Internet Information Services (IIS) with Node.js and iisnode

This is a Windows Container image. You can find the Dockerfile on GitHub.

This article is a quick tutorial for running Docker on Windows 10.

Version

Name	Version
microsoft/iis image	10.0.14393.*
iisnode	0.2.21 (x64)
URL Rewrite	2.0 (x64)
Node.js for Windows	8.2.1 (x64)

How to use this image?

Pull this image from Docker Hub

Before pulling, make sure your Docker is running in Windows Container mode.

Run docker pull compulim/iisnode, to pull the image to your local repository.

Prepare your Dockerfile

Add the following to your Dockerfile. It will copies all your files to C:\site and host a new website named "Production Site" on port 8000.

FROM compulim/compulim-info

ADD . /site
RUN powershell -NoProfile -Command Import-module IISAdministration; New-IISSite -Name 'Production Site' -PhysicalPath C:\site -BindingInformation '*:8000:'

EXPOSE 8000

Build your own Docker image

Before running your Docker image in a container, you need to use your Dockerfile to build your own Docker image.

Run docker build -t <your-image-name> <path-to-your-dockerfile>.

If you found Docker is taking long time and sending many unnecessary files to its daemon, you can add a .dockerignore or move your Dockerfile deeper inside your file hierarchy.

Run it on Docker

Run docker run -d -p 8000:8000 --name <your-container-name> <your-image-name>.

This will run the Docker image and expose port 8000.

To expose on host as port 80, replace it with -p 80:8000.

To connect to your web server, first, you need to find out the IP address associated to the container.

Run docker inspect -f "{{ .NetworkSettings.Networks.nat.IPAddress }}" <your-container-name> and it should display the IP address, for example, 172.25.221.24.

Then browse to http://172.25.221.24:8000/.

How to enable Failed Request Tracing?

Failed Request Tracing is one of the very powerful diagnostic tool built into IIS.

In this Docker image, we have already installed "Web-Http-Tracing", which is essential for enabling FREB logs.

There are few more steps to enable Failed Request Tracing and view its logs:

1. Enable Failed Request Tracing for the site
2. Create a tracing rule
3. Copy the log and view it locally

Enable Failed Request Tracing for the site

Run C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe configure trace "Production Site" /enablesite.

It will enable Failed Request Tracing for site named "Production Site". By default, it will write to C:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles\W3SVC0000000000, with up to 50 rolling files.

You can find more information on TechNet.

Create a tracing rule

Add the following to your web.config. The rule will enable logging for all possible combinations.

<tracing>
  <traceFailedRequests>
    <add path="*">
      <traceAreas>
        <add provider="ASP" verbosity="Verbose" />
        <add provider="ASPNET" areas="AppServices,Infrastructure,Module,Page" verbosity="Verbose" />
        <add provider="ISAPI Extension" verbosity="Verbose" />
        <add provider="WWW Server" areas="Authentication,Cache,CGI,Compression,FastCGI,Filter,iisnode,Module,RequestNotifications,Rewrite,Security,StaticFile,WebSocket" verbosity="Verbose" />
      </traceAreas>
      <failureDefinitions statusCodes="200-599" />
    </add>
  </traceFailedRequests>
</tracing>

To find out more providers and areas, you can look them up in C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationhost.config, under /system.webServer/tracing/traceProviderDefinitions.

Copy the log and view it locally

Before you can access the file system in the container, you need to stop the container first. Otherwise, it will show The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (0x20) error.

Run docker cp <your-container-name>:C:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles <local-destination-path> to copy the files to your local drive. The logs need to be translated by XSLT, thus, you need to open them in Internet Explorer.

Contributions

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If you found an issue or suggest a version bump, please file an issue to us.