Automatically Resetting IIS5 (on Win2k)

[Rob Veteran]

Hi there.

Running IIS5 on Win2k Professional. Quite frequently, the server stops working and just needs the IISRESET command to be done to get it working again.

is there any tool that can check whether IIS is up and running successfully and if not, run the IISRESET command? I know you can put IISRESET into a batch file which is how I'm quickly resetting it at the mo, but I'd like it to do it automatically if poss.

Cheers for any responses.

[John Veteran]

Do you have any idea why it stops working?

[Rob Veteran]

'fraid not. I was told it was pretty common on Win2k Professional (as opposed to Advanced Server, for example) because it's not really designed to be used as a web server per say.

[cpugeniusmv]

nothing revealing in the event logs?

[Rob Veteran]

Nope. Found my solution tho - quite innovative. Set a batch file in Scheduled Tasks or the Win2k equivilent to be run every hour. It contains the following:

@echo off
Echo Does the Server Need Resetting? ?Let's find out...
Echo --------------------------------------------------
Echo.
c:
CD\Tester
del tester.asp
wget.exe --timeout=30 --tries=1 [url to download]
Echo.
find /C "Tester Text" tester.asp
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 IISRESET /RESTART /TIMEOUT:120 /REBOOTONERROR

The "wget.exe" file is the WGET utility, a small command line utility to grab a file from a server. So basically it tries to download it. if it can't download it, then it assumes the server needs rebooting, and does it. Genius.

[Mattimeo]

Isn't there a way in the services MMC so you can set it up so when it fails, you get to select what happens, like restart service...or restart computer?

[DealsAroundUs]

Interesting, Hope this helps my situation, but I have to run this job every five minutes as i can't effort one hour down time.

Did you checked the Services's "Status", "Startup Type" and "LogonAs"; it shouldn't matter but may focus some light!

[Miuku.]

Although completely unrelated to the issue, why are you running IIS in the first place?

[+BudMan MVC]

Can not afford 5 minutes of down time, but running what sounds like a "critical" site off 2k pro? Ok.. Dude services do not just stop without a reason - nor can I believe no information is available to the reason..

If I had to guess - running off 2k pro, you would be limited to the number of connections. IISreset would clear these connection? That could be a possible reason..

What are the symptoms when this happens? Does the page just stop responding.. is the service actually stopped? what?

I love how people just come to expect that services just "stop" working -- and this is part of every day operation.. So if your car engine just stopped running random while your driving.. no big deal, just restart it ;)

[+chorpeac MVC]

  daPhoenix said:

Although completely unrelated to the issue, why are you running IIS in the first place?

586246278[/snapback]

You run IIS because it comes free with Win2K, Win XP Pro, and Windows 2003 as a webserver to serve normal web pages as well as ASP/ASPX (.NET web sites)

[g33kb0y]

I usually write a vbscript that runs every minute to check whether the "World Wide Web Publishing Service" has entered the 'stopped' state. If so, it will start the service. Otherwise, you could just set a scheduled task to run "iisreset" every x minutes.

Here is a modified version of some scripts I have that may work for you...

Dim WWWServices(4)
WWWServices(1) = "World Wide Web Publishing Service"
WWWServices(2) = "FTP Publishing Service"
WWWServices(3) = "HTTP SSL"
WWWServices(4) = "IIS Admin Service"

strComputer = "." 
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colService = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("SELECT * FROM Win32_Service")
	For each objColService in colService
  strName = objColService.DisplayName
  strState = objColService.State
  'wscript.echo strName & strState
  
  For i = 1 to 11
  	If strName = WWWServices(i) Then
    'wscript.echo strName & strState
    If strState = "Stopped" Then
    	objColService.StartService()
    	
    End If
  	End If
  Next
	Next

Do note that while this may solve the effects of your issue, I think you still need to get to the root of the problem.

[+chorpeac MVC]

  Rob said:

Nope.  Found my solution tho - quite innovative.  Set a batch file in Scheduled Tasks or the Win2k equivilent to be run every hour.  It contains the following:

@echo off
Echo Does the Server Need Resetting? ?Let's find out...
Echo --------------------------------------------------
Echo.
c:
CD\Tester
del tester.asp
wget.exe --timeout=30 --tries=1 [url to download]
Echo.
find /C "Tester Text" tester.asp
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 IISRESET /RESTART /TIMEOUT:120 /REBOOTONERROR 

The "wget.exe" file is the WGET utility, a small command line utility to grab a file from a server.  So basically it tries to download it.  if it can't download it, then it assumes the server needs rebooting, and does it.  Genius.

2267587[/snapback]

Can you explain why you have this "tester.asp" file? Is that the file you are trying to download? And them what is this find command for? I'm just trying to understand the holes here, this looks like a good execution, though the source of your problem should be found.

[D1g1talMan]

  Mattimeo said:

Isn't there a way in the services MMC so you can set it up so when it fails, you get to select what happens, like restart service...or restart computer?

2268022[/snapback]

There is. In "Computer Management", select services, and double click on the IIS service. On the "Recovery" tab, you pick different options for the first, second, and third failures. One of the options is to restart the service.

[maplecookie Veteran]

don't resurrect old threads

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