Remotely manage Win 2003 server with Web UI

The ancients had a “strategy of victory, a thousand miles away”, and that pride must have a sense of accomplishment. As a network administrator, managing and maintaining servers using the network is a common occurrence. So what method or tool do you use to remotely maintain the server? In fact, if your network is based on the Windows 2000/2003 platform, you can easily maintain your Web site using its own Web UI (Web User Interface).

Web UI is a web remote management service that has been integrated since Windows 2000. Through this service, the network administrator can manage common services (such as FTP, Web services, etc.) and common functions (such as managing users and groups) of the server through the IE browser on the client. Let's take Windows Server 2003 as an example to talk about how to use the service.

Installing Web UI Remote Management

The default installation of IIS6.0 does not install Web Remote Management, which requires us to install it manually. The installation method is briefly described as follows:

Open the “Add and Remove Programs” dialog box in the “Control Panel” and click the [Add/Remove Windows Components] button on the left side of the dialog box. In the "Windows Components Wizard" dialog box that opens, click "Internet Information Services (IIS) & rarr; Details & Rarr; Web Services & Rarr; Details", open the "World Wide Web Service" dialog box. Then check the “Remote Management (HTML)” option and click the [OK], [Next], [Finish] buttons to complete the installation.

In order to ensure normal use, we also need to make simple settings for Web remote management in IIS Manager. Click “Start →Administrative Tools & Rarr; Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager", in the "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager" that opens, "Hostname (local computer) → ” directory. We can find that this option adds an "Administration" option, which is the name of the Web remote management. Right click on the "Administration" option and execute the "Properties" command. Click on the drop-down triangle on the right side of the “IP address" in the “Website" tab in the "Administration Properties" dialog box that opens. Click on the local IP address. Other options remain at their default settings, and clicking the [OK] button will make the settings take effect. As shown in Figure 1. Finally close the manager window.

Figure 1 Selecting the local IP address

Logging in to the Web UI remote management

As long as the client is using a Windows 9x or higher system, we can log in to the Web UI via IE. . In IE, type the following address http://192.×.×.×:8098 to log in to the web remote management interface, where “8098” is the port number used by the service, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Web Remote Management Interface

Practical Web UI Remote Management

There are many settings for the server through Web Remote Management. We only select the more representative settings. Briefly described as follows:

1. Modify the administrator password

After logging in to the web remote management, click on “Set Administrator Password" in the "Welcome to" screen. Type the current password and new password in the “Administrator Account” window that opens, and click the [OK] button at the bottom right to make the settings take effect.

2. Manage Web Server

To modify the website home directory, click the “Web Server” option at the top of Figure 2, and then click the [Web Master Settings] button. Change the path of the website home directory in the "Web Master Settings" interface that opens.

3. Managing Users and Groups

We can also manage users and groups in the server through web remote management. For example, to add a user, click the "Users" option at the top of Figure 2, and then click the [Local User] button. Click the [New] button on the right side of the "Local User on Server" screen that opens, as shown in Figure 3. Fill in the user information and password in the “Create New User” interface and click the [OK] button to successfully add the user. If you want to delete the user, check the user you want to delete in the Local User on the server and click the [Delete] button on the right. The management of groups is similar to the method of managing users.

Figure 3 Managing Users and Groups

4. Connecting to Remote Desktop

<;Remote Desktop" is a significant improvement over Windows 2003 over Windows 2000. We can remotely manage remote connections to the server's desktop via the Web (this makes sense for Windows 9x, and because of Windows XP itself has a client tool that connects to “Remote Desktop, so this feature doesn't make much sense for Windows XP.) Of course, this requires the server to enable the "Remote Desktop" function in advance. Click the "Maintenance" option at the top of Figure 2, then click the [Remote Desktop] button. You can log in to the server's desktop by typing the username and password in the login window that is open. If you are a system administrator user, you can have full access to the management server. Using “Remote Desktop Managing the server is as easy as operating the local machine.

You can also manage and set up the server a lot through web remote management. Interested friends can continue to study in depth.