IIS Common Registry Parameters

Last reviewed: April 22, 1997
Article ID: Q143180
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Internet Information Server version 1.0

SUMMARY

The Internet Information Server contains four registry keys. They are FTP, Gopher, WWW (World Wide Web), and the Internet Information Server (IIS).

The Internet Information Server registry key provides registry parameters and values that are global for the InetInfo process and the server. The registry keys for FTP, Gopher, and WWW use few similar parameters and values, but are used independent of each other.

MORE INFORMATION

The Internet Information servers share a common portion of registry in the following location for InetInfo process. These parameters and their values are used for global control of the Internet Information Server.

The parameter location is under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree under the following subkeys:

   \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\InetInfo\Parameters

BandwidthLevel                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:0xFFFFFFFF
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This specifies the amount of bandwidth on the network the IIS can use. The server comes with an automatic bandwidth throttler which makes intelligent decisions to meet user requirements. This helps reduce overloading the network too much of Gibraltar server activities. For administrators of small corporate servers, where a single server is used for multiple sites, this will help reduce network usage for IIS. It is recommended that this parameter be set from the Internet Server Admin Manager. Otherwise the server should be stopped and restarted for this value to take effect. A special value of 0xFFFFFFFF means no throttling should be done.

MemoryCacheSize                                 REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:3072000 (3MB)
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

IIS server caches system handles, directory listings, and several blobs (Binary Large Objects) of frequently used data to improve performance of the system. This parameter specifies the amount of memory in bytes to allocate for such a cache. This cannot be configured using Admin Manager. When changed, the server must be stopped and restarted for this to take effect. A special value of 0 means do not do any caching. The performance may be low when caching is shut out. Certain sites experiencing high file traffic can increase this size if there is sufficient RAM on the system.

ObjectCacheTTL                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0x7FFFFFFF, 0xFFFFFFFF              Default:10*60(10Minutes)
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

Objects in the Memory Cache will be phased out of the cache if there have been no references to an object after this period. If system memory is limited, a lower TTL may be useful to prevent non-paged memory being used for cached file handles. A value of 0xFFFFFFFF disables the object cache scavenger. Units are in seconds.

UserTokenTTL                                    REG_DWORD Range:  0 -
0x7FFFFFFF                                      Default: 15*60 (10Minutes)
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

When a request is made to the server, the security credentials for the request (or the configured anonymous user) are used to create a user token on the server which the server impersonates when accessing files or other system resources. The token is cached so the NT logon only takes place the first time the user accesses the system or after the user's token has fallen out of the cache. NTLM authentication tokens are not cached. Units are in seconds.

LogFileBatchSize                                REG_DWORD
Range:          0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                  Default:64*1024 (64KB)
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

This specifies the batch size for writing log file. The server caches the last LogFileBatchSize bytes of data in memory buffers before it dumps the current buffer and moves onto the next buffer. Such batch processing reduces the amount of disk traffic created by log files. However, if a site is interested in getting the current-up-to-date log records flushed to disk the batch size can be reduced.

MaxPoolThreads                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:10
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

MaxPoolThreads specifies the number of pool threads to create per processor. Each pool thread watches for the network request and processes the same. Generally it is not good to create more than 20 threads per processor.

MaxConcurrency                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:0
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

MaxConcurrency specifies the amount of concurrency that a system should provide. We use completion ports for handling IO. In general it is not good to have more than one thread running and conflicting on shared memory or locks. This parameter specifies how many threads per processor should be allowed to run simultaneously if there is a pending IO operation. The specific value of 0 allows system to make intelligent choice of the number of threads to use. Any non-zero value specifies that the system should allow that many threads per processor to run simultaneously.

ThreadTimeout                                   REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:24*60*60 (24 hours)
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

ThreadTimeout specifies the amount of time an IO processing thread should be maintained even if there is no IO on the system. In general when there is no IO activity and no requests outstanding, the server is idle and does not consume memory. But if that situation prolongs and exceeds the ThreadTimeout interval, then the thread is killed. Unit is in seconds.

UseAcceptEx                                     REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default:1
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

Starting with NT 3.51 SP2 we have a new facility to listen and establish connections at the server side. AcceptEx() provides a cheap way to accept and receive an initial chunk of data on a new incoming connection. By default the server uses this method to accept new connections. If, for experimental purposes one decides to turn off using this fast IO path, then this value can be set to 0. However, setting to 0 may cause potential performance degradation.

AcceptExOutstanding                             REG_DWORD
Range:  0-1000                                  Default:40
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

When using AcceptEx(), certain number of sockets should be maintained to receive and process new connections. This parameter specifies the number of such outstanding connections to maintain. Whenever the number of outstanding sockets fall below this range, the server adds additional sockets to bring it back to this level.

AcceptExTimeout                                 REG_DWORD
Range:  0-0xFFFFFFFF                            Default:120
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

AcceptExTimeout specifies the time an accept ex socket is allowed to be waiting for a receive to complete, before the server blows away the long- waiting connection. This helps to reduce the number of outstanding sockets and hence conserve the system memory usage. Units is in seconds.

MimeMap                                         Key
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

This is a subkey that contains all the virtual roots for a service.

DebugFlags                                      REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:0
Description:                                    INTERNAL ANALYSIS

DebugFlags specifies the bit mask for selectively enabling different checks in a debug binary of the server common dll (INFOCOMM.DLL). This bit mask applies to the common dll only.

#define DEBUG_ERROR                                     0x00000008L
#define DEBUG_ODBC                                      0x00000010L
#define DEBUG_DLL_RPC                                   0x00000020L
#define DEBUG_GATEWAY                                   0x00010000L
#define DEBUG_INETLOG                                   0x00020000L
#define DEBUG_ATQ                                       0x00040000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_EVENT_LOG                             0x00100000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_SERVICE_INFO                          0x00200000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_SECURITY                              0x00400000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_CONNECTION                            0x00800000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_SOCKETS                               0x01000000L
#define DEBUG_HEAP_FILL                                 0x02000000L
#define DEBUG_HEAP_MSG                                  0x04000000L
#define DEBUG_HEAP_CHECK                                0x08000000L
#define DEBUG_MIME_MAP                                  0x10000000L
#define DEBUG_DLL_VIRTUAL_ROOTS                         0x20000000L

Per Service Registry Parameters

Each of the Internet Information services have per service registry configurations. There are several parameters which have the same name, but different per-service values. The values are used on a per service basis. Below is a description of all such common-named registry parameters applicable to all services followed by service specific registry parameters.

Commonly Named Per Service Parameters

The parameters are located under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree under the following subkey:

   \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\<ServiceName>\Parameters

where <ServiceName> is:

   MSFTPSVC                                FTP Service
   GOPHERSVC                               Gopher Service
   W3SVC                                   HTTP Service

AdminName                                       REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:Administrator
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

AdminName specifies the user friendly administrator name. Gopher service uses this name to send back responses for Gopher queries. It also serves as a way of identifying who owns a service using IIS manager.

AdminEmail                                      REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:Admin@corp.com
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

AdminEmail specifies the email address for administrator of a particular service. Gopher service uses this name to send back responses for Gopher+ queries. It also serves as a way of identifying who owns a service using IIS manager.

ServerComment                                   REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default: ""
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

Specifies a user-friendly comment for a service. This information is supplied to the IIS manager and is used to add configurable comment about a server.

EnableSvcLoc                                    REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default:1
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

IIS Services register themselves with a service locator so the service can be discovered by administrative utility and clients. This parameter controls such registration. If it is set to 0, then the service will forego registration of the service. Otherwise, it registers the service for service location. Administrators planning on having a private server should consider setting the value of this parameter to 0.

AllowAnonymous                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default: 1
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This flag specifies if an anonymous user should be allowed to connect and make a request to the server. By nature, most Internet protocols allow anonymous connections to access a limited set of files. Hence, it is essential to permit anonymous connections.

AnonymousOnly                                   REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default: 0
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

AnonymousOnly specifies if only anonymous connection should be permitted. If this flag is turned on no non-anonymous connections are permitted (especially true of FTP server).

AnonymousUserName                               REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default: Guest
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

AnonymousUserName specifies the name of the local user account to use for anonymous users. Server impersonates as a particular user to access the files so that the file system security model is leveraged. This parameter should not be changed by itself. It should be configured using the IIS Admin Manager so that the appropriate password can also be set. The password is stored in a protected area in the registry.

ConnectionTimeOut                               REG_DWORD
Range:  0-0xFFFFFFFF                            Default: 600 seconds
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

Specifies the time the server should hold on to a connection when there is no activity on the same. Server automatically disconnects long hanging connections. Units: seconds.

LogAnonymous                                    REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default: 1
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

This flag controls if a log record should be written for anonymous connections. If set to 0, no log records are written for anonymous connections.

LogNonAnonymous                                 REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1                                    Default: 1
Description:                                    CONFIGURABLE

This flag controls if a log record should be written for non-anonymous connections. If set to 0, no log records are written for non-anonymous connections. Only FTP and HTTP services have non-anonymous user support.

LogFileDirectory                  REG_EXPAND_SZ
Range:  String                    Default: %systemroot%\system32\logfiles
Description:                      ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This string specifies the directory in which log files are to be stored. Each service generates a log record for each request processed.

LogFilePeriod                                   REG_DWORD
Range:  0,1,2,3                                 Default: 1
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This specifies an internal value for request logging module. The value specifies the type of log files to be produced.

0 No period. The logfile size is limited to LogFileTruncateSize bytes. 1 Open a new log file each day - Daily 2 Open a new log file every week - Weekly 3 Open a new log file every month - Monthly

LogFileTruncateSize                             REG_DWORD
Range:  0-0xFFFFFFFF                            Default: 4,000,000,000
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This value specifies the maximum size of each log file generated. Once this size is reached, the logging module automatically opens a new log file. A special value of 0 means do not truncate.

LogSqlDataSources                               REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:""
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This string specifies the name of the ODBC data source to use for sending the request logs for the service to a SQL compatible database system. This data source should be a system DSN in the ODBC installation on server machine.

LogSqlTableName                                 REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:""
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This string specifies the name of the ODBC table name use for sending the request logs for the service to a SQL compatible database system. The table should be created by the administrator as per the specification provided with the services. The user should also have proper access permissions to insert into table.

LogSqlUserName                                  REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:""
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This string specifies the user name to use for talking to the ODBC data source specified for ODBC based logging. This user should be a valid user on the database system to which the LogSqlDataSource is pointing to.

LogSqlPassword                                  REG_SZ
Range:  String                                  Default:""
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This string specifies the password to establishing an ODBC connection for a particular user account on the ODBC data source. Currently the password is stored as a clear text. This may change in the future.

LogType                                         REG_DWORD
Range:  0, 1, 2                                 Default:1
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This value specifies the type of logging desired. The type specifies the destination of log files.

0       No logging
1       Log to files
2       Log to ODBC data source

MaxConnections                                  REG_DWORD
Range:  0 - 0xFFFFFFFF                          Default:1000
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This value specifies maximum number of simultaneous connections that server allows at any given time. When the number of current connections exceeds this value, the service rejects the request. It sends a friendly message if possible.

VirtualRoots                                    Key
Description:                                    ADMIN CONFIGURABLE

This is a subkey that contains all the virtual roots for a service.


Additional query words: prodiis
Keywords : iisregistry kbusage
Version : 1.0
Platform : WINDOWS


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Last reviewed: April 22, 1997
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