Oh well, 5:21am in LA - jet lag kicking in :( Slept couple hours since landed, I slept all the way from Singapore, but still ! Anyway, so instead of lying on the bed and do nothing, so I power up my laptop and start reading my RSS feeds and look what I found!
Apache Now the Leader in SSL Servers
For the past many years, this is the first time that Apache is leading IIS in term of secure web server deployment. Do you find it hard to deploy SSL in IIS? Well, I don't think it is hard, basic is there just that not that flexible to manipulate, for example you don't really have an interface to manage SSL cert at command line for IIS 5. Though, we got SSLDiag to troubleshoot SSL deployment in IIS, but how many really understand or interpret the information from SSLDiag related error msgs ?
This is a pretty common ASP error that could due to number of reasons; before we go into various ways to fix this error, let’s take a look at the error itself. So what’s the complete error message? Well, I got the following when simulating one of the possible cause of this. Typically, you will see this:
Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0201'
Invalid Default Script Language
The default script language specified for this application is invalid.
Or similar error message as highlighted in this KB - ASP0201: Invalid Default Script Language. As indicated in the article, the error is caused by non-supported scripting languages that IIS is unable to recognize. Now how to fix this? Try the following:
1) Make sure proper scripting language is defined in IIS. As per the above article, make sure the Default ASP Language is set to VBScript (by default), or JScript if you preferred Java Scripting.
2) Take note that your code will override the first setup if you have <% Language=”language” %> defined at the beginning of your script. So, double checks to ensure you don’t have spelling or typo error. It should be <% Language=”VBScript” %>
3) From time to time, this may due to incomplete DLL registration for those scripting engine and to get the scripting engine up to date, please get the latest scripting engine here. At the time of this writing, the latest version is 5.6.
4) Now, I have seen issue when installing the Scripting engine, e.g. unable to register certain DLLs, etc. What you can try next is to register the following DLLs:
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\VBscript.dll
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\JScript.dll
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\Inetsrv\Asp.dll
5) Moving on, if you reach this step, it is likely due to permission issue. E.g. iusr_computername account for anonymous access does not has READ permission over the related DLLs, you then try grant NTFS read permission to the DLLs in step 4 for your request account.
6) Next, following step 5 – if you still facing the same problem, you could take another step to ensure that all relevant permissions are in place, refer the following KBs:
IIS 4 - Required NTFS permissions and user rights for IIS 4.0
IIS 5 - How to set required NTFS permissions and user rights for an IIS 5.0 Web server
IIS 6 - Default permissions and user rights for IIS 6.0
7) Typically, if you have followed all the previous steps you should no longer see the same error message. Just in case, you missed some of the configurations in earlier steps, you can then temporary make the iusr_computername or your defined request user account to the local administrators group. Take note, this is just for troubleshooting purpose! You should NOT grant the default anonymous account with local administrative rights, and make sure after the troubleshooting you remove the account for the administrators group.
The idea behind this is to check if adding the user to this administrators group fixes the error, if yes, it is confirmed that there are yet permission issues that not being addressed or overlooked in previous steps. After removing the account from the administrators group, you can then get Filemon and Regmon from sysinternals.com to trace the permission issue.
TechNet Webcast: IIS Logs and SQL Reporting Services IIS Log Pack: Digging into Your Data One Step at a Time! (Level 200)
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 11:30 AM Pacific Time
On servers running Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0 or 6.0, it can be difficult to obtain details about how clients use a Web site. This webcast explains how to mine your site’s log files and react accordingly. Focusing on the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Report Pack for IIS Logs (a free download), we provide step-by-step guidance on how to use Log Parser 2.2 to extract data from IIS log files and push the data to your SQL Server database. From there, we show you how to build graphical reports that display bandwidth statistics and site statistics by the day, hour, or minute, and highlight other data about the clients themselves, including which browsers your visitors are using.
TechNet Webcast: Managing IIS 6.0 Servers in an Enterprise Environment: A Handful of Tips and Tricks (Level 200)
Thursday, April 27, 2006 11:30 AM Pacific Time
As an IT professional, you just received distress signals from your company’s Human Resources (HR) and Purchasing departments: HR's Web-based application is hanging, and Purchasing needs to deploy 3.3 bits to their 28 servers in four Virtual IPs (VIPs). What is the most efficient technique for managing this scenario? This webcast presents some tools for simplifying your life with HR and Purchasing. We show you how to ensure that deployments “just work,” and explain new techniques and avenues for managing Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 servers. This essential webcast answers the key questions related to management, performance, and deployment for IIS 6.0 Web-based applications in a complex environment. Whether it involves the user interface (UI), scripting, or Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), this webcast covers what you need to know.