IIS7 - Hostable Webcore Custom service (HWC)

UPDATED WIKI: Home

Sukesh — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:51:10 GMT

Hostable Web Core (known as HWC) is a new concept in IIS7 to host a website/webservice inside your own process. In short a smaller hosted version of IIS (an IIS7 express edition?).

This is accomplished by making a LoadLibrary call to load hwebcore.dll (%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\inetsrv\hwebcore.dll)

From IIS7 onwards you can administer IIS7 remotely using IIS Manager (through HTTPS). When you connect remotely you are actually connecting to a "Web Management Service" called WMSVC. This service uses HWC so that it's not dependent on IIS7 services directly.

Let's see limitations of HWC (Calling it limitation is wrong so let's say it's by design)

Only one application pool
Only one website/webservice
Separate configuration file
No monitoring like available for IIS7 application pools
Require IIS7 to be installed

PS: Project files are in VS2008 but the application doesn't have any dependency with newer versions.

Ingredients of my WebCoreService.

Good IIS7 configuration file (applicationHost.config) which contains all configuration required to run ASP/ASPX/ASMX... pages
Native Windows Service which host HWC which provides install/uninstall options.

How to RUN the service?

Extract the zip files with source and the binary files.
Follow these steps to setup the service (make sure you are doing this from an elevated command prompt)

Create a folder called "TestPath" inside your "C:\inetpub\" folder
Create 2 folder inside called "wwwroot" and "Logs"

Drop "time.asp" and "time.aspx" pages inside the "wwwroot" folder

Enable event logs notification from the service

Registry location HKEYLOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\WebCoreService
Create a string key "EventMessageFile" and set value as full path to "sample.dll" under the bin folder
Create a DWORD key "TypesSupported" and give value of "00000007"

Goto the folder where the EXE file resides "WebCoreService.EXE"
Install the service using the following command

WebCoreService install

Start the service using the following command

net start WebCoreService

Browse to the page http://localhost:8080/time.asp

Bingo! Hostable webcore service is ready.

All the configuration mentioned above like folder path, port number etc can be modified inside the configuration file "WebCoreService.exe.config"

UPDATED WIKI: Home

Sukesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:32:02 GMT

Only one application pool
Only one website/webservice
Separate configuration file
No monitoring like available for IIS7 application pools
Require IIS7 to be installed

PS: Project files are in VS2008 but the application doesn't have any dependency with newer versions.

Ingredients of my WebCoreService.

Good IIS7 configuration file (applicationHost.config) which contains all configuration required to run ASP/ASPX/ASMX... pages
Native Windows Service which host HWC which provides install/uninstall options . Below is a screenshot to see the options available using command-line

How to RUN the service?

Extract the zip files with source and the binary files.
Follow these steps to setup the service (make sure you are doing this from an elevated command prompt)

Create a folder called "TestPath" inside your "C:\inetpub\" folder
Create 2 folder inside called "wwwroot" and "Logs"

Drop "time.asp" and "time.aspx" pages inside the "wwwroot" folder

Enable event logs notification from the service

Registry location HKEYLOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\WebCoreService
Create a string key "EventMessageFile" and set value as full path to "sample.dll" under the bin folder
Create a DWORD key "TypesSupported" and give value of "00000007"

Goto the folder where the EXE file resides "WebCoreService.EXE"
Install the service using the following command

WebCoreService install

Start the service using the following command

net start WebCoreService

Browse to the page http://localhost:8080/time.asp

Bingo! Hostable webcore service is ready.

All the configuration mentioned above like folder path, port number etc can be modified inside the configuration file "WebCoreService.exe.config"

NEW POST: Your suggestions are welcome

Sukesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:12:22 GMT

Please feel free to comment, discuss or add bugs on Issue Tracker...

UPDATED WIKI: Home

Sukesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:03:12 GMT

Only one application pool
Only one website/webservice
Separate configuration file
No monitoring like available for IIS7 application pools
Require IIS7 to be installed

PS: Project files are in VS2008 but the application doesn't have any dependency with newer versions.

Ingredients of my WebCoreService.

Good IIS7 configuration file (applicationHost.config) which contains all configuration required to run ASP/ASPX/ASMX... pages
Native Windows Service which host HWC which provides install/uninstall options . Below is a screenshot to see the options available using command-line

How to RUN the service?

Extract the zip files with source and the binary files.
Follow these steps to setup the service (make sure you are doing this from an elevated command prompt)

Create a folder called "TestPath" inside your "C:\inetpub\" folder
Create 2 folder inside called "wwwroot" and "Logs"

Drop "time.asp" and "time.aspx" pages inside the "wwwroot" folder

Enable event logs notification from the service

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\WebCoreService
Create a string key "EventMessageFile" and set value as full path to "sample.dll" under the bin folder
Create a DWORD key "TypesSupported" and give value of "00000007"

Goto the folder where the EXE file resides "WebCoreService.EXE"
Install the service using the following command

WebCoreService install

Start the service using the following command

net start WebCoreService

Browse to the page http://localhost:8080/time.asp

Bingo! Hostable webcore service is ready.

All the configuration mentioned above like folder path, port number etc can be modified inside the configuration file "WebCoreService.exe.config"

UPDATED RELEASE: WebCoreService 1.0 (Jan 30, 2008)

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:02:10 GMT

Here is the 1st release and the zip file includes both binary and source.

CREATED RELEASE: First Release (Jan 30, 2008)

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:00:59 GMT

Here is the 1st release and the zip file includes both binary and source.

UPDATED WIKI: Home

Sukesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:57:17 GMT

Only one application pool
Only one website/webservice
Separate configuration file
No monitoring like available for IIS7 application pools
Require IIS7 to be installed

PS: Project files are in VS2008 but the application doesn't have any dependency with newer versions.

Ingredients of my WebCoreService.

Good IIS7 configuration file (applicationHost.config) which contains all configuration required to run ASP/ASPX/ASMX... pages
Native Windows Service which host HWC which provides install/uninstall options . Below is a screenshot to see the options available using command-line

How to RUN the service?

Extract the zip files with source and the binary files.
Follow these steps to setup the service (make sure you are doing this from an elevated command prompt)

Create a folder called "TestPath" inside your "C:\inetpub\" folder
Create 2 folder inside called "wwwroot" and "Logs"

Drop "time.asp" and "time.aspx" pages inside the "wwwroot" folder

Enable event logs notification from the service

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\WebCoreService
Create a string key "EventMessageFile" and set value as full path to "sample.dll" under the bin folder
Create a DWORD key "TypesSupported" and give value of "00000007"

Goto the folder where the EXE file resides "WebCoreService.EXE"
Install the service using the following command

WebCoreService install

Start the service using the following command

net start WebCoreService

Browse to the page http://localhost:8080/time.asp

!Bingo! Hostable webcore service is ready.

All the configuration mentioned above like folder path, port number etc can be modified inside the configuration file "WebCoreService.exe.config"

UPDATED WIKI: Home

Sukesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:42:55 GMT

Hostable Web Core (known as HWC) is a new concept in IIS7 to host a website/webservice inside your own process. In short a smaller hosted version of IIS (an IIS7 express edition?).

This is accomplished by making a LoadLibrary call to load hwebcore.dll (%systemdrive%\Windows\System32\inetsrv\hwebcore.dll)

From IIS7 onwards you can administer IIS7 remotely using IIS Manager (through HTTPS). When you connect remotely you are actually connecting to a "Web Management Service" called WMSVC. This service uses HWC so that it's not dependent on IIS7 services directly.

More information can be found @ my blog here...
http://blogs.msdn.com/sukeshak/archive/2007/12/24/iis7-hosted-web-core-custom-service-webcoreservice.aspx