Server Core 2008R2 WMSVC service will not start

Question

I configured an IIS server on Server Core 2008 R2. I am now trying to configure remote management so I can manage the IIS server using the iIS manager on another PC in the domain.

Whenever I try to start the service, I get the following error:

C:\Users\Administrator>net start wmsvc
The Web Management Service service is starting.
The Web Management Service service could not be started.

A service specific error occurred: 2147483656.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 3547.

I have researched this error and in every case it appears to be related to the SSL certificates. I do have a custom SSL certificate installed on the server which was installed using certutil. I followed some instructions I found to properly assign the installed SSL certificate to the port 8172 IIS listener. This has not helped at all.

Unlike other posts I have found online, I have NO entries in the Event Viewer on the machine other than the ones from the Service Control manager. There are NO errors about the hostable Web core or about certificates at all. The only event I have is this:

The Web Management Service service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147483640.

I have tried enabling WMSVC tracing as detailed on Microsoft's site but this does not produce any log file at all, I'm guessing this is more to trace errors that occur while the service is running.

This post references the same error: IIS Web Management Service not working Error 2147483640

However I cannot follow the steps in that post as I am on Server Core, so all I have is the command line. I do have other remote management to the machine working (i.e. Server Manager) but I can't do anything with IIS because WMSVC will not start. Since the service will not even start and I have no logs to refer to, I am stumped as to what to do now.

Does anyone have any further steps to troubleshoot?

Answer 1

I no longer have a 2008 R2 server, but I would check the following registry entries:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WebManagement\Server\SslCertificateHash
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters\SslBindingInfo\0.0.0.0:8172\SslCertHash

they should both have the thumbprint of your certificate.

also make sure:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters\SslBindingInfo\0.0.0.0:8172\SslCertStoreName exists as a REG_SZ and has a value of MY

regedit.exe works fine on Server Core

Answer 2

I tried the above and it did not fix the problem.

I ended up completely removing IIS and reinstalling it using the appropriate ocsetup commands.

This is far, far from the "right" way to fix it. But after doing so everything is working again. Given that this is an internal development testing server, this isn't a huge deal. I could only imagine the headaches if the server were in production though...