Setting Up a Windows Home Server Website : Configuring a Website (part 2) - Setting the Default Content Page, Disabling Anonymous Access

3. Changing the Website Location

The home folder (or home directory, as IIS calls it) that you specified when you created a website isn’t necessarily permanent. You may decide to move a website to a different home folder, or you may decide to rename the existing folder. In either case, you must use IIS Manager to specify the new home folder. Here are the steps to follow:

4. Setting the Default Content Page

A normal website URL looks like the following:

http://name/folder/file

Here, name is a domain name or hostname, folder is a folder path, and file is the filename of the web page or other resource. Here’s an example:

http://server/photos/default.htm

Intriguingly, you can view the same web page by entering the following address into the browser:

http://server/photos/

This works because IIS defines default.htm as one of its default content page filenames. Here are the others:

default.asp
index.htm
index.html
default.aspx

This means that as long as a folder contains a file that uses one of these names, you can view the corresponding page without specifying the filename in the URL.

Note, too, that these default content pages have an assigned priority, with default.htm having the highest priority, followed by default.asp, then index.htm, then index.html, and finally default.aspx. This priority defines the order in which IIS looks for and displays the default content pages. That is, IIS first looks for default.htm; if that file doesn’t exist in a folder, IIS next looks for default.asp, and so on.

For your own websites, you can add new content pages (for example, index.htm and index.asp), remove existing content pages, and change the priority of the content pages. Here are the steps to follow:

1.	Launch IIS Manager.
2.	Open the SERVER, Sites branch (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server PC).
3.	Click the website you want to work with.
4.	Click Features View.
5.	Double-click the Default Document icon. IIS Manager opens the Default Document page, shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. Use the Default Document page to add, remove, and reorder a site’s default content pages. Tip Using a default content page is usually a good idea because it enables users to access your site without knowing the name of any file. However, for security reasons, you might want to allow access to the site only to users who know a specific filename on the site (for example, through a URL that you’ve provided). In that case, you have two choices: either don’t include a file that uses one of the default content page names, or click Disable in the Default Document page (which appears in the Actions pane when no default documents are selected). Either way, be sure to deny directory browsing permission to all users: In the site’s Home page in IIS Manager, double-click the Directory Browsing icon and then make sure this feature is disabled.
6.	To specify a new default content page, click Add to open the Add Default Document dialog box, type the filename, and then click OK. IIS Manager adds the new filename to the Default Document list.
7.	To delete a default content page, select it in the Default Document list and click Remove.
8.	To change the default content page priority order, click the content page you want to work with, and then click either Move Up or Move Down.
9.	Click OK to put the new settings into effect.

6. Disabling Anonymous Access

When you create a new site, IIS Manager allows anonymous access to the site by default. This is desirable for most websites because it enables users to most easily access the site content. IIS provides anonymous access via the IUSR accouπnt, which is a member of the Guest security group, so it has read-only access to the site.

However, you might have a site with content that you want to restrict to people who have user accounts on Windows Home Server. In that case, you need to disable anonymous access for the website and switch to Windows Authentication, which means IIS prompts each user for a username and password before allowing access to the site.

Follow these steps to disable anonymous access:

1.	Launch IIS Manager.
2.	Open the SERVER, Sites branch (where SERVER is the name of your Windows Home Server PC).
3.	Click the website you want to work with.
4.	Click Features View.
5.	Double-click the Authentication icon. IIS Manager displays the Authentication page.
6.	Click Anonymous Authentication, and then click Disable in the Actions pane. IIS Manager disables anonymous access to the site.
7.	Click Windows Authentication, and then click Enable in the Actions pane. IIS Manager enables Windows account access to the site, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. To secure a website, disable anonymous access and enable Windows Authentication.