How to Host a Web Site in Internet Information Server manager in Windows Server 2012 R2

You may have seen my previous article about IIS installation. In this article, I will cover the steps that need to be taken to host a website on your IISserver.

How to set up a website in IIS

Step 1: Go to your system drive (E.g. C:\) and paste your website files in a new folder. I will choose C:\inetpub\testsite\ here.

Choose a website root folder

Step 2: Open server manager dashboard, click on Tools -> Internet Information Services (IIS) manager.

Internet Information Services (IIS) manager

Step 3: In IIS manager, stop the default website which is using port 80. Expand Sites, right-click Default Web Site -> Manage Website -> stop.

Stop default website in IIS
Step 4: Right-click Sites and then click Add Website.
Add website in IIS

Step 5: Provide the site name, physical path to the inetpub folder and click OK.

Set site details like domain name and path

Step 6: Choose an IP address for the binding, protocol is (http), and the host name. Leave Start Website immediately checked. Click OK.

set protocol and IP

Step 7: If you have a DNS server and you are using it, create an entry for mapping the hostname to IP address. Otherwise, use the hosts file located in the directory C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc to configure the domain name of the website.

Configure hosts file

You are done with the hosting configuration of your website. Open your browser and type in the domain name that you have chosen for the site, in my case contoso.com) to see the html files of your website in the btowser.