IIS 7.^[7]

IIS 7.0 (Windows Vista/2008) has better performance than IIS 5.1 (Windows XP) because it relies on the HTTP.SYS kernel driver.

Security

Earlier versions of IIS were hit with a number of vulnerabilities In computer security, the term vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's Information Assurance. Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw . To be vulnerable, an attacker must have at least one, chief among them CA-2001-19 which led to the infamous Code Red worm The Code Red worm was a computer worm observed on the Internet on July 13, 2001. It attacked computers running Microsoft's IIS web server. The CodeRed worm was first discovered and researched by eEye Digital Security employees Marc Maiffret and Ryan Permeh. They named the worm CodeRed because they were drinking Pepsi's Mountain Dew CodeRed over; however, both versions 6.0 and 7.0 currently have no reported issues with this specific vulnerability.^[8][9] In IIS 6.0 Microsoft opted to change the behaviour of pre-installed ISAPI The Internet Server Application Programming Interface is an N-tier API of Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft's collection of Windows-based web server services. The most prominent application of IIS and ISAPI is Microsoft's web server handlers,^[10] many of which were culprits in the vulnerabilities of 4.0 and 5.0, thus reducing the attack surface of IIS. In addition, IIS 6.0 added a feature called "Web Service Extensions" that prevents IIS from launching any program without explicit permission by an administrator.

In the current release, IIS 7, the components are provided as modules so that only the required components have to be installed, thus further reducing the attack surface. In addition, security features are added such as Request Filtering, which rejects suspicious URLs based on a user-defined rule set.

By default IIS 5.1 and ,^[11] a default Windows account with 'superuser' rights. Under 6.0 all request handling processes have been brought under a Network Services account with significantly fewer privileges so that should there be a vulnerability in a feature or in custom code it won't necessarily compromise the entire system given the sandboxed In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers and untrusted users environment these worker processes run in. IIS 6.0 also contained a new kernel HTTP stack (http.sys) with a stricter HTTP request parser and response cache for both static and dynamic content.

There are various built-in security features from Microsoft. Many companies offer third-party security tools and features, also known as "Web App Firewalls, or Web Application Firewalls." The advantage of such tools is that they offer much more comprehensive elements (such as easy-to-use GUI, etc.) that aid in protecting an IIS installation with an additional layer of protection at a higher level. Though no security system is ever complete, most admins choose to run an application-layer firewall and an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).

IIS Features

IIS 7 is built on a modular architecture. Modules, also called extensions, can be added or removed individually so that only modules required for specific functionality have to be installed. IIS 7 includes native modules as part of the full installation. These modules are individual features that the server uses to process requests and include the following:

• HTTP modules - Used to perform tasks specific to HTTP in the request-processing pipeline, such as responding to information and inquiries sent in client headers, returning HTTP errors, and redirecting requests.

• Security modules - Used to perform tasks related to security in the request-processing pipeline, such as specifying authentication schemes, performing URL authorization, and filtering requests.

• Content modules - Used to perform tasks related to content in the request-processing pipeline, such as processing requests for static files, returning a default page when a client does not specify a resource in a request, and listing the contents of a directory.

• Compression modules - Used to perform tasks related to compression in the request-processing pipeline, such as compressing responses, applying Gzip compression transfer coding to responses, and performing pre-compression of static content.

• Caching modules - Used to perform tasks related to caching in the request-processing pipeline, such as storing processed information in memory on the server and using cached content in subsequent requests for the same resource.

• Logging and Diagnostics modules - Used to perform tasks related to logging and diagnostics in the request-processing pipeline, such as passing information and processing status to HTTP.sys for logging, reporting events, and tracking requests currently executing in worker processes.

Security Features

IIS 5.0 and higher support the following authentication Authentication is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the subject are true ("authentification" is a French language variant of this word). This might involve confirming the identity of a person, tracing the origins of an artifact, ensuring that a product is what mechanisms:

• Basic access authentication In the context of an HTTP transaction, the basic access authentication is a method designed to allow a web browser, or other client program, to provide credentials – in the form of a user name and password – when making a request
• Digest access authentication HTTP Digest access authentication is one of the agreed methods a web server can use to negotiate credentials with a web user . Digest authentication is intended to supersede unencrypted use of the Basic access authentication, allowing user identity to be established securely without having to send a password in plaintext over the network. Digest
• Integrated Windows Authentication Integrated Windows Authentication is a term associated with Microsoft products that refers to the SPNEGO, Kerberos, and NTLMSSP authentication protocols with respect to SSPI functionality introduced with Microsoft Windows 2000 and included with later Windows NT-based operating systems. The term is used more commonly for the automatically
• .NET Passport Authentication (not supported in Windows Server 2008 and above)

IIS 7.5 includes the following additional security features:

• Client Certificate Mapping
• IP Security
• Request Filtering
• URL Authorization

Authentication changed slightly between IIS 6.0 and IIS 7, most notably in that the anonymous user which was named "IUSR_{machinename}" is a built-in account in Vista and future operating systems and named "IUSR". Notably, in IIS 7, each authentication mechanism is isolated into its own module and can be installed or uninstalled.

IIS Extensions

IIS releases new feature modules between major version releases to add new functionality. The following extensions are available for IIS 7:

• FTP Publishing Service - Lets Web content creators publish content securely to IIS 7 Web servers with SSL-based authentication and data transfer.

• Administration Pack - Adds administration UI support for management features in IIS 7, including ASP.NET authorization, custom errors, FastCGI configuration, and request filtering.

• Application Request Routing - Provides a proxy-based routing module that forwards HTTP requests to content servers based on HTTP headers, server variables, and load balance algorithms.

• Database Manager - Allows easy management of local and remote databases from within IIS Manager.

• Media Services - Integrates a media delivery platform with IIS to manage and administer delivery of rich media and other Web content.

• URL Rewrite Module - Provides a rule-based rewriting mechanism for changing request URLs before they are processed by the Web server.

• WebDAV - Lets Web authors publish content securely to IIS 7 Web servers, and lets Web administrators and hosters manage WebDAV Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers. WebDAV was defined in RFC 4918 by a working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) settings using IIS 7 management and configuration tools.

• Web Deployment Tool - Synchronizes IIS 6.0 and IIS 7 servers, migrates an IIS 6.0 server to IIS 7, and deploys Web applications to an IIS 7 server.

See also

• Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (
• PWS Microsoft Personal Web Server is a scaled-down web server software for Windows operating systems. It has fewer features than Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) and its functions have been superseded by IIS and Visual Studio. Microsoft officially supports PWS on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows NT 4.0. Prior to the
• List of FTP server software
• List of mail servers
• Comparison of web servers
• Metabase
• ASP.NET
• Windows Communication Foundation
• LogParser - SQL-like querying of various log formats.

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