How to config IIS in Windows XP SP2

Question

Hi everyone, new to IIS. I have two questions:

1. After installing IIS, I straightly wen to my browser and typed in http://127.0.0.1. But a user name and password dialog box pops up and I have no idea what to type in. Why IIS asks this information? How can I remove this asking.

2. I want to put a web service under IIS. The web service is written in C# under .net. Is there any tutorial for this config? I found a tutorial but it is under windows server 2003 and there is an option called web service extension. However, I installed IIS in XP and the UI seems completely different.

FYI, the IIS Management tool I used tells me that it is version 5.

Thank you very much for the help.

Answer 1

[FYI, the question #1 is the kind that is typically better addressed on serverfault.com, I'll answer it as well since it is bundled...]

To resolve 1), i.e. to allow anonymous access to the web site

   - Open the IIS management console 
         Either from Computer management Console, in 'Aervices and Applications' 
         + 'Internet Information Service' 
         or from the control panel + Administrative tools 
         + 'Internet Information Service' 
   - On right pane, navigate to  'Web Sites' + 'Default Web Site'
   - Right Click, select 'Properties' in menu.
         This brings a squarish dialog with 2 rows of 4 tabs each at the top.
   - Select 'Directory Security' tab
   - then in the  top group named 'Anonymous Access and authentication control',
     click 'Edit'
   - The dialog that comes up is where you need to check the Anonymous access, 
     and enter the account credentials for the account which IIS will use, on
     behalf of the anonymous users.  I recommend you create one account for
     this purpose, rather than using yours or some other actual user.

Now, concering 2) i.e. to deploy the web service itself I think you just need to copy the asmx file into the location where you want the web service to run, and the binary files (dlls) to the bin directory. In other words its just like publishing a regular .NET web app, except that the files (referenced in the URI) are named *.asmx. (you can also make this file the default file for the dirctory).

This of course implies that .NET would be installed on thie machine, adn allowed to work (see the '.NET Application" tab of the web properties dialog.

A final bit of advice: You probably will want to install this webservices in its own Web Site (or Web application) and own directory. Refer to serverfault.com for more detail about this type of tasks. There are very many settings, some of which have repercussion on security or performance --> let the pros tell you ;-)