IIS (Internet Information Services) Administration & Hardening Guides
Welcome to the definitive hub for IIS (Internet Information Services) administration, security hardening, and optimization on saotn.org. Managing production web servers on Windows Server requires a deep understanding of application pools, request routing, and web security protocols.
Whether you are configuring high-performance web applications, setting up robust URL rewrite architectures, or hardening enterprise environments against modern security vulnerabilities, these step-by-step guides provide the production-ready configurations and troubleshooting steps you need.
Core IIS Management Topics
To help you navigate our technical resources, the most critical IIS documentation is organized by administrative focus:
Security Hardening & Headers: Protect your web infrastructure from information leakage and transport-layer attacks. Master essential hardening techniques such as how to remove the IIS Server version HTTP Response Header and implementing enterprise-grade security by enabling HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) on IIS.
URL Rewrite & Traffic Routing: Take complete control over inbound HTTP/HTTPS traffic. Learn the nuances of site migrations and pattern matching with practical, clean IIS URL Rewrite configuration examples.
Application Pool Optimization: Maintain zero-downtime environments and efficient resource utilization. Streamline your automation workflow by discovering how to set IIS application pool recycle defaults to specific times instead of volatile fixed intervals.
Automation & Provisioning: Scale your web nodes without touching the GUI. Leverage the power of automation to dynamically deploy environments, including quick guides on how to install IIS in Windows 11 using PowerShell.
Browse the comprehensive, chronological feed below for deeper insights into IIS backup and restore procedures, custom module configurations, and expert-level web server troubleshooting.
Windows Server
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The length of the URL for this request exceeds the configured maxUrlLength value is an IIS error telling you the length of the given URL exceeds a limit (…).
Web applications
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Block and filter unwanted web HTTP traffic with blocklists, on both IIS and Apache. Protect your website easily with this PHP blocklist class. Create your own HTTP web blocklist filter.
Windows Server
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How to use MySQL Connector/NET 6.5 with MySqlClientPermission Class in partial (medium) trust
Windows Server
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Learn how to use .htaccess in Windows Server IIS. Before IIS 7 and the URL Rewrite module, you had to rely on third party extensions to IIS for URL rewriting with .htaccess files.
Windows Server
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When you host your PHP website on Windows Server IIS, you may receive an “No input file specified” error message, when a HTTP request is made to non-existing .php files. When this happens you probably have no Request Restrictions configured in IIS PHP handler settings. Here is how to fix the “no input file specified error” with PHP and IIS.
Windows Server
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Adsutil.vbs is a versatile and useful tool to administer IIS 6.0 servers. But did you know there is a remote server command-line parameter? With this you can use Adsutil.vbs remotely.
Windows Server
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The “SendUsing” configuration value is invalid is an error message indicating an issue with IIS SMTP Service configuration. Here is how to resolve this issue.