🔙 Undo changes to IIS with Configuration History

Did you save some changes in IIS that ended up breaking your website? We’ve all been there..

No need to panic, IIS (from version 7 upwards) saves the last 10 configuration changes so within minutes you can revert changes quite easy.

Application Host Help Service

Application Host Help Service is a Windows service that checks your IIS configuration every 2 minutes and backs up all changes to %SystemDrive%\inetpub\history directory.

Okay, that’s cool, but how to I recover configurations from that folder?

Well just copy the folder contents to the IIS working directory %Windir%\system32\inetsrv\config.

Restoring IIS Configurations

To restore a configuration run the following command:

cd %windir%\system32\inetsrv 
appcmd list backups 
appcmd restore backup <BACKUP NAME>

To change the number of restore points that IIS creates and the time interval between them you can edit the %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config file.

<configHistory maxHistories="30" period="00:00:15" />

There are four configurable settings (attributes) for the configHistory section:

TIP: If IIS is not saving any backups check that the Windows Service is running and that there are no errors thrown by IIS-AppHstSvc in the Event Viewer.

Script to Cause History Creation

You can also use a VB script that will force the Application Host Help Service to generate a new safe point for your IIS server.

Option Explicit 

' Global objects, variables
Dim objShell, argObj, oExec
Dim strDirectory, strFile, strCmd, strFullCmd, stdIn, i

set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
strDirectory = "%windir%\system32\inetsrv\" 
strFile = "AppCmd.exe"

set ArgObj = Wscript.Arguments

' No args (default case), hard-code StdIn
If ArgObj.Count = 0 Then 
stdIn = 17

i = 0 'initilize i

For i = 0 to stdIn 
' Call Select Case to change Statement 
strCmd = getStrCmd(i)
strFullCmd = strDirectory & strFile & " " & strCmd

Set oExec = objShell.Exec(strFullCmd) 

Do While oExec.Status = 0
WScript.Sleep 100
Loop 

If oExec.ExitCode <> 0 Then 
' Something wrong with the IIS Installation

' Is AppCmd installed on the machine? \inetsrv directory?
msgBox "Executing AppCmd Command Failed. Please Try Again!"

wscript.Quit
End if 

WScript.Sleep(2 * 1000)

Next 

' Handle the case where we passed arguments to
' the script

Else 
stdIn = ArgObj(0)

' Same code as above but handle arguments being passed.

i = 0 ' initialize i

For i = 0 to stdIn 
' Call Select Case to change Statement
strCmd = getStrCmd(i)
strFullCmd = strDirectory & strFile & " " & strCmd

Set oExec = objShell.Exec(strFullCmd)

Do While oExec.Status = 0
WScript.Sleep 100
Loop 

' Validate that AppCmd calls succeeded by checking Error code
If oExec.ExitCode <> 0 Then 
' Something wrong with the IIS Installation
' Is AppCmd installed on the machine? \inetsrv directory?
msgBox "Executing AppCmd Command Failed. Please Try Again!"
wscript.Quit
End if 

' Go to sleep for x period (default: 20)
WScript.Sleep(20 * 1000)

Next 

' End the StdIn Input Tree

End if 

' AppCMD Command Function 
Function getStrCmd(MyIndex)
Select Case (MyIndex)
Case 0 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:false"
Case 1 ' set Default Document
getStrCmd = "set config /section:defaultDocument /enabled:true"
Case 2 'set httpRedirect
getStrCmd = "set config /section:httpRedirect /enabled:true"
Case 3 ' set Client Certificate Mapping Auth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/clientCertificateMappingAuthentication /enabled:true"
Case 4 ' set Directory Browse
getStrCmd = "set config /section:directoryBrowse /enabled:true"
Case 5 ' set httpRedirect
getStrCmd = "set config /section:httpRedirect /enabled:false" 
Case 6 ' set anonymousAuth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/anonymousAuthentication /enabled:false"
Case 7 ' set basicAuth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/basicAuthentication /enabled:true"
Case 8 ' set digestAuth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/digestAuthentication /enabled:true"
Case 9 ' set client cert mapping auth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/clientCertificateMappingAuthentication /enabled:false"
Case 10 ' set windows auth
getStrCmd = "set config /section:security/authentication/windowsAuthentication /enabled:true"
Case 11 ' server runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"
Case 12 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:false"
Case 13 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"
Case 14 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"
Case 15 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"
Case 16 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"
Case 17 ' set Server Runtime
getStrCmd = "set config /section:serverRuntime /enabled:true"

End select 
End Function

Save the above script as ConfigHst.vbs and run it with:

cscript //nologo configHst.vbs