Internet Information Services (Web and FTP Servers)

by Chris Perkins

Introduction

In this manual you will learn how to set up a web and FTP server. I'll not bore you with a definition as hopefully by now you know what a web server and FTP server are from your regular internet uses. Basically the 2 go hand in hand. Web servers obviously are the big factor behind the Internet. Web Servers contain those web sites that you visit. FTP is used to transfer files from computer to computer (whether they be client to client, or client to host, etc). All right, sounds exciting right? In order to do this within Windows 2000 Server you need to make sure Internet Information Services (or IIS) is installed. To check whether it is installed follow these steps:

Go to Start->Programs->Administrative Tools

Follow these steps if you DON'T see IIS:

Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs.
Once you are here click on the Add/Remove Windows Components icon on the bottom left side. In the main section you should see a part for Add/Remove Windows components and a button next to it for Components. Click on this to bring up the components installed. Look through the list until you see IIS. When you see it, click on Details. For simplistic purposes you can go ahead and check all of them. Click Next to finish up the wizard. You may be prompted to insert the Windows Server 2000 CD during the process. Do so when prompted. Once it is done, you also may need to reboot. After a reboot IIS should be there.

If you DO see Internet Information Services (or IIS) listed you're all set, click on it to open it up.

Your screen should look like this:

Click on the + sign next to your computer's name and it should pull down things such as the Default Web Site, Administrative Site, etc. From here you can create web and FTP sites on your computer. We will 1st start with the web server.

Web Server

To get started with the web server it would obviously be a nice idea to have some sort of web document on your computer. If you have not done so, go ahead and create a basic webpage (ex: an HTML file) for testing purposes and put in a new directory (for example: C:\www ).Once that is done, click on your default website and this will open up properties for your default webpage, where it'll be located, etc. This information can be found by right clicking on the site and clicking on properties:

We will only focus on a few of those main tabs and options. Mainly the Web Site tab and Documents tab. First on the Web Site tab click on the Advanced button within the Web Site Identification frame. And it will bring up this:

Click on the website (you've only created one website so far anyways) and then click the Edit tab and this should show up.

Change the IP address to the IP address that will contain the webpage and also change the host header name to the appropriate DNS header (ex: mypage.mydomain.com). Just make sure you discuss things over with your DNS administrator in adding the DNS name (in this case mypage). Otherwise your webpage will not reolve the domain name correctly.

Once those changes are made, hit OK, and close out of the other window.

Now back to the main properties section click on the Documents tab. Check to see if the file you created is listed (probably index.html).

If not, click the Add Button and type in the sample website file you created (example: index.html). Once you have done this click on the appropriate arrow keys on the screen to move YOUR document to the top of the list.

If you have not done so, it'd be a wise idea to check under the Home Directory tab as well to see if it points to the directory that contains your website file.

Check the Local Path to see if it points there. If it doesn't, click on the Browse button and browse until you find the desired folder.

Granted only a few main tabs were covered here you can also play around with some of the other tabs. For example, the Directory Security tab will allow you to add some Security options to your site (ie: some domains can access it while others can't, or do users have to enter in a username and password to access it). Don't get too carried away though, it may not work when you are done. But for the most part, Web Site, Home Directory, Documents, and Directory Security will be the ones you will mostly use.

FTP Server

FTP Server functions in basically the same way when using IIS. To set up an FTP site follow these steps:

Make sure IIS is still open. Right click on your server and scroll down to New and then Click FTP site. This will take you through the wizard for a new FTP site. Once here, click Next, type in a description for your site to help indentify it, Click Next, Scroll down for the correct IP address, Click Next, Browse the computer containing where the FTP files are to be/will be stored and click Next, Select what file attributes you want (Read, Write, or both), then from here you can finish up the wizard.

Once your FTP site is up, right click on it in the left window and click Properties. Here you can adjust different properties for your FTP site such as changing its directory, changing access permissions, other IP addresses for the site, directoy security (granted/denied access) as well as other things. Mess with these to how you feel is necassary.

Some important notes to remember for FTP:

· Since this computer serves as a router (2 network cards are installed) only 2 FTP sites are allowed...1 for each IP. However, multiple sites can be created using virtual directory which allows other directories to serve as FTP sites. =)

· Also, making domains registered for DNS is very important. For example: a web site using http://webage.domain.com but then an FTP site will point to the same directory that the web files are in. This address would then be ftp://webage.domain.com. 2 sites, same names, same directories...but 1 is web and 1 is ftp.

That's basically all there is to IIS. Looks like a lot but really it's pretty easy once you mess with it.

Important, make sure you understand the basics behind what a virtual directory is and how it works as this will help when running multiple web/ftp sites. And as also mentioned, make sure you register your domain name in whoever is in control of DNS...otherwise the name won't resolve and your page won't load correctly.

Problems:

Overall it went pretty smoothly once I found out that your only allowed so many web/FTP sites per connection. This is when knowing something about virtual directory came in handy. So make sure you know that little tidbit of info beforehand. Creating new virtual directories in IIS is pretty easy. You'll probably see it once you get to working in IIS.