Introduction
Microsoft has created a new FTP service that has been completely rewritten for Windows Server® 2008. This new FTP service incorporates many new features that enable web authors to publish content better than before, and offers web administrators more security and deployment options.
- Integration with IIS 7.0: IIS 7.0 has a brand-new administration interface and configuration store, and the new FTP service is tightly integrated with this new design. The old IIS 6.0 metabase is gone, and a new configuration store that is based on the .NET XML-based *.config format has taken its place. In addition, IIS 7.0 has a new administration tool, and the new FTP server plugs seamlessly into that paradigm.
- Support for new Internet standards: One of the most significant features in the new FTP server is support for FTP over SSL. The new FTP server also supports other Internet improvements such as UTF8 and IPv6.
- Shared hosting improvements: By fully integrating into IIS 7.0, the new FTP server makes it possible to host FTP and Web content from the same site by simply adding an FTP binding to an existing Web site. In addition, the FTP server now has virtual host name support, making it possible to host multiple FTP sites on the same IP address. The new FTP server also has improved user isolation, now making it possible to isolate users through per-user virtual directories.
- Custom authentication providers: The new FTP server supports authentication using non-Windows accounts for IIS Managers and .NET Membership.
- Improved logging support: FTP logging has been enhanced to include all FTP-related traffic, unique tracking for FTP sessions, FTP sub-statuses, additional detail fields in FTP logs, and much more.
- New supportability features: IIS 7.0 has a new option to display detailed error messages for local users, and the FTP server supports this by providing detailed error responses when logging on locally to an FTP server. The FTP server also logs detailed information using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), which provides additional detailed information for troubleshooting.
Additional information about new features in FTP7 is available in the "What's New for Microsoft and FTP?" topic on Microsoft's http://www.iis.net/ web site.
This document will walk you through installing the new FTP service and troubleshooting installation issues.
Prerequisites
The following items are required to complete the procedures in this topic:
- You must be using Windows Server 2008.
- Internet Information Services 7.0 must be installed.
- If you are going to manage the new FTP server using the IIS 7.0 user interface, the administration tool will need to be installed.
- You must install the new FTP server as an administrator. (See the Downloading and Installing section for more.)
- IIS 7.0 supports a new shared configuration environment, which must be disabled on each server in a web farm before installing the new FTP server for each node. Note: Shared configuration can be re-enabled after the FTP server had been installed.
- The FTP server that is shipped on the Windows Server 2008 DVD must be uninstalled before installing the new FTP server.
Downloading and Installing FTP7
Downloading the right version for your server
There are two separate downloadable packages for the new FTP server; you will need to download the appropriate package for your version of Windows Server 2008:
- 32-bit Installation Package:
- 64-bit Installation Package:
Launching the installation package
You will need to run the installation package as an administrator. This can be accomplished by one of the following methods:
- Logging in to your server using the actual account named "Administrator", then browsing to the download pages listed above or double-clicking the download package if you have saved it to your server.
- Logging on using an account with administrator privileges and opening a command-prompt by right-clicking the Command Prompt menu item that is located in the Accessories menu for Windows programs and selecting "Run as administrator", then typing the appropriate command listed below for your version of Windows to run the installation:
- 32-bit Windows Versions:
- msiexec /i ftp7_x86_rtw.msi
- 64-bit Windows Versions:
- msiexec /i ftp7_x64_rtw.msi
Note: One of the above steps is required because the User Account Control (UAC) security component in the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems prevents access to your applicationHost.config file. For more information about UAC, please see the following documentation:
The following steps walk you through all of the required settings to add FTP publishing for the Default Web Site.
Walking through the installation process
- When the installation package opens, you should see the following screen. Click Next to continue.
- On the next screen, click the I accept check box if you agree to the license terms, and then click Next.
- The following screen lists the installation options. Choose which options you want installed from the list, and then click Next.
- Common files: this option includes the schema file. When installing in a shared server environment, each server in the web farm will need to have this option installed.
- FTP 7.0 Publishing Service: this option includes the core components of the FTP service. This option is required for the FTP service to be installed on the server.
- Managed Code Support: this is an optional component, but features that use managed extensibility require this option before using them, such as ASP.NET and IIS manager authentication. Note: This feature cannot be installed on Windows Server 2008 Core.
- Administration Features: this option installs the FTP7 management user interface. This requires the IIS 7.0 manager and .NET framework 2.0 to be installed. Note: This feature cannot be installed on Windows Server 2008 Core.
- On the following screen, click Install to begin installing the options that you chose on the previous screen.
- When installation has completed, click Read notes to view the FTP README file, or click Finish to close the installation dialog.
Note: If an error occurs during installation, you should see the error dialog that is listed in the Troubleshooting Installation Issues section of this document.
Troubleshooting Installation Issues
Installation Failures
When the installation of FTP7 fails for some reason, you should see a dialog similar to the following displayed:
Clicking the "Installation log" button will open the MSI installation log that was created during the installation. You can also manually enable installation logging by running the appropriate command listed below for your version of Windows. This will create a log file that will contain information about the installation process:
- 32-bit Windows Versions:
- msiexec /L ftp7.log /I ftp7_x86_rtw.msi
- 64-bit Windows Versions:
- msiexec /L ftp7.log /I ftp7_x64_rtw.msi
You can analyze this log file after a failed installation to help determine the cause of the failure.
Clicking the "Online information" button will launch the "Installing and Troubleshooting FTP7" document in your web browser.
Installing on an older version of Windows
If you attempt to install the new version of the FTP service on an operating system that is older than Windows Server 2008, you will see the following error:
Known Issues in This Release
The following issues are known to exist in this release:
- The FTP service that is shipped on the Windows Server 2008 DVD should not be installed after the new FTP service has been installed. The old FTP service does not detect that the new FTP service has been installed, and running both FTP services at the same may cause port conflicts.
- While Web-based features can be delegated to remote managers and added to web.config files using the new IIS 7.0 configuration infrastructure, FTP features cannot be delegated or stored in web.config files.
- IIS 7.0 can be uninstalled after the new FTP service has been installed, and this will cause the new FTP service to fail. If IIS is reinstalled, new copies of the IIS configuration files will be created and the new FTP service will continue to fail because the configuration information for the new FTP service is no longer in the IIS configuration files. To fix this problem, re-run the setup for the new FTP service and choose "Repair".
- The icon of a combined Web/FTP site may be marked with a question mark even though the site is currently started with no error. This occurs when a site has a mixture of HTTP/FTP bindings.
- After adding an FTP publishing to a Web site, clicking the site's node in the tree view of the IIS 7.0 management tool may not display the FTP icons. To work around this issue, use one of the following:
- Hit F5 to refresh the IIS 7.0 management tool.
- Click on the Sites node, then double-click on the site name.
- Close and re-open the IIS 7.0 management tool.
- When you add a custom provider in the site defaults, it shows up under each site. However, if you attempt to remove or modify the settings for a custom provider at the site-level, IIS creates an empty <providers /> section for the site, but the resulting configuration for each site does not change. For example, if the custom provider is enabled in the site defaults, you cannot disable it at the site-level. To work around this problem, open your applicationHost.config file as an administrator and add a <clear/> element to the list of custom authentication providers, the manually add the custom provider to your settings. For example, in order to add the IIS Manager custom authentication provider, you would add settings like the following example:
<ftpServer>
<security>
<authentication>
<customAuthentication>
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="IisManagerAuth" enabled="true" />
</providers>
</customAuthentication>
</authentication>
</security>
</ftpServer>
Getting Started with FTP7
In order to help get started using the new FTP server, the following walkthroughs have been published on Microsoft's http://www.iis.net/ web site:
- Working with FTP Sites:
- Configuring Security Features:
- Advanced Administrative Features:
In addition to these documents, the help file for the new FTP server contains a great deal of information regarding the use and administration of the new FTP server. To open the help file, open one of the FTP features in the IIS manager and click the "Help" item in the "Actions" pane.
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