How to Backup and Restore Websites and IIS configuration

In this article, we’ll look at how to backup websites, application pools, and IIS web server configuration on Windows Server. You can use an Internet Information Services backup to restore a website in the case of a host server failure, or if you migrate/move a website (and/or IIS configuration) to another server.

Backing Up IIS on Windows Server

Backing up the data and configuration of sites running on an Internet Information Service web server consists of several steps:

1. Backup IIS website files (by default, IIS site files are stored in %SystemDrive%\inetpub\wwwroot ). This folder must be included in the backup plan. It is enough to copy files all files using your backup tool (you can even use the built-in Windows Server Backup -> select the inetpub directory for backup), or simple BAT/PowerShell scripts. For example, to install WSB and back up the inetpub\wwwroot directory to a shared folder, use the following commands:# Install the Windows server feature using PowerShell;
Install-WindowsFeature -Name Windows-Server-Backup
# backup IIS website static files
wbadmin start backup –backupTarget:\\srv-backup1\backup -include:c:\inetpub\wwwroot -vsscopy
2. Backup (export) current IIS certificates (you can get the list of SSL certificates on the server using this command: netsh http show sslcert ) You can use PowerShell to backup certificates to a shared network folder in the PFX (Personal Information Exchange) format: dir cert:\localmachine\my | Where-Object { $_.hasPrivateKey } | Foreach-Object { [system.IO.file]::WriteAllBytes("\\srv-backup1\backup\$($_.Subject).pfx",($_.Export('PFX', 'secret')) ) }
3. Backup IIS configuration (settings).

You can backup the IIS configuration using the built-in appcmd tool. Open a command prompt as an administrator  and change directory:

cd c:\Windows\system32\inetsrv

Let’s back up the IIS configuration:

appcmd add backup srv1-iis-backup-2022_03_10

BACKUP object srv1-iis-backup-2022_03_10 added

Appcmd creates a folder in the c:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\backup directory with the name of your backup. It contains the following files:

• administration.config
• applicationHost.config
• MBSchema.xml
• MetaBase.xml
• redirection.config

It remains to copy this directory to the backup storage device.

On Windows Server 2019/2016, you can use the built-in PowerShell cmdlet to backup IIS instead of appcmd:

Backup-WebConfiguration -Name MyBackup202203

This cmdlet also exports the current IIS settings to $env:Windir\System32\inetsrv\backup.

Restoring an IIS Configuration on a Different Windows Server Host

You can restore your IIS configuration from a backup to the same server or to a different host. Let’s say you need to restore the IIS configuration on a different Windows Server host.

Copy the IIS backup directory to the same folder (c:\windows\system32\backup) on the target server.

To display a list of all available IIS configuration backups, run the command:

appcmd list backup

The copied backup should appear in the list of available ones. Restore the IIS config from a backup:

appcmd restore backup /stop:true srv1-iis-backup-2022_03_10

The “Restored configuration from backup srv1-iis-backup-2022_03_10 means that the IIS configuration has been successfully restored.

The /stop:true option forces IIS to stop before restoring.

Restore-WebConfiguration -Name srv1-iis-backup-2022_03_10

To delete a previous backup, run the command:

appcmd.exe delete backup BackupName

You can also backup your IIS web server using the msdeploy package (Web Deployment Tool). Download and install the msdeploy package on your IIS host and on the target backup host (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43717).

To create an IIS backup (with all sites if multiple sites are running on IIS) to a remote Windows host 192.168.100.112 via webdeploy, the following command can be used:

msdeploy -verb:sync -source:webServer,computername=192.168.100.112 dest:package=c:\Backup\IIS\server1_iis_backup.zip

You can also backup an individual IIS website:

msdeploy –verb:sync -source:contentPath="site_name.com",computername=192.168.100.112 -dest:package=c:\Backup\IIS\site_name.zip

Or copy only static website files from the specified directory:

msdeploy –verb:sync –source:dirPath="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\site_name",computername=192.168.100.112 -dest:package=c:\Backup\IIS\site_name_static_files.zip