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Until recently, Windows Admin Center (WAC) lacked support for several important server roles, thereby significantly limiting its usefulness. During the last six months, however, Microsoft has added several features to the browser-based tools that were previously reserved for MMC snap-ins. These include the management of AD Domain Services, DNS, and DHCP.
IIS management via extension
However, Microsoft did not implement these new functions as part of the core system, but as extensions. This is also the case with IIS management, so you have to install it separately. According to Microsoft, even more agile development should be possible due to this decoupling. Currently, all the mentioned extensions are only available as previews.
IIS Administration is installed as an extension for the Admin Center
Having added the IIS extension, it only appears in the WAC navigation when you connect to a server that has the web server role installed. When you start the IIS module for the first time, a message indicates that the host requires the IIS Administration APIs.
The WAC extension requires IIS administration on the server
Installing IIS administration
The IIS extension offers to download the APIs from Microsoft's website and install them on the server. However, this might fail, showing an error message; if this happens, you will have to get and install the add-on yourself. Microsoft does not offer any help in this case.
If the installation of IIS Administration fails, you have to add it manually
The required file, named IISAdministrationSetup.exe, can be found on Github. Copy this file into a directory on the web server and specify this path in the browser during manual installation.
For the installation, the WAC extension requires the path to IISAdministrationSetup.exe
Management of sites
After successfully connecting to the web server, the WAC extension will list all websites set up there. You can also create a new site at this point. If you click on one of the entries, you can start, stop, delete, or edit that site via the respective icons.
Comparing the features of WAC and IIS Manager
If you edit a site with the browser tool, the left menu bar displays most of the commands already known from the conventional IIS Manager. For many of the functions here, Microsoft uses terms that are different from the MMC tool. Since WAC doesn't offer all features, you have to find out which of the commands known from IIS Manager are available.
Current functional deficits
Overall, the WAC extension is already capable of handling most IIS management tasks. A comparison with the MMC tool shows that certain functions are missing, such as the definitions of errors pages.
The options for managing SSL certificates are also quite limited. If, for example, you want to request an SSL certificate, then you have to fall back on IIS Manager. In addition, WAC is currently limited to web services, hence FTP sites cannot be managed with it.
Graphical display of the workload
In contrast, the extension for the Admin Center offers an advantage over IIS Manager by integrating a monitor. As in the WAC server overview, the IIS extension provides a live diagram showing the current number of requests and the data volumes transferred.
The monitor displays the current load of the web server graphically
Simplified remote management
Overall, WAC simplifies the remote administration of IIS. The classic IIS Manager requires a cumbersome configuration for each individual host, and the administrator also has to install a plug-in on the workstation.
WAC should also make the management of IIS farms considerably easier, even if it is currently not possible to set up a shared configuration.
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The IIS role can be added remotely from the Admin Center
Apart from the currently missing functions, which also include parts of the authorization management, web servers can now be managed almost continuously from a browser. The WAC also allows the installation of IIS by adding the required web server role.
Nice article, thanks! You mention IIS Administration, does WAC support all REST API endpoints to be used as monitoring tool? I've been playing with IIS.Administration (https://github.com/microsoft/IIS.Administration) and it's / was my goal to integrate the JSON output in Zabbix.
I created a virtual machine on azure and tried to connect to it through the WAC using the Server Management option. I tried to connect by providing the public IP address and the DNS but it never asked for my credentials and just complained with the following error:
Connecting to remote server 104.43.228.98 failed with the following error message : WinRM cannot complete the operation. Verify that the specified computer name is valid, that the computer is accessible over the network, and that a firewall exception for the WinRM service is enabled and allows access from this computer. By default, the WinRM firewall exception for public profiles limits access to remote computers within the same local subnet. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
Some advice would be appreciated.
Thanks in Advance,
Marco Urrea
Do you know what happened to the IIS api installers? they have not been updated in github, and the link supplied to https://manage.iis.net/get redirects to myget and there is no way I have found to get to the installers. thanks