Over the past five years I have built several Highly available microsoft web hosting farms , hosted web apps, and associated database servers and supporting services, each one slight better than the last.

Web farms
No 1. IIS5, NLB base load balancing, every web site usesing same process identity, many sites is shared pool
No 2. IIS6, Cisco CSM load balanced, 2 Node Physcial, unique ID for every site / application
No 3, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site / application
No 4, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site / application, second site
No 5, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site,  Internet facing with SSL
No 6, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site,  Intranet facing with SSL
No 7, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site,  Intranet facing with SSL
No 8, IIS6, Cisco ACE Load Balanced, 4 Node Virutal, unique ID for every site,  Intranet facing with SSL, for UAT use.

FTP, centralise FTP gateway providing a single FTP solution to every windows / Sambe wen server inside the enterprise

WordPress MU, enterprise blog solution

Now Finally I get to build an IIS7 one and FTP7 with FTP over SSL, watch this space

I have been working on a ZERO touch build script for IIS on and off for a few weeks,

One of the last stepping stone for formating the “data” drive prior to setting everything up

“FORMAT H: /FS:NTFS /V:ASG” will prompt for “do you want to erase all yoiu data”, and again if the disk is in use !

 So enter WMI, after only 20 mins of digging around the the internet I found some code to do a defrag, a few tweaks, and I have some VBS code that will format a DRIVE, NO questions, even if the drive is in use, and it is ONLY 7 lines

strComputer = “.”
Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:\\” & strComputer & “\root\cimv2″)
Set colVolumes = objWMIService.ExecQuery (“Select * from Win32_Volume Where Name = ‘H:\\’”)
For Each objVolume in colVolumes
     errResult  = objvolume.dismount(1,0)
     errResult = objVolume.format(“NTFS”, 1, 4096, “ASG”, 0)
Next

some REALLY rough and not very elegent code but this is my website create code for IIS6

Points to note:

• I centrally manage the W3SVC instance number, so they are unique across all of the platforms in the enterprise, hence the instance number is specified , not generated in the function
• I use AD based IWAM accounts to connect to CIFS (UNC) based content, so these have to be specified
• hosts string is a comma separated list of hostheaders,

Function createsite(ByVal StrMachine As String, ByVal StrSitenumber As String, ByVal StrSiteDesc As String, ByRef Hosts As String, ByVal IwamUser As String, ByVal IWamPass As String, ByVal FilePath As String, ByVal AppPool As String, ByVal DefaultLogonDomain As String) As String

‘ need to validate the NEW hostheaders first
Dim WebServiceObj As DirectoryEntry
Dim siteexists As Boolean
Dim Sites As DirectoryEntries
Dim objSITE As DirectoryEntry
Dim Newwebserver As DirectoryEntry
Dim objIIS As DirectoryEntry
Dim objVirtualDirectory As DirectoryEntry
Dim headers() As String
Dim counter As Int16headers = Split(Hosts, “,”)Try

WebServiceObj = New DirectoryEntry(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC”)
siteexists = False
For Each objSITE In WebServiceObj.Children
‘not all object in collection are web sites, so need to test BEFORE drilling into hosts property
   If UCase(objSITE.SchemaClassName) = “IISWEBSERVER” Then
      If UCase(objSITE.Path.ToString) = UCase(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC/” & StrSitenumber) Then ‘site already exists
         siteexists = True
      End If
   End If
Next

If siteexists Then
   Newwebserver = New DirectoryEntry(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC/” & StrSitenumber)
   createsite = “Site Already exists”
Else
   Newwebserver = WebServiceObj.Children.Add(StrSitenumber, “IIsWebServer”)
   createsite = “Create New Site”
End If

Newwebserver.Properties(“ServerComment”).Item(0) = StrSiteDesc
For counter = 0 To UBound(headers)
   Newwebserver.Properties(“ServerBindings”).Add(“:80:” & headers(counter))
Next
Newwebserver.CommitChanges()
Newwebserver = Nothing
objIIS = New DirectoryEntry(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC/” & StrSitenumber)
siteexists = False

For Each objSITE In objIIS.Children ‘ check each object in site, if Vdir is it called root
‘not all object in collection are web sites, so need to test BEFORE drilling into propertys
   If UCase(objSITE.SchemaClassName) = “IISWEBVIRTUALDIR” Then
      If UCase(objSITE.Path.ToString) = UCase(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC/” & StrSitenumber & “/ROOT”) Then ‘site already exists
         siteexists = True
      End If
   End If
Next

If siteexists Then ‘Connection to exitsing site
   objVirtualDirectory = New DirectoryEntry(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/W3SVC/” & StrSitenumber & “/Root”)
Else ‘ create NEW one 
   objVirtualDirectory = objIIS.Children.Add(“Root”, “IISWebVirtualDir”)
   createsite = “Site Created”
End If

‘fix all the properties

   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AccessScript”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“Path”).Item(0) = FilePath
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AnonymousUserName”).Item(0) = IwamUser
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AnonymousUserPass”).Item(0) = IWamPass
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AnonymousPasswordSync”).Item(0) = False
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“DefaultLogonDomain”).Item(0) = DefaultLogonDomain
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AppFriendlyName”).Item(0) = AppPool
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AppIsolated”).Item(0) = 2
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AppPoolId”).Item(0) = AppPool
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AccessWrite”).Item(0) = False
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AccessRead”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AccessExecute”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AccessScript”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AuthAnonymous”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Properties(“AuthBasic”).Item(0) = True
   objVirtualDirectory.Invoke(“AppCreate”, True)
   objVirtualDirectory.CommitChanges() Catch ex As Exception‘createsite = ex.Message

Finally

   WebServiceObj = Nothing
   siteexists = Nothing
   Sites = Nothing
   objSITE = Nothing
   Newwebserver = Nothing
   objIIS = Nothing
   objVirtualDirectory = NothingEnd Try

End Function

I know this is VB.NET but i was in a hurry and my C# sucks
this is mostly cobbled togther from other stuff I found on the net, none of which did EXACTLY what I needed
When I get the time i will publish some of my other functions, including IIS6 site create and IIS6 FTP Profile Create

This is a simple VB.NET function to create and IIS6 Application pool
This function is designed to specify the UserId and Password for the AppPool Identity and was used in an environment where domain credentials were used

Function CreateAppPool(ByVal StrMachine As String, ByVal AppName As String, ByVal UserName As String, ByVal Password As String) As  String

CreateAppPool = “success”
Dim foundapp As Boolean
Dim apppools As DirectoryEntries
Dim apppool2 As DirectoryEntry
Dim apppool As DirectoryEntry
Dim NewAppPool As Object
foundapp = False
apppool2 = New DirectoryEntry(“IIS://” & StrMachine & “/w3svc/AppPools”)
apppools = apppool2.Children
‘test for duplicate poolname
For Each apppool In apppools ‘ scan each current app pool for check its name
  If UCase(apppool.Name) = UCase(AppName) Then ‘ no need to check class type as everything at this level is a AppPool
    foundapp = True
  End If
Next
If Not foundapp Then
  ‘create the APP Pool and set unique information, most of the data is inherited
  NewAppPool = apppool2.Children.Add(AppName, “IIsApplicationPool”)
  NewAppPool.Properties(“AppPoolIdentityType”).Item(0) = 3
  NewAppPool.Properties(“WAMUserName”).Item(0) = UserName
  NewAppPool.Properties(“WAMUserPass”).Item(0) = Password
  NewAppPool.CommitChanges()
  NewAppPool = Nothing
Else
  CreateAppPool = “Duplicate AppPool found”
End If
  apppool2 = Nothing
  apppools = Nothing
End Function