Installing IIS 7 on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2

Before You Begin

Ensure that you have administrative user rights on the computer on which you plan to install IIS 7 or above. Note that by default, you do not have administrative user rights if you are logged on as a user other than as the built-in administrator, even if you were added to the local Administrators group on the computer (this is a new security feature in Windows Server 2008 called Local User Administrator).

Log on either to the built-in administrator account, or explicitly invoke applications as the built-in administrator by using the runas command-line tool.

Note: You can run runas /user:administrator cmd.exe so that every application you run from that command line will be elevated, eliminating the need to use the runas syntax from that command line.

If you are logged on to an account other than the built-in local administrator account, you may see the following security alert dialog box.

Figure 1: Windows^® Security (User Account Control)

Install IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2

IIS is one of the Windows Server^® server roles. IIS can be installed through the graphical user interface (GUI) by using the new Server Manager interface after the Windows Server operating system is installed.

Server Manager provides a single dashboard to install or uninstall server roles and features. Server Manager also gives an overview of all currently installed roles and features. When IIS is chosen from the Server Manager, the basic components and services needed for IIS are automatically selected.

1. Click Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager.

Figure 2: Server Manager

2. In the Server Manager window, scroll down to Roles Summary, and then click Add Roles. The Add Roles Wizard will start with aBefore You Begin page. The wizard asks for verification of the following:

a. The administrator account has a strong password.

b. The network settings, such as IP addresses, are configured.

c. The latest security updates from Windows^® Update are installed.

3. Select Web Server (IIS) on the Select Server Roles page. An introductory page will open with links for further information.

Note: When you use the Add Roles Wizard to install IIS, you get the default installation, which has a minimum set of role services. If you need additional IIS role services, such as Application Development or Health and Diagnostics, make sure to select the check boxes associated with those features in the Select Role Services page of the wizard.

Figure 3: Select Server Roles

4. Select the IIS services to be installed on the Select Role Services page. Add only the modules necessary. In this case, ASP.NET is selected, and a description of ASP.NET appears in the right pane. Once desired modules are added, click Next.

Figure 4: Select Role Services

5. Add any required role services.

Figure 5: Wizard warning page

6. IIS is now installed with a default configuration for hosting ASP.NET on Windows Server. Click Close to complete the process.

Figure 6: Installation Results page

7. Confirm that the Web server works by using http://localhost.

Figure 7: Default Web site

Note: Install only the absolutely necessary IIS services to minimize the IIS installation footprint. This also minimizes the attack surface, which is one of the benefits of IIS 7 and above.

Use a Script to Install IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2

You can also use a script to install IIS 7.5. Note that if you use this script, you get the full IIS installation, which installs all available feature packages. If there are feature packages you do not need, you should edit the script to install only the packages you require. For more information, see Installing IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2.

To install IIS 7.5 with a script, type the following at a command prompt:

CMD /C START /w PKGMGR.EXE /l:log.etw /iu:IIS-WebServerRole;IIS-WebServer;IIS-CommonHttpFeatures;IIS-StaticContent;IIS-DefaultDocument;IIS-DirectoryBrowsing;IIS-HttpErrors;IIS-HttpRedirect;IIS-ApplicationDevelopment;IIS-ASP;IIS-CGI;IIS-ISAPIExtensions;IIS-ISAPIFilter;IIS-ServerSideIncludes;IIS-HealthAndDiagnostics;IIS-HttpLogging;IIS-LoggingLibraries;IIS-RequestMonitor;IIS-HttpTracing;IIS-CustomLogging;IIS-ODBCLogging;IIS-Security;IIS-BasicAuthentication;IIS-WindowsAuthentication;IIS-DigestAuthentication;IIS-ClientCertificateMappingAuthentication;IIS-IISCertificateMappingAuthentication;IIS-URLAuthorization;IIS-RequestFiltering;IIS-IPSecurity;IIS-Performance;IIS-HttpCompressionStatic;IIS-HttpCompressionDynamic;IIS-WebServerManagementTools;IIS-ManagementScriptingTools;IIS-IIS6ManagementCompatibility;IIS-Metabase;IIS-WMICompatibility;IIS-LegacyScripts;WAS-WindowsActivationService;WAS-ProcessModel;IIS-FTPServer;IIS-FTPSvc;IIS-FTPExtensibility;IIS-WebDAV;IIS-ASPNET;IIS-NetFxExtensibility;WAS-NetFxEnvironment;WAS-ConfigurationAPI;IIS-ManagementService;MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell

Unattended Installation of IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008

Automating the installation of IIS by using unattended scripts is very useful if you need to deploy multiple Web servers and want to ensure that each of the Web servers is set up with identical components and services.

In the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista operating systems, Pkgmgr.exe is used for unattended scripts, letting you install or uninstall optional features from a command prompt or scripts. (Note: Pkgmgr.exe replaces Sysocmgr.exe which was used in Windows Server^® 2003.) For instructions and an overview of Pkgmgr.exe, see Installing IIS 7.0 and Above from the Command Line. See also Unattended Setup to Install IIS 7.0 and Above. Note that to use Pkgmgr.exe, you must make sure you have administrative user rights on the computer.

Install IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008

1. To start Server Manager, click Start Menu -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Server Manager. The Server Manager window opens.

Figure 8: Server Manager

2. In the Server Manager window, select Roles. The Role Summary View is displayed.

Figure 9: Start Add Roles Wizard

3. Click Add Roles. The Add Roles Wizard opens. Click Next to select roles to install.

Figure 10: Add Roles Wizard Introduction

4. Select Web Server (IIS).

Figure 11: Select Web Server (IIS) in Add Roles Wizard

5. The Add Roles Wizard notifies you of any required dependencies; since IIS depends on the Windows Process Activation Service (WAS) feature, the following informational dialog box appears. Click Add Required Role Services to continue.

Figure 12: Add Dependencies

6. The Web Server is now selected for install. The Select Server Roles dialog box opens. Click Next to continue.

Figure 13: Selected Web Server (IIS)

7. The following dialog box and information appears. Click Next to continue.

Figure 14: Introduction to Web Server dialog box

8. The Add Roles Wizard displays a list of all IIS 7.0 features available to install as shown below. Note that features comprising the default install are pre-selected.

Figure 15: Web Server Features Listed

9. To install just the IIS 7.0 default features, click the Install button, and then proceed to Step 14. If you need to install additional features, proceed to step 10.

10. For this example, we install additional IIS features. Select the check box for ASP.NET. The Wizard warns if adding an IIS feature will also cause other features to be installed.

Figure 16: Dependency Information

11. Click Add Required Role Services to continue.

12. Continue selecting additional IIS Role Services features to install.

Figure 17: Add Features For Web Server

13. When you have selected all the features you require, click Next to continue.

14. The Wizard provides a summary of what will be installed.

Figure 18: Summary of Features

15. Click Install to continue. The Installation Progress dialog box opens.

Figure 19: Install Progress

16. When the IIS 7.0 installation is complete, the following dialog box opens. Click Close to return to the Server Manager.

Figure 20: Installation Summary

17. You can now perform a quick check to verify that IIS 7.0 is installed. Start the Windows^® Internet Explorer^® Web browser, and enter the address http://localhost. You should see the default IIS "Welcome" page.

Using Regular Expressions with PHP

Regular expressions are a powerful tool for examining and modifying text. Regular expressions themselves, with a general pattern notation almost like a mini programming language, allow you to describe and parse text. They enable you to search for patterns within a string, extracting matches flexibly and precisely. However, you should note that because regular expressions are more powerful, they are also slower than the more basic string functions. You should only use regular expressions if you have a particular need. This tutorial gives a brief overview of basic regular expression syntax and then considers the functions that PHP provides for working with regular expressions. The Basics Matching Patterns Replacing Patterns Array Processing PHP supports two different types of regular expressions: POSIX-extended and Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE). The PCRE functions are more powerful than the POSIX ones, and faster too, so we will concentrate on them. The Basics In a regular expression, most characters match only themselves. For instance, if you search for the regular expression "foo" in the string "John plays football," you get a match because "foo" occurs in that string. Some characters have special meanings in regular expressions. For instance, a dollar sign ($) is used to match strings that end with the given pattern. Similarly, a caret (^) character at the beginning of a regular expression indicates that it must match the beginning of the string. The characters that match themselves are called literals. The characters that have special meanings are called metacharacters. The dot (.) metacharacter matches any single character except newline (\). So, the pattern h.t matches hat, hothit, hut, h7t, etc. The vertical pipe (|) metacharacter is used for alternatives in a regular expression. It behaves much like a logical OR operator and you should use it if you want to construct a pattern that matches more than one set of characters. For instance, the pattern Utah|Idaho|Nevada matches strings that contain "Utah" or "Idaho" or "Nevada". Parentheses give us a way to group sequences. For example, (Nant|b)ucket matches "Nantucket" or "bucket". Using parentheses to group together characters for alternation is called grouping. If you want to match a literal metacharacter in a pattern, you have to escape it with a backslash. To specify a set of acceptable characters in your pattern, you can either build a character class yourself or use a predefined one. A character class lets you represent a bunch of characters as a single item in a regular expression. You can build your own character class by enclosing the acceptable characters in square brackets. A character class matches any one of the characters in the class. For example a character class [abc] matches a, b or c. To define a range of characters, just put the first and last characters in, separated by hyphen. For example, to match all alphanumeric characters: [a-zA-Z0-9]. You can also create a negated character class, which matches any character that is not in the class. To create a negated character class, begin the character class with ^: [^0-9]. The metacharacters +, *, ?, and {} affect the number of times a pattern should be matched. + means "Match one or more of the preceding expression", * means "Match zero or more of the preceding expression", and ? means "Match zero or one of the preceding expression". Curly braces {} can be used differently. With a single integer, {n} means "match exactly n occurrences of the preceding expression", with one integer and a comma, {n,} means "match n or more occurrences of the preceding expression", and with two comma-separated integers {n,m} means "match the previous character if it occurs at least n times, but no more than m times". Now, have a look at the examples: Regular Expression Will match... foo The string "foo" ^foo "foo" at the start of a string foo$ "foo" at the end of a string ^foo$ "foo" when it is alone on a string [abc] a, b, or c [a-z] Any lowercase letter [^A-Z] Any character that is not a uppercase letter (gif|jpg) Matches either "gif" or "jpeg" [a-z]+ One or more lowercase letters [0-9\.\-] Аny number, dot, or minus sign ^[a-zA-Z0-9_]{1,}$ Any word of at least one letter, number or _ ([wx])([yz]) wy, wz, xy, or xz [^A-Za-z0-9] Any symbol (not a number or a letter) ([A-Z]{3}|[0-9]{4}) Matches three letters or four numbers Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions emulate the Perl syntax for patterns, which means that each pattern must be enclosed in a pair of delimiters. Usually, the slash (/) character is used. For instance, /pattern/. The PCRE functions can be divided in several classes: matching, replacing, splitting and filtering. Back to top Matching Patterns The preg_match() function performs Perl-style pattern matching on a string. preg_match() takes two basic and three optional parameters. These parameters are, in order, a regular expression string, a source string, an array variable which stores matches, a flag argument and an offset parameter that can be used to specify the alternate place from which to start the search: preg_match ( pattern, subject [, matches [, flags [, offset]]]) The preg_match() function returns 1 if a match is found and 0 otherwise. Let's search the string "Hello World!" for the letters "ll": <?php if (preg_match("/ell/", "Hello World!", $matches)) {   echo "Match was found <br />";   echo $matches[0]; } ?> The letters "ll" exist in "Hello", so preg_match() returns 1 and the first element of the $matches variable is filled with the string that matched the pattern. The regular expression in the next example is looking for the letters "ell", but looking for them with following characters: <?php if (preg_match("/ll.*/", "The History of Halloween", $matches)) {   echo "Match was found <br />";   echo $matches[0]; } ?> Now let's consider more complicated example. The most popular use of regular expressions is validation. The example below checks if the password is "strong", i.e. the password must be at least 8 characters and must contain at least one lower case letter, one upper case letter and one digit: <?php $password = "Fyfjk34sdfjfsjq7"; if (preg_match("/^.*(?=.{8,})(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).*$/", $password)) {     echo "Your passwords is strong."; } else {     echo "Your password is weak."; } ?> The ^ and $ are looking for something at the start and the end of the string. The ".*" combination is used at both the start and the end. As mentioned above, the .(dot) metacharacter means any alphanumeric character, and * metacharacter means "zero or more". Between are groupings in parentheses. The "?=" combination means "the next text must be like this". This construct doesn't capture the text. In this example, instead of specifying the order that things should appear, it's saying that it must appear but we're not worried about the order. The first grouping  is (?=.*{8,}). This checks if there are at least 8 characters in the string. The next grouping (?=.*[0-9]) means "any alphanumeric character can happen zero or more times, then any digit can happen". So this checks if there is at least one number in the string. But since the string isn't captured, that one digit can appear anywhere in the string. The next groupings (?=.*[a-z]) and (?=.*[A-Z]) are looking for the lower case and upper case letter accordingly anywhere in the string. Finally, we will consider regular expression that validates an email address: <?php $email = firstname.lastname@aaa.bbb.com; $regexp = "/^[^0-9][A-z0-9_]+([.][A-z0-9_]+)*[@][A-z0-9_]+([.][A-z0-9_]+)*[.][A-z]{2,4}$/"; if (preg_match($regexp, $email)) {     echo "Email address is valid."; } else {     echo "Email address is <u>not</u> valid."; } ?> This regular expression checks for the number at the beginning and also checks for multiple periods in the user name and domain name in the email address. Let's try to investigate this regular expression yourself. For the speed reasons, the preg_match() function matches only the first pattern it finds in a string. This means it is very quick to check whether a pattern exists in a string. An alternative function, preg_match_all(), matches a pattern against a string as many times as the pattern allows, and returns the number of times it matched. Back to top Replacing Patterns In the above examples, we have searched for patterns in a string, leaving the search string untouched. Thepreg_replace() function looks for substrings that match a pattern and then replaces them with new text.preg_replace() takes three basic parameters and an additional one. These parameters are, in order, a regular expression, the text with which to replace a found pattern, the string to modify, and the last optional argument which specifies how many matches will be replaced. preg_replace( pattern, replacement, subject [, limit ]) The function returns the changed string if a match was found or an unchanged copy of the original string otherwise. In the following example we search for the copyright phrase and replace the year with the current. <?php echo preg_replace("/([Cc]opyright) 200(3|4|5|6)/", "$1 2007", "Copyright 2005"); ?> In the above example we use back references in the replacement string. Back references make it possible for you to use part of a matched pattern in the replacement string. To use this feature, you should use parentheses to wrap any elements of your regular expression that you might want to use. You can refer to the text matched by subpattern with a dollar sign ($) and the number of the subpattern. For instance, if you are using subpatterns, $0 is set to the whole match, then $1, $2, and so on are set to the individual matches for each subpattern. In the following example we will change the date format from "yyyy-mm-dd" to "mm/dd/yyy": <?php echo preg_replace("/(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)/", "$2/$3/$1", "2007-01-25"); ?> We also can pass an array of strings as subject to make the substitution on all of them. To perform multiple substitutions on the same string or array of strings with one call to preg_replace(), we should pass arrays of patterns and replacements. Have a look at the example: <?php $search = array ( "/(\w{6}\s\(w{2})\s(\w+)/e",                   "/(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})\s(\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2})/"); $replace = array ('"$1 ".strtoupper("$2")',                   "$3/$2/$1 $4"); $string = "Posted by John | 2007-02-15 02:43:41";      echo preg_replace($search, $replace, $string);?> In the above example we use the other interesting functionality - you can say to PHP that the match text should be executed as PHP code once the replacement has taken place. Since we have appended an "e" to the end of the regular expression, PHP will execute the replacement it makes. That is, it will take strtoupper(name) and replace it with the result of the strtoupper() function, which is NAME. Back to top Array Processing PHP's preg_split() function enables you to break a string apart basing on something more complicated than a literal sequence of characters. When it's necessary to split a string with a dynamic expression rather than a fixed one, this function comes to the rescue. The basic idea is the same as preg_match_all() except that, instead of returning matched pieces of the subject string, it returns an array of pieces that didn't match the specified pattern. The following example uses a regular expression to split the string by any number of commas or space characters: <?php $keywords = preg_split("/[\s,]+/", "php, regular expressions"); print_r( $keywords ); ?> Another useful PHP function is the preg_grep() function which returns those elements of an array that match a given pattern. This function traverses the input array, testing all elements against the supplied pattern. If a match is found, the matching element is returned as part of the array containing all matches. The following example searches through an array and all the names starting with letters A-J: <?php $names = array('Andrew','John','Peter','Nastin','Bill'); $output = preg_grep('/^[a-m]/i', $names); print_r( $output ); ?>