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How to use Microsoft's IIS Diagnostics Toolkit

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Having issues with a Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server? Want to know what those issues are? You can call an overpriced IIS consultant or troubleshoot it yourself using Microsoft's free IIS Diagnostics Toolkit. But, using it effectively takes practice.

In this resource guide, I offer an overview of the following seven utilities in the IIS Diagnostics Toolkit and provide instructions on how to download and use them:

• SSL Diagnostics 1.0 diagnoses problems related to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) issues, such as missing certificate private keys, incorrect IIS metabase bindings, and other problems related to SSL failures.

• Authentication and Access Control Diagnostics (AuthDiag) 1.0 diagnoses, checks and monitors permission problems and security issues for Web and FTP requests.

• Exchange Server SMTP Diagnostics 1.0 gathers SMTP server data that helps diagnose problems with DNS or other possible important SMTP failures.

• Log Parser 2.2 sifts through thousands of Event Viewer entries, IIS log files, NetMon captures and other log types.

• WFetch 1.4 troubleshoots problems that reside in your Web browser. Its GUI allows you to make a request to local or remote Web sites and see the raw HTTP request and response to diagnose problems.
• Trace Diagnostics Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 can monitor the requests to an IIS Web server in real time, or follow a request throughout the IIS processing pipeline to find failures.
• Debug Diagnostics 1.0 offers both a user interface and command-line for troubleshooting Web application failures like crashes, hangs and memory leaks.For developers, there is also an extensibility model aimed at reducing the time it takes to resolve complex Web application failures.

Inside the IIS Diagnostics Toolkit

 Introduction
 How to install the Microsoft IIS Diagnostics Toolkit
 How to use SSL Diagnostics 1.0
 How to use Authentication and Access Control Diagnostics (AuthDiag) 1.0
 How to use Exchange Server SMTP Diagnostics 1.0
 How to use Log Parser 2.2
 How to use WFetch 1.4
 How to use Trace Diagnostics
 How to use Debug Diagnostics 1.0

About the author: Tim Fenner (MCSE, MCSA: Messaging, Network+ and A+) is a senior systems administrator who oversees a Microsoft Windows, Exchange and Office environment. He is also an independent consultant who specializes in the design, implementation and management of Windows networks.