IIS 7 Backup Strategy

Question

I'm looking for a backup strategy for a Windows 2008 Webserver.

What folders/files need to be backed up to easily restore all IIS 7 settings?

Answer 1

In order to backup IIS configuration data, you can use the command line utility AppCmd.exe. For example, to backup configuration, run the follow command:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe add backup "Backup Name"

This command creates a directory under %windir%\system32\inetsrv\backup. It copies the current configuration files into the backup directory, including applicationHost.config (IIS global configuration), administration.config (Admin Tool's configuration), metabase.xml and mbschema.xml.

Of course, you'll have to transfer these files to a secure place (tape, backup-to-disk, ...) and you'll have to backup the content of your web sites: html, script-files (asp, aspx, ...), images etc.).

Restoring a backup is very simple too. List the backups this way:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list backups

and restore it using this command:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe restore backup "Backup Name"

There is a UI for IIS 7 Manager you can download here.

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By the way: IIS 7 has a feature called "IIS 7.0 Configuration History".