Need Help With IIS/FTP/SMTP

Hey Mike, welcome to wmw! We have some *nix/Apache wizards that hang out here but few M$ experts yet. I'll bring your question to the attention of our resident expert and I'm confident he'll be able to point you in the right direction. He's a busy guy though, could be a day or two before you here from him. Unfortunatly, that's the best I can do I'm afraid.

>need to provide name@domain.com mail service

txbaker, for the mail service, most hosts do provide POP3 mail, available at the site or forwarded to ISP or web-based mail, but few have SMTP available because of the possibility of the service being used to send spam mail out. If they're all your sites and you can maintain control it might be OK, but you might want to check this out and reconsider if there will be a lot of people hosting with you, with the possibility of abuse.

For books, Microsoft does publish support books for most of their products that are very detailed, and the books published by O'Reilly are excellent.

[oreilly.com...]

Thanks Dave, Marcia. I checked out O'Reilly (first of course - love their books) but nothing on IIS administration.

I'm almost clear on the mail issue, still trying to figure out why I can send mail from my Outlook to the domain name, and why I can't see it in the mailroot folders.

I still would love to talk with an IIS guru. The second issue is FTP. Why does IIS allow you to set up multiple web sites with Host Header Names, but doesn't allow the same thing for FTP? All the posts I've read instruct you to create virtual directories instead and manipulate passwords, etc.

A third idea, can I install Apache on 2000? Are there other FTP services available? And, I've also looked into Xitami for a web server (works great on my W98 machine for testing designs).

Thanks all.
Mike Baker

You are right in that FTP doesn't recognize host headers. In my brief glance through [ietf.org...] (the spec for FTP), I didn't see anything that would allow host headers in FTP at all. That means each FTP site must be on a separate IP address or port.

txbakers
Apache for Windoze is available at [httpd.apache.org...]

There are many good Win based FTP servers available. Check [tucows.myriad.net...] for some of the best. War FTP is free and G6 (shareware) has become very popular recently.

>IIS does host headers for web sites, but not for FTP.

With FTP [well in my case anyway] you are not granting access to web sites, rather you grant permissions to directories so host headers is not an issue.

>Also, I need to provide name@domain.com mail service for my clients.

At all costs stay away from providing the email services yourself, it will always represent the largest overhead [bandwidth and maintainence] of any web services you provide, imho.

re: email services.

There is something with the email services that rings a bell in my mind.

Something like if you charge for email services, then you could be held responsible for content ~unless you are considered an ISP. ... I think. I could be wrong, but there is *something funky* regarding email services.

Let me dig on this...

-G

Thanks all. I will look on Tucows for some FTP servers and give them a try.

This whole project started because I am writing an ASP based software and wanted to host it on my own server.

I thought it might be good to host additional sites to help pay for a faster connection and better server. With only a few clients I could break even on my costs and essentially use the server for my project for free.

But secure FTP is a must, and I thought that e-mail would be important as well. When I have had sites hosted elsewhere I expect POP mail access to the domain name, so I wanted to offer that also.

Am I nuts?

I run an e-mail server that is not a web server. I have one *very* active mailing list on it and a couple of others that are generally idle.

The traffic generated by e-mail is amazingly small. We metered this server for a couple of years and found that it could reside behind a 56k modem and still not saturate the line.

Regarding e-mail access, your best bet that is close to 0 maintenance is to offer "alias" accounts. In a nutshell, your customers get a bob@mydomain.com account and you can redirect that mail to bob2456@hotmail.com or bob2456@msn.com, depending on wherever they pick up their mail.

(not sure if Exchange does this, but sendmail does this sort of service by default)

That way you don't have to maintain mailboxes, which come with quotas and POP/IMAP access. The customers just pick up mail at their already-established account.

Hope this helps.

Rob++

Thanks Rob, I'm using IIS, so sendmail is not an option. What program could I use to route the mail addresses?

*cringe* You might be able to get sendmail for NT (although sendmail.com may charge for it).

I bet Exchange would do that if you cornered a guru of such and threatened him/her within an inch of their life unless they release secrets. :-)

Rob++

Well, after trying to follow all the confusing help info from microsoft on how to configure the IIS FTP for multiple web sites, I gave up, and downloaded a nifty little program called G6 FTP Server, available from www.gene6.com

It works like a charm - so easy - so smooth. A 10 minute installation, and my sites each have their own FTP location now.

What a pleasure. I'm not stupid after all -- it was a Microsoft thing all along.....

Now on to mail servers

Good job! Thanks for the feedback too Mike. Now I understand why G6 has become popular recently.

Hey Mike

your posting said "W2000 is up, IIS is up, I can setup multiple sites with my one IP no problem. "

Can you tell me how to do this?

Thanks.

WCiccolo

You need Win2000 server to host multiple web sites. There is a feature in the setup that lets you specify the host headers that the web site recognizes. Stickmail me if you need more info.

Latest Update:

I am go! For a mail server I found a program called Mercur available from atrium software. Works great, easy to use - everything that Microsoft isn't.

I was able to find a W2000 version of sendmail - with a free download. The registration on it was only about $50 or so.

I have about 5 sites up and running now, all is working well. Now I could use a few more sites to host.... got to pay for that new server..

Thanks all for your great help.

Hey txbakers-

I'm pretty familiar with IIS and Windows NT/2000 and the like. I'm a little confused though why host headers are necessary for an ftp site. If you have everything running off one IP, then you simply DNS every host name (ftp.mycompany.com, ftp.thiscompany.com), pointed to the same IP, with different login/password combinations and obviously each of those are going to be pointed to a unique directory. Host headers are needed on the web because the only way you can determine a path is via the URL that is being requested. With FTP you have the user/pass that determines what path's a user will have access to. So, theoretically Microsoft FTP will do everything you need it to, although, most opt to go with a 3rd party FTP server on Windows because Microsoft FTP doesn't have resume capability, and some of the more common FTP server features. As for mail, I suggest you take a look at Merak (www.icewarp.com) as it does virtual hosting for domains and has a pretty easy and powerful web interface. Let me know if you need any help in the future, and the same to others who might have NT/IIS/WIN2K related questions.

txbakers, looks like you have everything wired :)

I you need help in the future, just send me a stickymail or email and I'll forward you on to a friend of mine, he is an absolute genious when it comes to Windows and IIS

Thanks! I could use a genius on Windows right about now.

There is some process running - I can't identify it - that is causing my system to run very sluggishly. Apps are very slow to open and respond.

When I boot in safe mode most of the processes and services are off and the speed is back to normal.

I'd like to get a genius' opinion on this before I start uninstalling programs and hack up my system again.

I did defrag, NAV, and uninstalled a bunch of non-essentials, but to no e-vail.

Any help appreciated.

hi all,
i have a similar query. i am using java for my middleware, using new atalanta's servletexec for my servlet plugin to IIS4.0.
i want to setup tomcat as an alternate servlet engine which will process requests for one specific site in my IIS whereas all the other sites will use servlet exec as the servlet engine.

i'm not sure about even setting up multiple sites on IIS4.0 but i think i can manage that(from ur mails). the problem is with selective forwarding of servlet requests to 2 different servlet engines.

is this possible. any suggestions? thnx in advance
vinoo

txbakers,
To help free up your server from unnecessary services check out Page 8 of [csrc.nist.gov...]

I stumbled across this amazing collection of recently declassified National Security Agancy guides on security recommendations for Win2K. [csrc.nist.gov...]
Enjoy!

doody

Hey techiejp,

You said this earlier in the thread "With FTP you have the user/pass that determines what path's a user will have access to. So, theoretically Microsoft FTP will do everything you need it to."

I can do this with third party programs like Serv-U FTP - but I have not worked out how to do it with MS/IIS FTP - would you mind posting instructions?

I can't work out how to get MS FTP to redirect each user to their 'home' directory when they logon to the FTP server.

To use MS-FTP you have to have all your users set up in the NT security and user system.

I didn't want to do that since these users aren't on the network.

The third-party FTP servers are so much easier to use.

K_Wolf:

There are really two major things to keep in mind using Microsoft FTP. 1) All accounts are configured using the User Manager for Domains. Each account in there can have a "home directory" set. This is the directory the user will be logged into. 2) Access to folders is controlled by the permissions you've set in NT for each folder.

Most people complain about Microsoft FTP. I would say typically it has everything everyone needs. I got away from it because it didn't have file resume functionality.

Hope this helps.

K_Wolf said:
'I can't work out how to get MS FTP to redirect each user to their 'home' directory when they logon to the FTP server.'

I just came across an article describing how to do just that. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks pretty nifty.

[iisanswers.com...]

Just so you know, with M$ FTP, when you want to set up another site in IIS, all you need to do is fiddle with the port number.
Your first site, ftp://default_ftp for example, accepts traffic on the default port 21.
So when setting up your second site, as you go through the setup wizard, when it prompts you for the port number, choose a high number like 36,000 or something.
The users connecting would just have to throw the port number on the end of the address.
So even if you gave it the same name of default_ftp, you can connect to the new one by typing ftp://default_ftp:36000
enjoy

Since this thread keeps getting bumped I thought I should post a follow up to my trials and tribulations above.

My config is now:
IIS5
Perl 5.6.3
Mercur Mail Server
BulletProof FTP Server
Sendmail NT

The sluggishness I inquired about was due to all the processes running on my 550 Mhz Processor.

I installed a new motherboard with a 1.6Ghz chip, RAID controllers built in, and massive RAM and HD, and the server hums like a Porsche.

I ran into a bizarre CGI error a while back, which I posted here (to no response - it was that way on many many forums) and it turned out there is a security built into the.....SCREEN SAVER(!) which disables internet access.

I disabled the screen saver and all is fine.

is sendmail the same thing as the smtp server that comes with iis? how is it different?

oh yeh, sorry i'm newby. so your mercur mail server is the pop3 server right? or can it also act as the smtp server?