On Linux as mentioned in my previous article it is pretty easy to use the VirtualHost Apache directive etc. to create ServerName and ServerAlias but on IIS Domain multiple alias add too me a while to google.
<VirtualHost *>
ServerName whatevever-server-host.com
ServerAlias www.whatever-server-host.com whatever-server-host.com
</VirtualHost>
In click and pray environments as Winblows, sometimes something rather easy to be done can be really annoying if you are not sure what to do and where to click and you have not passed some of the many cryptic microsoft offered ceritification programs offer for professional sysadmins, I'll name a few of them as to introduce UNIX guys like me to what you might ask a M$ admin during an interview if you want to check his 31337 Windows Sk!lls 🙂
- Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
- Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) –
- Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE)-
- Microsoft Specialist (MS) etc. –
A full list of Microsoft Certifed Professsional program here.
Ok enough of balling.
Here is how to create a domain alias in IIS on Windows server.
Login to your server and click on the START button then ‘Run’¦’, and then type ‘inetmgr.exe’.
Certainly you can go and click trough the Administrative tools section to start ISS manager, but for me this is fastest and easiest way.
Now expand the (local computer), then ‘Web Sites’ and locate the site for which you want to add alias (here it is called additional web site identification).
Right click on the domain and choose ‘Properties’ option at the bottom.
This will open the properties window where you have to choose ‘Web Site’ and then to locate ‘Website identification‘ section. Click on the ‘Advanced’¦’ button which stands next to the IP of the domain.
Advanced Web site identification window (Microsoft likes to see the word ‘Advanced’ in all of the management menus) will be opened, where we are going to add a new domain alias.
Click on the ‘Add’¦’ button and ‘Add/Edit website (alias)identification’ window will appear.
Make sure that you will choose the same IP address from the dropdown menu, then set the port number on which your web server is running (the default is 80), write the domain you want, and click ‘OK’ to create the new domain alias.
Actually click ‘OK’ until you have ‘Advanced Web site identification’ and the domain properties windows closed.
Right click on the domain again and ‘Stop’ and ‘Start’ the service.
This will be enough the IIS domain alias to start working.
Another useful thing for novice IIS admins that come from UNIX is a domain1 to domain2 redirect, this is done with writting an IIS rule which is an interesting but long topic for a limited post as like this, but just for the reference of fun to let you know this exist.
Domain 1 to Domain 2 Redirect
This rule comes handy when you change the name of your site or may be when you need to catch and alias and direct it to your main site. If the new and the old URLs share some elements, then you could just use this rule to have the matching pattern together with the redirect target being
That's all folks, if you enjoyed the clicking laziness you're ready to retrain yourself to become a successful lazy Windows admin who calls Microsoft Support everyday as many of the errors and problems Windows sysadmins experience as I heard from a friend can only be managed by M$ Support (if they can be managed at all).
Yes that's it the great and wonderful life of the avarage sysadmin. Long live computing … it's great! Everyday something broken needs to get fixed everyday something to rethink / relearn / reupdate and restructure or migrate a never ending story of weirdness.
A remark to make, the idea for this post is originated based on a task I had to do long time ago on IIS, the images and the description behind them are taking from a post originally written on Domain Aliasing in IIS originally written by Anthony Gee unfortunately his blog is not available anymore so credits goes to him.
