Microsoft Internet Information Server Case Studies & Practical Application 5

Question 1

A government agency requires that the IIS server only accepts cipher suites approved by NIST. Beyond registry changes, what tool simplifies enforcing approved cipher suite ordering on Windows Server?

Accepted Answer

IIS Crypto (third-party GUI tool) or Group Policy's SSL Cipher Suite Order setting

Answer

Group Policy's SSL Cipher Suite Order under Computer Configuration or tools like IIS Crypto provide a straightforward way to enforce NIST-approved cipher suite ordering on Windows Server.

Question 2

An IIS site is experiencing HTTP 503 errors intermittently. The event log shows 'WAS failed to start worker process for application pool'. What is the most common cause?

Accepted Answer

The application pool identity account password has expired or been changed

Answer

When the application pool identity's account password expires or is reset, WAS cannot launch the worker process, resulting in 503 Service Unavailable errors.

Question 3

A company's IIS-hosted e-commerce site must store uploaded product images outside the web root for security. The ASP.NET application needs to serve these images via a custom handler. What is the cleanest IIS approach?

Accepted Answer

Map a virtual directory in IIS pointing to the external folder and set appropriate permissions

Answer

A virtual directory mapped to an external folder lets IIS serve files outside the web root while the NTFS permissions on that folder control access independently.

Question 4

An administrator is troubleshooting a 404 error for a route that exists in an ASP.NET MVC application. The same route works on the developer's machine running IIS Express. What IIS setting is most likely missing on the server?

Accepted Answer

runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests='true' or a specific ExtensionlessUrl handler mapping in web.config

Answer

IIS Express includes extensionless URL handling by default; full IIS requires runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests or explicit handler mappings for extensionless MVC routes.

Question 5

A DevOps team wants to automate IIS site configuration across 20 servers using infrastructure-as-code principles. Which Microsoft tooling is best suited for this?

Accepted Answer

PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) with the xWebAdministration or WebAdministration DSC resource

Answer

PowerShell DSC with IIS-specific resources declaratively defines and enforces IIS configuration state across all servers, aligning with infrastructure-as-code practices.

Microsoft Internet Information Server Practice Test

Microsoft Internet Information Server Practice Test

Microsoft Internet Information Server Case Studies & Practical Application 5