Migrating a Web Server to IIS 5.0

Replicating UNIX-Based Files

You can copy files and directories (directories are also called folders in Windows) from a UNIX-based computer onto disks or tape media, or move them across a network connection by using FTP. To transfer an entire Web directory tree in one file, you can use Tar.exe for concatenating files and directories, compress them with one of several available utilities, and then use recursive FTP to transfer them to Windows 2000 Server. SAMBA is also useful for transferring files between computers running UNIX and Windows operating systems.

You can also copy files across a network by using the Windows 2000 rcp client to access a UNIX computer that’s running the rcp daemon called rshd (Remote Shell Daemon). With rcp you can specify security parameters, as well as recursively copy files and directories between source and destination computers. In this case, the name of the Windows 2000 Server computer must appear in the .rmhosts file on the UNIX computer. For more information, see the “RCP” topic in the Windows 2000 Server online product documentation.

Note Microsoft® MS-DOS and Windows files use a carriage return and line feed character to mark the end of each line, while UNIX files use only a line feed character. The Windows 2000 rcp client automatically makes this conversion for you when run in ASCII transfer mode (the default).

Once the files are copied to Windows 2000 Server, you can separate any concatenated directories and files by using Tar.exe for Win32, or you can use WinZip to separate and uncompress them. WinZip provides built-in support for TAR, gzip, UNIX compress, UUencode, BinHex, and Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). Then you can move the files into the appropriate Web server directory, which is c:\Inetpub\wwwroot by default. For applications, it’s particularly important to retain the original directory structure.

To obtain a public domain copy of Tar.exe for Win32, go to http://www.acs.oakland.edu/ and use the search term “nttar.zip.”

Ws_ftp, a tool that performs recursive FTP, is available at http://www.shareware.com/.

To download an evaluation version of WinZip, see http://www.winzip.com/.

For additional information see Converting UNIX File Names and Pathnames.

Items to Note about Windows File Systems

Here are a few items you might want to note about Windows file systems if you’ve been accustomed to working in a UNIX environment.

On a Windows File Allocation Table (FAT) file system, Write access to a file is equivalent to full access. To protect data shared on a FAT file system, share it as a read-only resource. NTFS provides more security options for protecting data and is generally recommended over FAT. For more information about NTFS security, see the Windows 2000 Server online product documentation.
Because Windows FAT file systems were designed around single-user computers, they don’t support the concept of a file owner or file group. However, the NTFS file system allows you to specify a file owner, which can be either an individual or a group.
Windows file systems do not support file links (symbolic links), but rather use a single-name/single-file concept with no support for multiple directory entries referring to the same file.