What is IIS?

In this article we’ll cover what is IIS (Internet Information Service)? After reading this article you will be able to know the following questions:

What is IIS?

IIS means Internet Information Services and it can be found on window operating system only. It is a web server where we can host our web applications. It supports various technologies such as ASP, ASP.NET and PHP and Angular and static HTML pages too.

How IIS works?

As we discussed above, IIS support various technologies, and we can host all these technologies web sites on IIS. Data on the IIS server is exchanged using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and it can be with or without SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). SSL basically use certificate and transfer the data in encrypted mode and enhance application security. When final rendering of the page is done, HTML is used to display the required content. Basically, our browsers contain multiple engines and HTML engine helps in rendering the HTML page for end user. We can also create FTP on IIS (File transfer protocol) and same is used for download/ upload of files on the server.

Which default user is used by IIS?

In case of “Anonymous authentication” “IUSR_YourMachineName” user account is used as the default identity and IIS_IUSRS is used for group of IIS users.  Anonymous authentication is used by FTP/FTPS and HTTP/HTTPS too.

You can set the required permissions for IUSR or IIS_IUSRS as shown in the below image.

Key actions of Application pools

Application pools is an important part of IIS. If we say it is the heart and soul of IIS, then it will not be false. Every hosted application should have separate APP Pool for its better functionality. Ther are ton of App pool settings which help us in managing the application in better way. Following are the important settings of app pool.

• You can limit memory and CPU usages for the given App pool.
• You can assign one or more worker process to the given application pool.
• You can run application pool under the significance of another user (Impersonation).
• You can set 32- or 64-bit application pool as per the project needs.
• You can set app pool recycling process. Either by Time/ number of requests or by memory usages.

How many sites can IIS handle?

 A single IIS web server can serve can handle hundreds of websites on it. Moreover, it also depends upon the hardware configuration of that web server like cores of processor and installed/available memory on this server.

How to install IIS on windows

Note: Type inetmgr command in run window, if it opens IIS window then it already exists on your machine else you need to install it using following Steps 

Detailed Steps to install and configure IIS.

To install the IIS on the server running on the Microsoft Windows, please follow the following given instructions.

These are the following instruction to install IIS (Internet Information Services):

1. First of all, open the control panel by searching it in window’s run.

2. Look for option “Programs and Features” and click on it.

3) On click of “Programs and Features” following window will open.

• Click on “Turn Window feature on or off” link given in above screen. Now you’ll see the following screen from where you can install IIS on your machine.

Select the “Internet information Services” option given in above screen. It will install the default options of IIS. You can also choose the required options to install and then click on OK. Please be sure your machine is internet connected so that it can download the required files if required. Once installation will complete run “inetmgr” command in RUN window (as given in point 1). Now IIS window will open to you.

In next article we’ll discuss importance and “Role of App Pool” in IIS and also discuss its various configuration options which will help you while hosting website on IIS.   

We hope with this article you’ll get clarity on IIS and its installation process. You can also check on Application Pool Identities.