Sometime back I came across a very good question on ServerFault and I thought of doing some research to understand how IIS handles Custom Errors setting when all requests are passed through aspnet_isapi.dll. Here is a brief background: Scenario 1: We have a Wildcard mapping configured for aspnet_isapi.dll with “Verify that file exists” unchecked. We also have Custom Errors configured for 404. We have configured it as a URL and the path is /404/. Remember the path 404 does not exists in ww... [More]

In part 1 of this series, I provided the BaseLine counter set for Windows 2k3. To close this loop for Win 2008, I am providing one more set of baseline counters for IIS. Download the following template and extract the XML file - IIS-BaseLine-Win-2k8.zip.     Start –> Run –> Perfmon     Right click on Data Collector Sets –> User Defined –> Select New –> Data Collector Set     Give a name, and ensure Create from a te... [More]

In the last couple of posts you’ve seen collection and manual analysis of Performance data. In this post let’s automate the analysis using one of the really fantastic tools called PAL – Performance Analysis of Logs. Download it from CodePlex. Ensure that you have installed all the pre-requisites… 1. Log Parser 2.2 Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Win... [More]

In my previous post, I have shown the configuration of perfmon counters. Let’s talk about how to analyze it now. Before you do anything else, read the following articles… IIS 6 Performance Counters Suggested Performance Counters to Watch (IIS 6.0) ASP.NET Performance Counters I know it is a lot of stuff to go through, but then to master drawing, you must learn about the brushes! To manually monitor some counters, you must add the .blg file that got created earlier when you stopped... [More]

I borrowed a VHD recently with Windows 2003 SP 2 installed. Since I had to rename the name of the machine before I make a networked farm, I thought of writing this post to show how you can take care of renaming of an IIS Server. Yeah, looks and sounds simple but I have a few tips up my sleeve so you may prefer to read on. To rename a machine is not difficult. Right Click on My Computer –> Properties –> Computer Name –> Change and give a name. Yes, that simple. It will ask for a reboot,... [More]