Configuring Web Service Extensions in IIS 6.0

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

Many Web sites and applications that you migrate have extended functionality beyond static pages, including the ability to generate dynamic content. Any request handlers, such as Perl and CGI, that extend IIS functionality beyond serving static pages are known as Web service extensions. Web service extensions allow you to enable and disable the serving of dynamic content and easily determine the content types on the Web server that can initiate code.

If you installed IIS 6.0 as described in Installing IIS 6.0, all Web service extensions are disabled by default. If you used another method, such as using Manage Your Server, the configuration of IIS might be different.

Enabling all Web service extensions ensures the highest possible compatibility with your Web sites. However, enabling all Web service extensions creates a security risk because it increases the attack surface of IIS by enabling functionality that might be unnecessary for your server.

Web service extensions allow you to enable and disable the serving of dynamic content. MIME types allow you to enable and disable the serving of static content. For more information about enabling and disabling the serving of static content, see Configuring File MIME Types on IIS 6.0.

Tip

If the appropriate Web service extension is not enabled, the Web server returns a 404 error when attempting to serve the dynamic content.

Configure the Web service extensions by completing the following steps:

  1. Enable the essential predefined Web service extensions based on the information in Table 7.9.

    Table 7.9   Predefined Web Service Extensions

    Web Service Extension Enable When

    Active Server Pages

    Enable this extension when one or more of the Web sites or applications contains ASP content.

    ASP.NET version 1.1.4322

    Enable this extension when one or more of the Web sites or applications contains ASP.NET content.

    FrontPage Server Extensions 2002

    Enable this extension when one or more of the Web sites are FrontPage extended.

    Internet Data Connector

    Enable this extension when one or more of the Web sites or applications uses the Internet Data Connector (IDC) to display database information (content includes .idc and .idx files).

    Server-Side Includes

    Enable this extension when one or more of the Web sites uses server-side include (SSI) directives to instruct the Web server to insert various types of content into a Web page.

    WebDav

    Enable this extension when you want to support Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) on the Web server, but it is not recommended for dedicated Web servers.

    Important

    Enable only the Web service extensions that are required by the migrated Apache Web sites.

  2. For each Web service extension used by your applications that is not one of the default Web service extensions, add a new entry to the Web service extensions list and configure the status of the new entry to Allowed.

    For information about how to add a Web server extension to the list, see Configure Web Service Extensions.

  3. Use a Web browser on a client computer to verify that the Web sites and applications run on the server.