Tools for Troubleshooting IIS 6.0

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Good tools are an indispensable part of any troubleshooting effort. This section identifies tools that you can use to help troubleshoot problems that you encounter on applications running on IIS 6.0. It also provides tips for getting the most benefit from each tool. Specific tool usage scenarios are also discussed in this section.

The following tools are useful for troubleshooting problems that occur with IIS 6.0:

  • WFetch (WFetch.exe). This tool allows you to generate customized HTTP requests and view request and response data.

  • File Monitor (FileMon.exe). This tool allows you to view and capture real-time file system activity.

  • Registry Monitor (RegMon.exe). This tool allows you to view and capture real-time system registry activity.

  • IIS Request Monitor. This tool captures information about HTTP requests in IIS worker processes, which can help you isolate and understand problems when worker processes become slow or unresponsive.

  • Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Diagnostic Tool (SSLDiag). This tool helps you identify configuration problems in the IIS metabase, certificates, or certificate stores when running Web sites that use SSL.

  • Authentication and Access Control Diagnostics (authdiag.exe). This tool allows you to review, test, and correct problems with authentication and authorization.

  • IIS 6.0 Enterprise Tracing for Windows. This tool allows you to trace HTTP requests as they move through various components in your server architecture. IIS components provide informational events and error events (if applicable) to the ETW architecture as requests enter and exit each component. You can view the event data to see exactly where in the IIS architecture a request failed or became unresponsive.

  • Network Monitor. This network tracing utility allows you to view activity in the network stack. Network Monitor is included with Windows Server 2003.

  • System Monitor. This tool allows you to view and collect system performance data. System Monitor is included with Windows Server 2003.

  • HRPlus. This tool provides error lookup functionality.

  • Microsoft Debugging Tools for Windows. This tool allows you to debug and diagnose application problems.