Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What does the 'maxProcesses' setting in an IIS application pool control?
- The maximum CPU usage allowed per worker process
- The number of worker processes (w3wp.exe) that can run simultaneously for the pool (Correct answer)
- The maximum number of concurrent requests per pool
- The maximum number of application pools on the server
Correct answer: The number of worker processes (w3wp.exe) that can run simultaneously for the pool
maxProcesses sets how many w3wp.exe worker processes the application pool can spawn; setting it above 1 enables a Web Garden.
Question 2: Which IIS feature allows you to serve different content or redirect requests based on whether the client supports a specific HTTP header or browser type?
- URL Rewrite with server variable conditions (Correct answer)
- MIME Type Mapping
- Custom Error Pages
- Wildcard Script Maps
Correct answer: URL Rewrite with server variable conditions
URL Rewrite rules can inspect server variables including HTTP headers like User-Agent to conditionally rewrite or redirect requests.
Question 3: In IIS logging, which log format is enabled by default and logs fields such as date, time, client IP, method, URI, and status code?
- NCSA Common Log Format
- IIS Log File Format
- W3C Extended Log File Format (Correct answer)
- ODBC Logging
Correct answer: W3C Extended Log File Format
W3C Extended Log File Format is the IIS default; it is flexible, allowing you to choose which fields are logged.
Question 4: What happens to queued requests when an IIS application pool recycles?
- All queued requests are immediately dropped with a 503 error
- The old worker process finishes serving active requests while the new one handles incoming requests (overlapped recycle) (Correct answer)
- All requests pause until the new worker process is fully started
- IIS returns a 302 redirect to clients during recycle
Correct answer: The old worker process finishes serving active requests while the new one handles incoming requests (overlapped recycle)
By default, IIS performs an overlapped recycle where the old w3wp.exe handles existing requests while a new one starts for incoming ones.
Question 5: Which IIS module is responsible for serving classic ASP (not ASP.NET) pages, processing .asp files?
- ISAPI Extensions Module
- ASP Module (Correct answer)
- FastCGI Module
- CGI Module
Correct answer: ASP Module
The ASP Module (asp.dll) handles the processing of classic .asp files and must be explicitly installed as an IIS role service.
Question 6: When configuring SSL in IIS, what does 'Require SSL' combined with 'Require 128-bit SSL' enforce?
- Only TLS 1.3 connections are accepted
- HTTPS must be used and the cipher strength must be at least 128 bits (Correct answer)
- Client certificates must be present and use 128-bit keys
- HTTP requests are silently upgraded to HTTPS
Correct answer: HTTPS must be used and the cipher strength must be at least 128 bits
Requiring SSL forces HTTPS, and the 128-bit requirement ensures the negotiated cipher suite provides at least 128-bit encryption strength.
Question 7: What is the IIS 'output caching' feature primarily used for?
- Caching DNS lookups for backend servers
- Storing rendered responses in memory or disk to serve repeat requests without re-executing the application (Correct answer)
- Caching SSL session tickets to speed up TLS handshakes
- Pre-compiling ASP.NET pages at server start
Correct answer: Storing rendered responses in memory or disk to serve repeat requests without re-executing the application
Output caching stores the full HTTP response for a URL so subsequent identical requests are served from cache, bypassing application processing.
Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server 4
What does the 'maxProcesses' setting in an IIS application pool control?