Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which IIS configuration section controls which file extensions are blocked or allowed by the server's Request Filtering feature?
- <hiddenSegments>
- <fileExtensions> (Correct answer)
- <verbs>
- <denyUrlSequences>
Correct answer: <fileExtensions>
The <fileExtensions> element within Request Filtering lets you allow or deny requests for files with specific extensions.
Question 2: In IIS, what is the role of the 'Web Deployment Tool' (Web Deploy / MSDeploy)?
- It monitors IIS worker process health and restarts failed processes
- It synchronizes web applications, databases, and IIS configuration between servers or from local to remote (Correct answer)
- It generates SSL certificates for IIS websites
- It provides real-time performance counters for IIS
Correct answer: It synchronizes web applications, databases, and IIS configuration between servers or from local to remote
Web Deploy (MSDeploy) packages and deploys web applications along with their IIS configuration, content, and database changes to target servers.
Question 3: What does configuring 'Client Certificate Mapping Authentication' in IIS accomplish?
- It maps Windows user accounts to specific SSL client certificates for mutual TLS authentication (Correct answer)
- It maps IP addresses to SSL certificates for SNI
- It automatically renews client certificates before expiry
- It restricts site access to clients within a specific certificate authority
Correct answer: It maps Windows user accounts to specific SSL client certificates for mutual TLS authentication
Client Certificate Mapping Authentication maps individual X.509 client certificates to Windows accounts, enabling mutual TLS-based user authentication.
Question 4: Which performance counter would you monitor to identify if an IIS application pool is experiencing high request queue depth?
- Web Service\Bytes Sent/sec
- W3SVC_W3WP\Active Requests
- ASP.NET\Requests Queued (Correct answer)
- HTTP Service Request Queues\ArrivalRate
Correct answer: ASP.NET\Requests Queued
ASP.NET\Requests Queued shows the number of requests waiting to be processed, indicating backpressure on the application.
Question 5: What is the purpose of 'SNI (Server Name Indication)' in IIS SSL binding configuration?
- It allows a single IP address to host multiple HTTPS sites with different SSL certificates (Correct answer)
- It enables HTTP/2 multiplexing over a single connection
- It combines multiple SSL certificates into one binding for load balancing
- It automatically selects the strongest cipher suite for each client
Correct answer: It allows a single IP address to host multiple HTTPS sites with different SSL certificates
SNI allows the client to specify the hostname during TLS handshake, enabling IIS to select the correct certificate for multiple HTTPS sites on one IP.
Question 6: Which IIS feature would you configure to enforce that HTTP requests are automatically redirected to HTTPS without modifying application code?
- Custom Error Pages
- URL Rewrite with an HTTPS redirect rule (Correct answer)
- Request Filtering deny HTTP verbs
- SSL Settings with Require SSL only
Correct answer: URL Rewrite with an HTTPS redirect rule
A URL Rewrite rule can detect HTTP requests (HTTPS off) and issue a 301/302 redirect to the equivalent HTTPS URL automatically.
Question 7: In IIS application pool settings, what does enabling '32-bit Applications' do on a 64-bit server?
- Forces the pool to use only 32-bit SSL ciphers
- Runs the w3wp.exe worker process in 32-bit mode, allowing 32-bit native DLLs and ISAPI extensions to load (Correct answer)
- Limits the pool to 32 concurrent connections
- Disables access to more than 4 GB of RAM for that pool
Correct answer: Runs the w3wp.exe worker process in 32-bit mode, allowing 32-bit native DLLs and ISAPI extensions to load
Enabling 32-bit applications forces the w3wp.exe process to run as a 32-bit process, which is required for legacy 32-bit COM components or ISAPI filters.
Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server 5
Which IIS configuration section controls which file extensions are blocked or allowed by the server's Request Filtering feature?