IIS Test Server From Existing IIS Server with Joomla - iis

I am in a situation where the current web server is a production environment and there is no development environment. It is running Joomla on an IIS Web Server and is an Intranet site with all of the security, IP restrictions, Certificates, and whatever else required to run an enterprise level Intranet site.
I am wondering what I can do to set up a development environment to work within (preferably using some type of version control).
I have full reign over the IIS server, and I have had a co-worker set up a VM clone of the current system to work with, however the security is making it difficult to work with and set up.
I would like to not use Visual Studio as I don't believe I have a license for it; however I can get it if need be. I would like to stick with Notepad++ if at all possible.
Thank you.

If you're wanting to literally take the site content out and be able to edit and work without any of the security restrictions of the production environment, there's a couple of ways you could do it. However, it's going to depend on what DB the system is running with.
Joomla, regardless of what web platform it is running on, is coded in PHP, so you don't have to worry about getting visual studio. You can use Notepad++ as normal.
Option 1 - IIS Clone
If you can take a SQL backup of the database, you build a from-scratch box with IIS. You'd need to add the PHP drivers to IIS to do this. Go to Microsoft's site for more info:
PHP for IIS
Option 2 - Apache Port
You can make an Apache box using WAMP to run, if you're using a Windows machine. PHP is PHP, on any platform, so it should work without modification.
The tricky bit will be the database, depending on your situation. If the database is MySQL, you can import your database backup and be good to go, after changing the config files for the Joomla site.
If the site used MSSQL, it's a little trickier. You'll need to install an MSSQL PHP plugin to get this medthod to work. There's plenty of instructions online on how to do this, it's a case of finding the right one for your implementation.

Related

Connecting Lucee v5.3.8.201 and IIS10.0.19041

I'm trying to convert web sites from Adobe ColdFusion (ACF) to the open source Lucee instead.
My issue is to make sure all my previous ACF work runs without error in Lucee before I upload it to the web. I have been able to install Lucee (v5.3.8.201) with Tomcat9, BonCodeAJP13 and Mod_CFML which I've been assured is what I need to have it all working together so I can test my sites (11 of them at the moment).
However I have some problems that I can't seem to find an answer to. The docs don't cover using a PC as a dev machine if it has multiple web sites on it. And IIS is the old version that's still used in Windows Server not Windows 10.
How do I get to the Lucee administrator What's the address for that? I need that to set up datasources for my sites of they're going to fail on the very first page.
How do I actually make sites defined in IIS10 work through Lucee? I have run the connector and TomCat is running, but the browser doesn't recognise any Lucee pages except the initial "Welcome to Lucee" page.

IIS is serving but not executing classic asp script

I wrote a classic ASP script (.asp) for a customer a while back. it was running on IIS v6.1 Windows 2003. The customer contacted me and said they had a catastrophic server failure and restored from backup but my script isn't running now. I logged onto their server to check it out and IIS is serving the file (I am prompted to save when I browse to the script) but not executing the script.
Several people's hands were in the server before they called me, I think this is probably a simple config setting someone tried before they figured out how to enable the "ASP" web server roll feature. But for the life of me I can't figure out how they did it. this is obviously not the default behavior. If I was trying to get this behavior I would add the .asp extension to the MIME types, but I checked and it isn't there.
What could cause IIS to serve the source of the ASP script without executing it?
Based on your question I am assuming your restored server is also windows server 2003 ... in that case you will go to the file\folder and the permissions and select execute permission to enable a server side script processor to handle that request. Been almost a decade that I have touched a 2003 server so I can’t give you the exact steps ... but, you want to enable script permissions on that folder(I think, don’t remember if it’s granular enough to drill down to a file). Also, why on earth are they still running server 2003? Is that version even supported yet?
If it’s IIS 7, you want to make sure your app pool is in Classic ASP mode first off. Then go to site and then the handler mapping section, click edit and configure it that way.

Switch ColdFusion 11 from built in web server to IIS

I originally installed ColdFusion 11 in a local environment (windows 7) and selected "Use built in web server". Everything was working pretty good. Now months later, I realize I need to use a real web server for URL rewrites (Apache, IIS, etc) but there is no documentation I can find on how to do so.
I have attempted looking through the administrator's panel for any information, but couldn't even get a jumping off point. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
First, it sounds like you need to decide which web server you want/need to use and that could be determined by where you'll end up hosting your site. CF code is quite portable but if you're doing URL rewrites, file system access, etc... then you need to code those to match the production environment, otherwise you might find yourself having to rewrite and retest all that again.
As commented above, a lot of information about configuring CF for web servers is available by searching. You'll first need to install & configure your web server, so search around that first. Then you'll need to configure the web server to understand which requests to pass to ColdFusion's engine.
If it's IIS then you need to make sure IIS is installed and the following components are installed: ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters, CGI, ASP .NET
Then configure an IIS site to point to your CF code and after that use the "Web Server Configuration Tool" application (installed with CF) that will associate the relevant file types with ColdFusion.
Most of the time it's as simple as that.

Multiple environments using WAMP server

wondering if you can help me with the following.
I have a new server in my office, with Windows Server 2008 R2, i have 2 developers working here now, i have just installed WAMP on the server and running, i would like that each of the devs to have their own instance in the wamp, i mean if within www i have N quantity of Projects.
Programmer A gets access to some projects only, also the Databases.
At this point i know how to setup the wamp to be accessed in the LAN using Vhosts, but i have no clue how to setup specific privileges.
Could not find anything on the web on that issue.
Can I suggest another method.
As WAMPServer is intended as a developers tool anyway, you install WAMPServer on each developers PC. You make sure the config on all PC's is the same as the Server version.
For an existing project i.e maintenance/upgrade you give them the source and a database backup. They develop this locally and when its ready you take the source and a database backup to your WAMPServer on the Server.
For a new project, they develop it locally and then when its ready you move the project to the Server.
This would be much simpler and would leave the Server version for UAT or LIVE, whatever you are using it for.
Of course there are better solutions involving source management etc, but as a fairly simple and low maintenance solution, this would work.

Advice Needed: Deploying application to IIS - Can this be fully automated?

I am seeking advice: Ideally, I would like to give an Administrator (of the web server) one file (.exe, .msi, .bat, whatever you suggest), so that when they execute the package, it will setup my application (contains .aspx, .xap silverlight, web service .svc, etc.) on IIS. This will include and certainly not be limited to such things in the IIS Manager, like creating a virtual directory, path, default document, security, and all of the IIS settings one finds via inetmgr and properties. I would also maybe like to run a .bat file (not sure if this correct), but to check for certain settings and pinging other servers for status.
Many years ago, I used to automate everything and used concepts like .bat files - got the job done and it was amazing what I could do. Fast forward a couple of years now and am approaching the automation process again. I wanted to know if there is anything new out there.
Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated!
It's quite a bit of a learning curve but yes, WiX / InstallShield / MSI can do this. I've done installers for n-Tier / SOA systems including single tenant SaaS where you could run the application layer installer dozens of times creating new instances running on different host headers or ports pointed to different data layers and different configuration settings. You could then do the same for the WebUI pointing to which ever application layer you want.
Basically whether it's instaling .NET, setting up vDir / AppPools / WebSites / Extensions, reading and writing XML config files, executing SQL scripts, creating services and so on it can all be done... if you take the time to learn it all. Deployment Engineering is a bigger domain then it first appears to be.
As for .BAT, that's bad form. First you work to leverage native capabilities before writing custom actions. Then when you do have to write one, you design it to be declarative and transactional ( install, uninstall, rollback, commit ). WiX has a really nice framework called DTF that allows you to encapsulate C# classes as if they were C++ from MSI's perspective and provides a nice interop library needed to talk to MSI during the install.
Visual Studio has a Web Setup Package project you can use for this.

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