Iis – How to import an IIS 6 metabase into iis7

iisiis-6iis-7.5metabase

Before my Windows 2003 box died, I made backups of the Metabase history as well as exported a backup to an MDO file.

I would like to import the entire file into IIS7 so that I don't have to re-create all of the site/domains and app pools manually.

Is there a tool or powershell command that will do this easily?

MSDeploy is not an option as the 2003 server is gone.

Best Answer

Unfortunately there isn't a handy tool available where you can point it at an IIS6 metabase backup and tell it to reconstruct your sites and settings.

Your options are a bit limited:

  • build a new Windows 2003/IIS6 server and restore from metabase backup. Once done export to IIS7 using msdeploy.

  • write a script to parse the .MD0 file (it's just XML) and rebuild your sites on IIS7. This does require a reasonable amount of knowledge about IIS6'S metabase structure and how to use IIS7's API's; however it is quite well documented.

Further reading:

IIS6 Metabase Properties

IIS 7 How to Use Microsoft.Web.Administration

IIS 7 Configuration Reference

If you only have a handful of sites then it might just be quicker to bite the bullet and recreate them manually in IIS7 MMC.