Exploring IIS with PowerShell

I need to write a Web Installer with a bit more complex logic than the standard setup provides, and came across pages like Creating Sites and Virtual Directories Using System.DirectoryServices that deal with .Net classes I have never seen before. (Note: while the page deals with IIS 6, the classes also work on IIS 7 if the IIS 6 Management Compatibility feature is installed)

Trying to figure out what System.DirectoryServices can accomplish, I chose PowerShell to poke around in IIS.

PowerShell needs to be run as administrator, otherwise you will get an “access denied” error (unless you provide login information in the DirectoryEntry constructor)

First, we load the DirectoryServices.dll:

> [system.reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname(
    "System.DirectoryServices.dll")

Next, we can retrieve the IIS service entry using a DirectoryEntry

> $service = new-object system.directoryservices.directoryentry(
    "IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC")
> $service.SchemaClassName
IIsWebService

See this chart for the IIS Admin Object Hierarchy.

The children of the IIsWebService are

> $service.Children | select-object  SchemaClassName, Path, AppRoot
SchemaClassName       Path                                    AppRoot
---------------       ----                                    -------
IIsFilters            IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/FILTERS
IIsApplicationPools   IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/APPPOOLS
IIsWebInfo            IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/INFO
IIsWebServer          IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1                 {}

Let’s get the web server root

> $root = new-object system.directoryservices.directoryentry(
    "IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1/Root")
> $root.Children | select-object  SchemaClassName, Path, AppRoot

SchemaClassName   Path                                    AppRoot
---------------   ----                                    -------
IIsWebVirtualDir  {D:\MyVirtDir}                          {}
IIsWebDirectory   IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1/Root/MyWebApp   {/LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/MyWebApp}

An IIsWebDirectory has a defined AppRoot property, whereas an IIsWebVirtualDir has a file system directory as Path, but no AppRoot.

You can instantiate a DirectoryEntry for both IIsWebDirectory and IIsWebVirtualDir using the value of the ADsPath property:

> $root.Children | select-object  SchemaClassName,  ADsPath, Path
SchemaClassName   ADsPath                                  Path
---------------   -------                                  ----
IIsWebVirtualDir  IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1/Root/MyVirtDir   {D:\MyVirtDir}
IIsWebDirectory   IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1/Root/MyWebApp    IIS://127.0.0.1/W3SVC/1/Root/MyWebApp

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