The Metabase History Feature

  • Article

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

IIS automatically maintains a record of metabase changes in history files that are saved to disk. You can also configure the number of metabase history files to save. By using the metabase history feature, you can revert the metabase through any number of changes to restore a particular configuration, or to see what has changed between revisions.

By marking each new metabase file with a unique version number and saving a copy of the file in the History folder, the metabase history feature automatically keeps track of metabase changes that are saved to disk. Each history file is then available for restoring the MetaBase.xml and MBSchema.xml files from the History folder, editing the MetaBase.xml file while IIS is running, and troubleshooting event log errors. The metabase history feature is enabled by default.

History Folder

The History folder stores versioned copies of the MetaBase.xml and MBSchema.xml files. These copies can only be viewed by members of the Administrators group. The location of the History folder is systemroot\System32\Inetsrv\History.

A history file pair consists of a MetaBase.xml and MBSchema.xml file of the same major and minor version numbers. The default setting allows for a maximum of 10 versioned history file pairs to be stored in the History folder, but you can configure this number. However, before increasing the number of versioned sets of files stored in the History folder, you should ensure that you have adequate hard disk space on the drive volume where the History folder is located. (You can estimate the amount of hard disk space that is required by multiplying the average combined file size of MetaBase.xml and MBSchema.xml files by the number of versions that you want to store in the History folder.) You should not decrease the value of the MaxHistoryFiles property to below 10.

When the in-memory metabase is written to disk, IIS checks to determine whether the number of history file pairs that are contained in the History folder exceeds the value of the MaxHistoryFiles property. If the number of history file pairs exceeds the value of the MaxHistoryFiles property, the oldest history file pair is deleted.

For information about backing up your entire operating system, including special steps that must be performed to include IIS in that backup, see Backing up and restoring data in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003. For information about the event log, see Event log in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.