Prior to IIS 7,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

's Internet Information Services stores its information in an internal database called the MetaBase. The metabase is an inheritable, hierarchical

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

that allows for configuration of

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

/ HTTPS,

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

, SMTP, and NNTP at the server, the site, or the folder or file level. Different versions of IIS use different formats; prior to IIS version 6 this was always a proprietary format, whereas with 6.0 and later the data is stored in

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

files. The metabase consists of two files, MetaBase.xml and MBSchema.xml, stored in the %SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\ directory. The metabase periodically gets backed up to the MetaBack subdirectory. When Internet Information Service starts, it reads the two metabase files to create an in-memory cache of the web server's configuration, which is referred to as the ''in-memory metabase''. Changes to the IIS configuration via the IIS Manager or programmatic changes get written to the in-memory metabase, then are persisted to the on-disk MetaBase.xml file after a number of changes. Internet Information Services' central metabase is eliminated in IIS version 7 in favor of a set of XML configuration files that are located centrally in the Machine.config and ApplicationHost.config files and within the web site's infrastructure using web.config files. This allows for synchronization of web sites across servers by including all configuration information within the web site's root directory.

Metabase administration

The IIS Manager interface, an MMC-based administration console, is the primary means of modifying the Metabase. IIS also optionally provides a web-based administration console. The XML files are human-readable, and when the ''Allow direct metabase edits'' feature is turned on (not recommended by Microsoft) it can be viewed and edited with simple text editing software like

Notepad A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often Ruled paper, ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, diary, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbook ...

. The Metabase is also programmable through several APIs - Admin Base Objects (ABO), Active Directory Services Interface (ADSI),

Windows Management Instrumentation Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's impl ...

(WMI), and the

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

's System.DirectoryServices and Microsoft.Web.Administration. The Metabase can also be administered using the Metabase Explorer tool which is part of th
Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools

References

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External links

An Introduction to the IIS Metabase

Metabase Configuration
- IIS.net Microsoft server technology