Q202605: What are the IIS requirements for Active Distribution Servers? – Raynet Support Panel

Question

There are other articles explaining the requirements for IIS on the central administration server (see linked articles below) however these don't mention the requirements for IIS on an Active Distribution Server, what are these?

Answer

IIS6 compatibility is always needed on IIS7 our install scripts still use the old-fashioned IIS6 methods of configuring virtual directories, etc so this is required on all servers running our software through IIS.

For a distribution server, WebDAV is a requirement. It is how we enumerate files on a HTTP share so must always be installed and enabled.
For WebDAV you will need most likely IWA as authentication method on IIS 7 (especially if on a AD domain), see Additional Information below.

There are no other IIS requirements (not even .NET) unless the distribution server is also going to be running the web resolvers, in that case the requirements are similar to the administration server.

Otherwise there is no further special requirements for a distribution server.

Addtional Information

In IIS7 (Introduced in Vista/2008) Microsoft introduced a new policy where anonymous access is no longer permitted for use with WebDAV. If running IIS7 you will have to configure authentication on WebDAV and instructions can be found on this site: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/350/installing-and-configuring-webdav-on-iis/