How to Enable the Enable Direct Metabase Edit Feature in IIS Manager

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This procedure explains how to enable the Enable Direct Metabase Edit feature in IIS Manager. You must perform this procedure in order to edit the MetaBase.xml file in the IIS 6.0 metabase directly when IIS is running; otherwise the file remains open and locked when IIS is running.

Before You Begin

Before you perform the procedure in this topic, consider the following:

Because the Active Directory-to-IIS metabase update is a one-way replication, it is a good idea to be careful when you modify settings in the IIS metabase directly. The metabase update service might overwrite any changed values for the SMTP virtual server during the next update cycle. It is recommended that you use Exchange System Manager to configure the SMTP service on an Exchange 2003 server and modify only those parameters that are not available in Exchange System Manager, such as the ConnectResponse setting.

Warning

If you edit the metabase incorrectly, you could cause serious problems that could require you to reinstall your Exchange server. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from editing the IIS metabase incorrectly. You edit the metabase at your own risk. Make sure you have a valid backup copy of the metabase files before you apply any changes.

Procedure

To enable the Enable Direct Metabase Edit Feature in IIS Manager

  1. In IIS Manager, right-click the server object, and then click Properties.

  2. Select the Enable Direct Metabase Edit check box.

  3. If you want to change parameters that are not available in Exchange System Manager, you can edit the metabase settings directly. For example, you can change the SMTP banner of your SMTP server by adding a value for the ConnectResponse property to the default SMTP virtual server's configuration object (<IIsSmtpServerLocation ="/LM/SmtpSvc/1">) to prevent disclosing Exchange-specific version information in SMTP communications, as follows:

    <IIsSmtpServer Location ="/LM/SmtpSvc/1"

        AdminACL="4963... ... ...a472"

        ClusterEnabled="FALSE"

        ConnectionTimeout="600"

        ...

  4. If you find Notepad inconvenient, you can use Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) instead to modify metabase settings. The following code block performs the same change to the SMTP banner. The following figure illustrates the modified SMTP banner.

    ' Get the configuration object for the default SMTP virtual server

    ' Configure the ConnectResponse setting

    ' Write the changed parameter into the metabase

  5. For more information about how to access IIS metabase settings using ADSI, see Using ADSI to Configure IIS in the Microsoft Platform SDK.

    Note

    You must restart the IIS Admin service and all its dependent services, including the SMTP service, to save the changes. The SMTP service is designed to obtain changes to the system configuration automatically, without requiring a restart. But some modifications, such as changing the SMTP banner, might require a restart.

    Replacing Exchange version information in the SMTP banner

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