Professional ASP.NET 3.5 Security, Membership, and Role Management with C# and VB

5.3. Managing IIS 7.0 Configuration versus ASP.NET Configuration

Chapter 1 provided an overview of the new IIS 7.0 configuration system. There was a big step moving away from the old IIS 6.0 metabase configuration system into the new .NET-like configuration system. The structure and concept of the IIS 7.0 configuration system is based on the .NET Framework configuration system. They both make use of XML configuration files, proving the tight integration when it comes to mixing both configuration systems in a single file (for instance, the application's web.config file, as you will see later in this section).

The IIS 7.0 configuration system constitutes a hierarchy of XML configuration files that are distributed among the .NET Framework and IIS 7.0. This hierarchy includes

• The machine.config file that contains all the global settings and configurations for the .NET Framework.

• The root web.config configuration file that contains the .NET configurations in the web.config configuration file that was introduced since ASP.NET 2.0 as a way to delegate some of the configuration settings from the machine.config configuration file.

• The site's web.config configuration file that contains specific configuration for a specific site.

• The application's web.config configuration file that holds specific configuration for a specific application in the site.

• Finally, the site directory's web.config configuration file that contains the most specific configuration settings for a directory within an application. ...