How To Configure Default Site in IIS Server 2019

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This is a continuation of Install and Configure IIS Web Server on Windows Server 2019 guide. We are going to use the default site by getting to know where its document root is and how to host a simple website within it. This way, you can easily upload your files and kick your site off without much fuss and configuration.

To configure the default site in IIS, follow the steps below.

1- Open your server manager and click on the tools option and choose the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

Open IIS Manager by opening “Server Manager“, clicking on “Tools” and choosing “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager” from the drop-down menu

2- You need to expand the server name:

 

3- Then, expose the default site on IIS server 2019:

You will see the Default website icon:

The default site on IIS server 2019 stores its files in a particular directory. To display this information, double click on it, choose the Manage Website then, choose the Advanced settings:

This will open a window with all of the Default Sites information such as files or Document Root. If you click on “Physical Path”, you can choose a different document root.

4- The “Default documents” feature in IIS Server 2019 helps you to specify the default files to return when a client does not request a specific file from the webserver. Double click on it to check the files shown.

You will see:

5- Now create an index.html file in the document root and check if it gets loaded in IIS server 2019.

To do this, open your notepad and add the following HTML code to it:

<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome To IIS!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to GreenCloud</h1>
</body>
</html>

Then, save it to the below path:

This PC>Local Disk(C):>inetpub>wwwroot

In your web browser type your server’s IP address:

http://server-ip-address

If you see this page means that it loaded successfully.

Conclusion

At this point, you learn to Configure the Default Site in IIS Server 2019 to test the health of IIS.

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