Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server MCQ 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary function of the IIS Request Filtering module?
- Logging all incoming HTTP requests to a database
- Blocking requests that match defined rules such as blocked verbs or file extensions (Correct answer)
- Compressing request bodies before processing
- Routing requests to different application pools
Correct answer: Blocking requests that match defined rules such as blocked verbs or file extensions
Request Filtering is a security module that rejects requests based on criteria like HTTP verbs, URL length, file extensions, and hidden segments before they reach the application.
Question 2: Which IIS logging format is W3C Extended Log File Format commonly compared to, and what advantage does it offer?
- NCSA format; W3C allows selecting which fields to log (Correct answer)
- IIS format; W3C uses binary encoding for smaller files
- ODBC format; W3C supports database writes
- Centralized binary format; W3C uses UTF-8 encoding
Correct answer: NCSA format; W3C allows selecting which fields to log
W3C Extended format is compared to NCSA Common format; W3C's key advantage is its customizability — administrators choose exactly which fields are written to log files.
Question 3: What does a 502 Bad Gateway error from IIS typically indicate?
- The client sent a malformed HTTP request
- IIS received an invalid response from an upstream server or backend process (Correct answer)
- The requested resource was not found on the server
- The server is configured to deny the client's IP address
Correct answer: IIS received an invalid response from an upstream server or backend process
A 502 error means IIS, acting as a gateway or proxy, received an invalid or incomplete response from the upstream application (e.g., a crashed worker process or ARR backend).
Question 4: In IIS, which feature enables a single server to host multiple websites that share the same IP address and port using different domain names?
- IP-based virtual hosting
- Port-based virtual hosting
- Host header-based virtual hosting (SNI) (Correct answer)
- Application pool isolation
Correct answer: Host header-based virtual hosting (SNI)
Host header-based virtual hosting uses the HTTP Host header (and SNI for HTTPS) to differentiate multiple websites on the same IP:port combination.
Question 5: What is the role of the World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC) in IIS?
- It manages SSL certificate enrollment from Let's Encrypt
- It listens for HTTP/HTTPS requests and routes them to the correct worker process (Correct answer)
- It handles database connection pooling for ASP.NET applications
- It performs scheduled application pool recycling
Correct answer: It listens for HTTP/HTTPS requests and routes them to the correct worker process
W3SVC is the Windows service that accepts incoming HTTP/HTTPS connections and dispatches them to the appropriate worker process (w3wp.exe) via the Windows Process Activation Service.
Question 6: Which IIS feature would you use to offload SSL encryption/decryption to reduce CPU load on backend web servers?
- Dynamic IP Restrictions
- Application Request Routing (ARR) SSL Offloading (Correct answer)
- IIS Crypto
- HTTP Activation
Correct answer: Application Request Routing (ARR) SSL Offloading
Application Request Routing can be configured to terminate SSL at the ARR reverse proxy level and forward plain HTTP to backend servers, offloading cryptographic overhead.
Question 7: When configuring IIS FTP, which authentication mode allows anonymous users to connect without a username and password?
- Basic FTP Authentication
- Anonymous Authentication (Correct answer)
- Client Certificate Mapping
- Windows Authentication
Correct answer: Anonymous Authentication
Anonymous Authentication allows FTP clients to log in with the username 'anonymous' and any string as a password, typically used for public file distribution.
Microsoft Internet Information Server Microsoft Internet Information Server MCQ 3
What is the primary function of the IIS Request Filtering module?