IIS Not Working

No website is opening

[Ustad_Ji]

OS: Windows Server 2003

Somebody has messed up my IIS settings and none of my websites are opening up now. I've stopped all but one website and am not using any Host Header Value either. The only website which I have left running is a simple HTML page but that's also not opening even when I try to browse it from IIS. What do I do now?

[phranque]

what response did you get?

[Ustad_Ji]

This is what I got:

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try the following:

Click the Refresh button, or try again later.

If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

To check your connection settings, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options. On the Connections tab, click Settings. The settings should match those provided by your local area network (LAN) administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).
See if your Internet connection settings are being detected. You can set Microsoft Windows to examine your network and automatically discover network connection settings (if your network administrator has enabled this setting).
Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.
On the Connections tab, click LAN Settings.
Select Automatically detect settings, and then click OK.
Some sites require 128-bit connection security. Click the Help menu and then click About Internet Explorer to determine what strength security you have installed.
If you are trying to reach a secure site, make sure your Security settings can support it. Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options. On the Advanced tab, scroll to the Security section and check settings for SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, PCT 1.0.
Click the Back button to try another link.



Cannot find server or DNS Error
Internet Explorer

[Ocean10000]

Is your server have a static IP?

[Ustad_Ji]

Yes, it has a static IP.

[phranque]

first use nslookup to verify that your hostname is resolving to the correct IP address.

then make an HTTP request for that IP address to verify that you can reach the default server.

[LifeinAsia]

make an HTTP request for that IP address to verify that you can reach the default server.

I would hit the web site by IP address locally from your server to rule out any firewall issues. (If you're using a private IP inside your network, use that IP, not the public IP.

[dstiles]

> Somebody has messed up my IIS settings

How? Did someone else have access to your server? If so, ask them what they did. Or, if you do not know who it was, dump the server and start again. 2003 is due to die next spring anyway so you should be looling at 2008 or 2012. Or, if your sites do not use ASP, go for linux.

Is the server hosted by a reputable company or on your own "broadband" IP?

Check your domain DNS settings. It would not be the first time a domain name service had screwed up IPs.

If you are only trying to access from a single network (eg home network) then check its host file to ensure it hasn't been hacked by a virus. Also ditto on the web server.

The browser notice you supplied is just that: a notice displayed by the browser. It's not from the web site.

[Kendo]

It could be anything. A couple of weeks ago I installed software on a client server and found that I couldn't reach their site from the web. Although they had DNS pointed to the server's IP address in IIS for the site there was but a typo. Also, because they were looking from intranet they had assigned a 192.168.*.* lan address instead of the real IP.

Also, if your test page was .asp then ASP may need to be enabled. Try starting with a simple default.html with "hello world".

[Ustad_Ji]

The server is on a live a static IP. It's basically a network monitoring server. We just enter the live IP in the address bar to access the web interface of the network monitoring application. There is no domain name. Right now I have all websites stopped in IIS apart from a just one which is a simple HTML page, but even that ain't showing up.

[LifeinAsia]

Can you ping the IP? Are you accessing the server through a firewall? What do you see in your IIS logs?

[Kendo]

There is no domain name.

No problem if you are visiting the server via the IP address, but make sure that the Default site is running and that it is set to allow access from all IP addresses.

Right now I have all websites stopped in IIS apart from a just one which is a simple HTML page, but even that ain't showing up.

If you don't have domain names, then how can you have sites? Each site header needs to be set in IIS Manager, ie: alias.domain.com.

[LifeinAsia]

If you don't have domain names, then how can you have sites?

I think he means that this particular site doesn't have a domain name. Or that even the other sites are visited via IP instead of domain name.

[Ustad_Ji]

Can you ping the IP? Are you accessing the server through a firewall? What do you see in your IIS logs?

Yes I can ping the IP and I access the server via Remote Desktop connection.
There is no firewall.
Where can I find the IIS logs? I've checked some old logs in C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\HTTPERR but I don't think they are of any use.

No problem if you are visiting the server via the IP address, but make sure that the Default site is running and that it is set to allow access from all IP addresses.

Default Web Site is currently stopped. It wasn't opening even when it was started. I've only left one website running for testing. Once I get it to work, then I'll try to sort out the others - only 3 in total.

If you don't have domain names, then how can you have sites? Each site header needs to be set in IIS Manager, ie: alias.domain.com.

LifeinAsia has answered that.

[LifeinAsia]

Where can I find the IIS logs?

Default is generally in C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles

To find out which sub-folder is for which site, go to IIS, select the site in question, then right-click and select Properties. On the Web Site tab, make sure "Enable logging" is selected (otherwise you won't get a log) and click on the Properties button. At the bottom of the window, you'll see "Log file name:" (e.g., W3SVC1\exyymmww.txt) and that will be the folder name\file name of your log files. (Alternatively, look at the Identifier field for the list of sites in IIS- that will be the number after "W3SVC" for the log folder.)

Other things to check in Properties for troubleshooting:
- IP address & port are correct (Web Site tab).
- Home Directory is correct and that your have at least "Read" and "Log visits" selected (Home Directory tab).

A few other fallback things to try:
- Stop/restart IIS
- Stop/restart World Wide Web Publishing Service
- Reboot server

[Ustad_Ji]

Pasting the last log below:

#Software: Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0
#Version: 1.0
#Date: 2014-07-18 06:01:41
#Fields: date time s-sitename s-ip cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query s-port cs-username c-ip cs(User-Agent) sc-status sc-substatus sc-win32-status 
2014-07-18 06:01:41 W3SVC711740766 200.100.100.1 GET /NMShome.htm - 80 - 100.100.100.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+5.1)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/33.0.1750.154+Safari/537.36 304 0 0
2014-07-18 06:01:41 W3SVC711740766 200.100.100.1 GET /bband.jpg - 80 - 100.100.100.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+5.1)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/33.0.1750.154+Safari/537.36 304 0 0
2014-07-18 06:01:41 W3SVC711740766 200.100.100.1 GET /565.jpeg - 80 - 100.100.100.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+5.1)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/33.0.1750.154+Safari/537.36 304 0 0
#Software: Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0
#Version: 1.0
#Date: 2014-07-18 10:55:38
#Fields: date time s-sitename s-ip cs-method cs-uri-stem cs-uri-query s-port cs-username c-ip cs(User-Agent) sc-status sc-substatus sc-win32-status 
2014-07-18 10:55:37 W3SVC711740766 200.100.100.1 GET /NMShome.htm - 80 - 100.100.100.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+5.1)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/33.0.1750.154+Safari/537.36 304 0 0
2014-07-18 10:55:48 W3SVC711740766 200.100.100.1 GET /cgi-bin/cmonitor.pl - 80 - 100.100.100.1 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+5.1)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/33.0.1750.154+Safari/537.36 404 0 3

Note: I've changed the IPs in the log.

[Ustad_Ji]

Couldn't find a solution. Reinstalled everything.

[Ocean10000]

Thanks for the follow up. Sorry that a solution could not be found to fix the problem.

[LifeinAsia]

Couldn't find a solution. Reinstalled everything.

Argh. That's what I hate about Windows- often, 90% of problems can be "fixed" with a reboot, but too often a lot of the other 10% can only be fixed with a re-install.

Yeah, I know I'm exaggerating the numbers somewhat, but the more I work with Linux, the more I like it. Although I still like the Windows GUIs for most things, each new version of Windows makes them more and more complicated.

[J_RaD]

^ is it that or just weak windows troubleshooting?

watch a few of these videos

[technet.microsoft.com...]