IIS 7.0 Interview Questions & Answers

Question 1. If A Module Keeps Crashing, Does Iis 7.0 Have Ability To Remove The "erring" Module And Recycle The App-pool Without That Module?

Answer :

This must be done manually.

Question 2. What Is The Impact Of Turning Off Kernel Mode Cache?

Answer :

The impact will depend on the server load. If you are doing 10,000 requests/second, you will sorely miss kernel caching; however, if you are doing 100 requests/second you probably will not notice. It depends heavily on the content being served, IIS 5.0 did not have a kernel mode component and it worked well for most customers.

Question 3. Does The Installation Order Of Modules Matter?

Answer :

If you are installing via the Server Manager GUI ("Add Features"), order of installation does not matter. The Add Features wizard checks all dependencies and will alert you if you are missing any required modules. In addition, Add Features wizard knows the correct ordering of modules.

If you are installing from a command line or using an unattended installation, the order of modules doesn't matter (again, Setup knows the correct ordering of modules), but you are responsible for identifying all dependencies. If you fail to include a required dependency, unattended/ command-line setup will fail.

Question 4. What Is The Memory Footprint Of An Application Pool? Does It Load The Clr?

Answer :

An Application Pool that only serves static files with all features installed will have a footprint of 3 MB private bytes, 5 MB page file. (This is larger than IIS 6.0). Windows Server 2008 handles multiple application pools better than WS03. When ASP.NET requests are made we pre-load a small amount of the CLR during startup (~100kb) . The preload is configurable by a property on the Application Pool. It is called managed Runtime Version. The rest of the CLR (~8mb) will be loaded on the first ASPX request.

Question 5. Do Customers Need To Have A 32-bit Application Pool And 64-bit Application Pool With The Access Customers In 32-bit Application Pools?

Answer :

Access only works in 32-Bit application pools. Loading the user profile (load User Profile property on the App Pool) is an issue when Classic ASP is used because Access is using the temp directory which doesn't allow access to the anonymous user when the user profile is loaded.

Question 6. What Are The Limitations For Windows Server 2008 Web Edition?

Answer :

Windows Server 2008 web edition is much improved, and we have focused hard on removing the artificial limits. The final licensing is not yet complete, but we are planning to remove all hardware restrictions, allow 4x processors and 32GB RAM (on x64). SQL is allowed, and SharePoint will be installable on the SKU.

Question 7. What Support Will Windows Server 2008 Have For Front Page Server Extensions?

Answer :

FPSE is no longer a part of Windows Server. We are working with a third party to create a download package for FPSE to run on Windows Server 2008/IIS 7.0. It does not have any new features or enhancements, only fixes to make it compatible.

Question 8. Does Windows Server 2008 Support In-place Upgrades?

Answer :

We recommend that Windows Server 2008 be installed fresh and migrated to; or, just put new customers on new servers. We suggest that a well managed list of third party components and configurations is documented for each server, so that the current environment can be replicated on the new server. See the recommendations in the shared hosting paper for site and application pool configuration. A tool to assist in the migration will be released in the near future.

In-place upgrades are supported for the following scenarios:

• Windows Server 2003 can be upgraded to WS2K8 Beta3, WS2K8 RC0, WS2K8 RC1, and WS2K8 RT
• Windows Server 2008 Beta3 can be upgraded to WS2K8 Beta3, and WS2K8 RC0
• Windows Server 2008 RC0 can be upgraded to WS2K8 RC0, WS2K8 RC1, and WS2K8 RTM
• Windows Server 2008 RC1 can be upgraded to WS2K8 RC1, and WS2K8 RTM

If the server is in Shared Configuration mode, it must be reverted to standalone configuration before the upgrade is run. To do so, disable shared config, copy down the applicationhost.config and encrypted keys to the local machine, run the upgrade on each server, then re-enable shared config.

Question 9. Is It Possible To Specify A Log File To Be Used During Unattended Setup? If So, Is It Possible To Be Granular On What Is Or Is Not Logged?

Answer :

Both the log files that setup is writing and the iis7.log are always on. It is not granular about what gets logged.

Question 10. Is It Possible To Specify 3rd-party Modules For Use By Pkgmgr During An Unattended Setup?

Answer :

We do not provide any way to configure modules other than Windows modules during setup. There may be a way through generic unattend setup to run something after setup is done, and in that a user could do some coding.

Question 11. What Is The Performance Hit For Failed Request Tracing? Is It Possible To Do Failed Request Tracing For All Web Sites On A Particular Server?

Answer :

Tracing ALL requests at <1000 requests/second should be <5% CPU. It is possible to configure a global tracing rule for all sites. Tracing can be enabled for all sites by changing the <site Defaults> section.

Question 12. Is It Possible To Limit The Amount Of Memory An Application Pool Will Use?

Answer :

No, but there is memory-based recycling, which will recycle AppPool that exceed configured memory limits.

Question 13. Will The Credentials Encrypted With The Machine Key Will Be Lost As A Result Of Sysprep? Is There Any Workaround For This?

Answer :

Encryptions made before sysprep are lost after sysprep. There is no workaround.

Question 14. How Does Shared Configuration Handle Multiple Machines Dealing With Encrypted Credentials?

Answer :

You can export the machine keys and import them into all the servers so that decryption works. The UI for Server Beta 3 includes a feature called Shared Configuration which will allow you to do that. Click Export... and it will encrypt the machine keys, copy them along with applicationhost.config and administration. Config to a path. After that, from all the other machines you can select "Import..." and it will import the machine keys and point the config to the shared configuration.

Question 15. Can Both Classic And Integrated Managed Pipeline Mode Be Enabled At The Same Time? If So, Can It Be Configured Such That Some Applications Use One, And Some Use The Other?

Answer :

Different AppPool can have different values for this setting. Applications can be assigned to different AppPool.

Question 16. When There Is No Default Document Located Within A Folder Being Requested (http Error 403.14), The Error Lists The Server Version Information As Iis 7.0. Can That Be Masked To Avoid Unwanted Information Disclosure?

Answer :

The default file for handling this error is contained in inetpubcusteren-us. The footer of the error contains "Server Version Information: Internet Information Services 7.0.", which of course can be removed or edited directly from the .htm file.

Question 17. Can A Remote Iis 7.0 Server Be Provisioned Using The Managed Api?

Answer :

The managed API (Microsoft.Web.Administration) has access to all of the settings that the native API does and has DCOM remoting support by using ServerManager.OpenRemote static method. You can set any configuration settings but for Beta 3 there is no support for runtime information such as the State of an AppPool or the list of requests or worker process.

Question 18. What Is Url Authorization? Why Would It Be Used?

Answer :

In previous IIS versions you had to control access via file system ACLs. This is tedious and there is no web interface to do it. With URL authorization, you can control access to URLs using the IIS User Interface or using web.config directly. Additionally, you can use non-windows identities, e.g. Membership users and roles provided by forms authentication.

Question 19. What Changes (if Any) To Application Host.config And Web.config Trigger A Restart Of All Application Pools?

Answer :

Any data in the application Pool section relevant to that app-pool (so either in applicationPoolDefaults or specific to that app-pool) will cause WAS to recycle the app-pool. Worker process can ask WAS to recycle app-pools based on certain config changes, currently the only one we do it for is global Modules, but this is not a closed list (as modules can ask for recycle based on config change).

Question 20. Is There A Native Component Of Load Balancing Or Clustering Within Windows Server 2008 And/or Iis 7.0?

Answer :

NLB is part of Windows Server 2008. It is essentially the same as it was in Windows 2003. To install NLB, go to Server Manager > Features > "Add Features" and select "Network Load Balancing" from the list. To configure NLB, you need to open a command prompt and run nlbmgr. This is the UI that existed in Windows 2003.

Question 21. What Is Meant By Configurable Cpu Usage?

Answer :

If the system-wide CPU exceeds a threshold dynamic, compression will stop occurring, freeing up the CPU it was using. If the system-wide CPU drops below a different limit, dynamic compression will resume, saving bandwidth.

Question 22. Why Would I Not Enable Dynamic Compression All The Time?

Answer :

Different users have different opinions on optimal CPU utilization. Some think a 20% average is perfect, others think 75%. If you want X and you're consistently above X, you might as well completely remove dynamic compression, as it is never going to be used.

Question 23. How Does A Dynamic Compression Factor In Consistent Cpu Spiking Vs. Constant Cpu Usage?

Answer :

It factors in average usage over the 30 second window since the last sample - so, even with irregular spikes, you will have dynamic compression on for at most 30 seconds after the spike - and if your spikes are instantaneous (and so do not affect average CPU usage over 30 seconds much) - they will not affect dynamic compression.

Question 24. In A Shared Hosting Environment, What Should The Default Load User Profile Setting Be?

Answer :

Setting loadUserProfile=false in applicationPoolDefaults is a good idea for Shared Hosting scenarios. The startup time of an AppPool will be much faster and you avoid any temporary directory permission issues.

Question 25. What Is The Cause Of The "http 500.19 - Internal Server Error"?

Answer :

The 500.19 error is caused by the IIS 7.0 feature delegation mode. When a feature is delegated to site owners, and the site owners modify the feature, then their changes are persisted in web.config. If the server administration revokes the delegated management on that feature, then the web site owner has the responsibility of cleaning up the feature details from web.config. Otherwise, all sites that had modified that delegated feature will immediately give an "Http Error: 500.19 - Internal Server Error" message. In order to avoid this issue, we recommend that hosters do not revoke delegated features once they are published to end customers.

Question 26. How Does Iis 7.0 Handle Web.config Updates?

Answer :

If the hosted site does not have a web.config, IIS 7.0 will create one. If the site has a web.config, IIS 7.0 modifies it. If the web.config is modified, then the site owners have the responsibility of merging the changes and ensuring that the changes are manually merged and maintained.

Question 27. At Iis 7.0 Install Time, We Did Not Install The Management Service. What Are The Impacts Of Installing This Service Now That We Are Using Shared Configuration?

Answer :

Installing Management Service does not modify AppHost.config or Administration. Config at all. The only changes you should see are the new binaries (wmsvc.exe). A self-sign certificate will be created and a few registry keys will be added. This means that in theory nothing should break.

Question 28. Does Installing The Management Service Make Any Changes To The Shared Configuration Acling To Make It Work With The Administration Service?

Answer :

For the most part, it works out of the box since we use the redirection. Config settings for reading apphost/admon.config. However, for a detailed answer, it really depends on what scenarios you will be using:

• Shared Config using Local Content: Regular Windows or IIS users connecting to modify their local content and their web.config - there is nothing to do, everything should work out of the box.
• Shared Config using Remote Content using Windows Users: It should work, provided the Windows accounts have access to their content.
• Shared Config using Remote Content using IIS Users: For this scenario you must change the Identity of the service (WMSVC) to an account that has access to the remote content, since we use the process identity for accessing content. Note that apphost.config/admon.config will work, since we use redirection. Config
• Windows Administrator managing a Server Connection: It should work, provided your Windows administrator has write access to the shared config.

Question 29. Is Clr Loaded Automatically For Each W3wp/app Pool?

Answer :

An Application Pool that only serves static files with all features installed occupies 3 MB private bytes, 5 MB page file. When ASP.NET requests are made we pre-load a small amount of the CLR during startup (~100kb) . The preload is configurable by a property on the Application Pool. It is called managedRuntimeVersion. The rest of the CLR (~8mb) will be loaded on the first ASPX request.

Question 30. After Setting Up Iis 7.0 With Wss3 And Using Central Administration To Create A Site Collection, Why The Following Error Does Occurs "the Page Cannot Be Displayed Because Your Server's Current Configuration Does Not Support It. To Perform This Task, Use The Command Line Operations In Stsadm.exe."?

Answer :

The server is setup in AD Account Creation mode. AD Creation Mode is a deprecated feature that is still supported, but will be removed in V4. Instead of allowing WSS to automatically create users in AD, the recommendation is to do user provisioning outside of WSS.

Question 31. Windows Server 2008 Was Installed Without A Product Key And Is Now Asking For An Activation Code. The Product Key Is Not Available Right Now, How Can I Re-activate Windows Server 2008?

Answer :

You may re-arm your system three times by completing the following steps:

In order to run slmgr /rearm, open regedit.exe and navigate to HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrent VersionSL. Verify that value "skip rearm" is set to ‘0'. If this value is non-zero, the re-arm function will not reset the system activation timers.

After verifying that the "skip rearm" registry value equals zero (0), run slmgr /rearm from an elevated command prompt. Wait for the notice that the process has completed. This can take a minute or two. Once complete, follow the prompt to shutdown the computer. Upon restart, the computer will be running in OOB Grace and will have another 30 days in which to activate. No other changes will be made to the system by this process.

Question 32. What Is The Recommended Method To Deploy X509 Certificates On Multiple Web Servers?

Answer :

IIS.CertObj COM-object is still there in IIS 7.0 and we think it is still the best option for deploying certificates on multiple web servers. This component behavior remains the same, so all old script should work (if AB Mapper is enabled).