IIS 7.0 Diagnostic Features
How about reading this piece first before posting your Internet Information Services concerns in the forum? You might resolve it by your own! I may start with a joggle of words: “undefined problem is a problem”. It is simply to say that, understanding the problem is more than basic to have the right solution.
Most of our Web server quandaries are grounded on an undetermined nature and cause of the problem. Every so often, we immediately dive into a conclusion without granting the occurrence an opportunity to be diagnosed. Gathering server problem information is challenging, but not it the case of Internet Information Services 7.0 that is endowed by easy-to-use diagnostic features, including Error Pages, and Failed Request Tracing. Besides, by simply disabling the “Show friendly HTTP error messages” setting in the Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab of our Internet Explorer would provide us fundamental information in solving the setback.
This paper will provide us a guide on how to utilize both the Error Pages, and Failed Request Tracing of Internet Information Services 7.0.
Error Pages
1. Let us open our Internet Information Services Manager. Start > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services Manager.
2. Under the IIS Area of a specific Web site, as illustrated below, double-click Error Pages Module.
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3. At the right panel of our Error Pages window, under the Actions section, let us click the Edit Feature Settings. As illustrated below, an Edit Error Pages dialogue box will be opened.
4. In the Edit Error Pages dialogue box, under the Error Responses section, let us select the Detailed Errors option. Not to mention that we could create our own custom error pages and set our Error Responses to Custom Error Pages. Otherwise, we could set it to Detailed Errors for local requests and Custom Error Pages for remote requests.
5. Now, to shoot an HTTP Error 404.0, let us try to browse a non-existing page. An illustrated error page will be displayed. It contains Error Summary, Detailed Error Information, Most Likely Causes, Things You Can Try, and Links and More Information sections.
Failed Request Tracing
1. Let us open our Internet Information Services Manager. Start > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services Manager.
2. Under the IIS Area of a specific Web site, double-click Failed Request Tracing Module. As illustrated below, the Failed Request Tracing Rules window will be displayed.
3. First, we will enable the failed request tracing. To do this, at the right panel of our Failed Request Tracing Rules window, under the Actions section, let us click Edit Site Tracing. A dialogue box will appear. As illustrated below, we will check the Enable checkbox then, let us click OK.
4. Now we will add failed request tracing rule. At the right panel of our Failed Request Tracing Rules window, under the Actions section, let us click Add. As illustrated below, we will be prompted by wizard.
5. Under the Specify Content to Trace window of the wizard, we will select All Contents (*) option. Then, let us click Next.
6. In the Define Trace Condition window, let us check the Status Code(s) checkbox, and write 404 in the corresponding textbox. Then, click let us Next. It obviously means that we will only be tracing HTTP 404 error in this demonstration.
7. For our purpose, we will leave all Providers being checked and being verbose as their Verbosity property in the Select Trace Providers window. Then, we will click Finish. And we are done.
8. Now, we will produce an HTTP 404 error by browsing a non-existing directory from our web site. Then, let us open C:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles\W3SVC4\ directory and we will have our failed request tracing log. Double-click the corresponding XML document and we will have the page that presents the Request Summary, Request Details, and Compact View. Below is the illustration.
