Wagnerblog

It’s one thing to work with a single web application that needs customization, but it is an entirely different animal when you have to work with multiple sites that are all hosted on the same IIS configuration. As developers we are not very often exposed to the problems inherit to multi-site boxes. Dealing with config issues on them can seem a little like voodoo. Just in case you find yourself in a situation where you need to digg into hosts files or try to make your XP Pro dev machine accept multiple sites, here are some resources that can help.

The basic principle of segregating sites in IIS (especially on a developers machine) is based on manipulating the hosts file located at C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetc
Below is a screenshot of mine. As you can see there isn’t much going on. In a multi site file there would be several entries that could for example call out different versions of a site on the same server using all the same values except for the port number. So 127.0.0.1:4000 (notice the colon and port) can be the current version and 127.0.0.1:5000 could be a future version. Using port numbers is very handy in systems that rely on script and graphic assets that are tied to specific directory structures as opposed to CMS based sites where the information of which graphic goes into what page is stored in a db.

Having said all that, here are some resources that help a developer who wants to handle multiple web sites on IIS on a WinXP Pro machine.

Kristofer Gafvert has several useful articles on his site:

• A basic introduction to using Host Headers to host multiple sites on IIS. (much better explanation than mine)
• Appending a host header in code to IIS 6.0
• A third party ISAPI dll (free) that modifies the host header file on your machine. Also see the links below for a similar tool.

Chris Crowe also has some useful articles and links on his site:

• Occasionally you want to look at the IIS meta base. Here is a description and link to a free MS Utility called MetaBaseExplorer.
• Lets say you find yourself working for an ISP and want to enumerate the IP, Port, and Host Header values stored in IIS. Chris has a sample bit of code that does exactly that.

Other Resources:

• Microsoft maintains several newsgroups specifically dealing with IIS  that offer RSS feeds .
• Last but not least, JetState offers a small utility program (free) that allows you to manipulate multiple sites on one XP box with a graphic UI. Looks very nice.