The goal is to have a central server where the developed forms are published. This will allow any user on the network (and through VPN) to view the forms and fill them in as necessary. The web forms use MSSQL connection (available through Visual Studio 2008) to send the user’s input to a database as well as read from the database and provide the user with choices. This is not a business critical operation for me so the machine is regular workstation with a mirrored drive. The actual workspace that contains the developed forms is on a daily back up schedule and archived off-site. In case the machine fails (mother board, PSU etc..) I have many others with the same specs and all I have to do is swap the drives. If both drives fail I can load the Ghost image on a different machine and republish the forms (since it’s not business critical some down time is not a problem). If this was a business critical process I would use a server with full hardware support and RAID-5.
- Side NOTE: If you have a server with good specs this is a great candidate for a Virtual Machine, in my case I don’t really have anything to spare at the moment.
With Windows 2008 SP2 I don’t fear loading Windows Server on a workstation anymore. In the past you did not even want to attempt this because workstations did not have any drivers for Windows Server. You ware stuck searching forever trying to find something compatible (sometimes with no luck). With Windows 2008 SP2 most drivers are there out of the box (specifically the ones for networking). In my case on a Dell GX520 I only need the audio and video drives (without any video drivers I can still set my resolution as high as 1600×1200 with 32bit). Another good thing is that most Windows 7 drivers work just fine in Windows Server 2008 SP2 (In my case the chip-set and Video drivers).
- Windows 2008 Install is very straight forward. I wiped the drive and let the system install (the install itself is about 30min on Intel Duo 3.2 with 4gb ram and SATA 7200 drives).
- The first thing I do on a clean install of Windows Server is load Firefox. I can’t stand IE even without the pointless Enhanced Security Configuration. Microsoft made IE block every single website (including their own) by default and called it a security feature; I suppose you can’t except much from a company with the security track record like theirs (I do think the rest of Windows Server 2008 is a big improvement over the past so at least that’s a step in the right direction). I also disable account control (anything that pops up for every single program is not a security measure, because you will get in habit of clicking continue every time anyway).
- Second step is updates (over 400MB at this point plus Service Pack 2). One of the most important things with servers is keeping them up to date. There are some exceptions to this rule (if you run old software on the server and you know updates will break it, or must wait for the updates to be approved by the vendor of the applications you are running. RIM has been known to do this).
- After this step I usually take care of the basic configurations.This includes:
- Setting the time zone (unless Pacific works for you), put in the static IP, join the computer to the domain, and enable Remote Desktop. Microsoft makes this very easy by showing you a dialog with Initial Tasks.
- Install Anti Virus
- Adding Server Role – After the server is configured, fully updated and running without any issues, the server roles are added (there is a link to it in the Initial Tasks dialog). In this case we choose Web Server (IIS). The features chosen for this install are: Common HTTP Features, Application Development, I also select Windows Authentication and Digest Authentication in security (the other check marks are left as they come by default).
- NOTE:- Windows will not say anything after the roles are installed, but you may need to restart your server to see the security roles under Authentication and also some of other features you may have selected.
- Configure IIS 7 to work with Active Directory
- In Active Directory – create a global security group that you will use for access control to the website.
- In IIS – (Windows Authentication must be installed for Active Directory) Click the name of the website in the IIS Manager. This will display the home page:
- Under Authentication make sure that Anonymous is disabled and Windows Authentication is enabled.
- Under Authorization Rules you only need one rule. Click Add Allow Rule from the right hand side. In the next dialog select the third option (Specified roles or user groups), type in the name of the Active Directory group you created and click OK. All users that are in the group will have access to the server.
Now you are ready to publish forms from Visual Studio (if you are on another machine you need to put the name of the server in the properties before you publish).
Since I do not require anything special on my site. I will use the default site that comes pre-configured with the installation of the Web Server role.
If you want to read in detail about configuring a new site from scratch check out this blog:
TechNet for IIS 7 is found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753433%28WS.10%29.aspx
