This is a jumble, at the moment – just some random observations from a rank beginner…..I’ll clean it up later.
This presumes you’ve just installed Windows Server 2003 on your computer…
- Set a static IP manually – if you don’t, when you add the Active Directory role your box will be assigned a static IP on a weird subnet.
- Go to Server Manager and choose to add a role. By the way, you’ll need the installation CD in your disc drive for things like this…. Anyway, it will ask you if you want to add a “typical” first server role – the Active Directory. Say yes and just follow the prompts.
- This install will ask you for a domain name and, obviously, you need to pick something which makes sense…..(eg. “smallbusiness.local”, “netkwik.com” – whatever).
- When you’ve done the above, go to Server Manager and choose to add the Application Server role which, basically, is IIS and some associated things (ASP net, etc.).
- Now – to prepare for installing Exchange – go to Add/Remove Programs and go to the Windows Components area. Find Application Server and expand it; go to IIS and expand that; now enable SMTP and NNTP.
- I tinker a lot and I have been running the IIS default website on port 81. DO NOT put the default website on port 81 while installing Exchange. It may not hurt anything but I think it’s best left on port 8o until Exchange is installed.
- I would add a user if, for no other reason, to see what optins are available. Users are managed via the Active Directory Users and Groups menu (assuming you’ve installed the Active Directory).
NOTE: Windows servers have requirements for user passwords which are different than Unix (which allows for any password you choose – for example, “pass”). You can’t do that on Windows. A password must contain a combination of upper and lower case characters and – I think – one or more numerals (I’ll check and update this thing). For instance, you need to use something like: headWAY721. Don’t worry, if you enter a password that doesn’t meet the requirements – of course – it will tell you…..
Be aware that you have to give the following two users significantly loose permissions in order to install things like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, etc.:
IWAM_user-yourcomputername
IUSR_user-yourcomputername
As far as letting people just see these things, after they’re installed, I will need to tinker some more.
To start, stop, or restart the entire server, from a command prompt do the following:
iisreset /start
iisreset /stop
iisreset /restart
Changing ports – as simple as point and click…
One pretty cool feature of IIS 6 is that you can run the damned thing and have sites on all sorts of ports… For instance – if I left this thing running:
