How to Create a WebSite/AppPool in IIS via Command Prompt

IIS (Internet Information Services) is a web server created by Microsoft for Windows systems. As a system administrator, we know that managing IIS is easy from GUI. Sometimes we get tasks to create a large number of websites under IIS or create a site in IIS using a windows batch script. This article will guide you on how to create a Website, Application, site binding, and Application Pool in IIS using the command line.

Before using the below commands, start the command prompt as administrator. So that you can get all the privileges to make changes. After that navigate to C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv directory.

cd c:\Windows\System32\inetsrv

Create Website in IIS

For example we need to create a website named example.com with document root c:\sites\example.com.

appcmd add site /name:example.com /id:1 /physicalPath:c:\sites\example.com /bindings:http/*:80:example.com

Create Subdirectory Application

You can add a subdirectory application to your existing website. For example, to configure a URL like http://example.com/blog, the /blog is the subdirectory application configured under the example.com website. To create this create execute the following command. Assuming the document root for blog is c:\sites\blog.

appcmd add app  /site.name:example.com /path:/blog /physicalPath:c:\sites\blog

Create Application Pool in IIS

IIS App Pool is used for grouping sites to use similar configuration settings or prevent other applications to use resources of one application by other applications. Use one of the below options as per your requirements

App Pool with Default Settings

Use the following command to create Application Pool named “myAppPool” with default settings of IIS.

appcmd add apppool /name:myAppPool

App Pool with Specific Settings

If you want to use different settings for your App Pools, use the command below. Change managedRuntimeVersion as per your requirements v1.0, v1.1, v2.0 or v4.0.

appcmd add apppool /name:myAppPool /managedRuntimeVersion:v2.0 /managedPipelineMode:Integrated
appcmd add apppool /name:myAppPool /managedRuntimeVersion:v2.0 /managedPipelineMode:Classic

Change App Pool of Website

You can also change the Application Pool of any website using appcmd command. Use following command to change application pool of site example.com and set App Pool to myAppPool

appcmd set site /site.name:example.com /[path='/'].applicationPool:myAppPool

To change the Application Pool for a subdirectory URL use the following command.

appcmd set site /site.name:example.com /[path='/blog'].applicationPool:myAppPool

Conclusion

You can perform any tasks related to IIS using appcmd command-line utility. This allows you to quick website configuration, easy backup, and restore.