This is the error message that sometimes you can find on IIS:

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition=’MachineToApplication’ beyond application level.  This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.

I will gonna show you how to fix this issue. What is the issue?

1. When you create an new web application using visual studio.net, it automatically creates the virtual directory and configures it as an application. However, if you manually create the virtual directory and it is not configured as an application, then you will not be able to browse the application and may get the above error. The debug information you get as mentioned above, is applicable to this scenario.

To resolve it, Right Click on the virtual directory - select properties and then click on "Create" next to the "Application" Label and the textbox. It will automatically create the "application" using the virtual directory's name. Now the application can be accessed.

2. When you have sub-directories in your application, you can have web.config file for the sub-directory. However, there are certain properties which cannot be set in the web.config of the sub-directory such as authentication, session state (you may see that the error message shows the line number where the
authentication or sessionstate is declared in the web.config of the sub-directory). The reason is, these settings cannot be overridden at the sub-directory level unless the sub-directory is also configured as an application (as mentioned in the above point).

Mostly we have the practice of adding web.config in the sub-directory if we want to protect access to the sub-directory files (say, the directory is admin and we wish to protect the admin pages from unathorized users).

But actually, this can be achieved in the web.config at the application's root level itself, by specifing the location path tags and authorization, as follows:-

<location path="Admin">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="administrators" />
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>

However, if you wish to have a web.config at the sub-directory level and protect the sub-directory, you can just specify the Authorization mode as follows:-

<configuration>
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow roles="administrators" />
<deny users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</configuration>

Thus you can protect the sub-directory from unauthorized access.

If you wish to use the mailboxes for a specific domain name with an external mail server, you can easily do that by following these steps:

1. Go to Domains, click the Domain Name.
2. In the Web Site group click DNS Settings
3. Now in the record type column, locate MX record, and click the respective link in the Host column on the left.
4. Next, in the enter mail exchanger box, type the external mail server’s name and click OK.
5. Click Up Level to return to the Domain Management screen.
6. Now click Mail Accounts and Mail Settings.
7. Clear the Activate mail service on domain check box and click OK.

Your domain will now use an external mail server.

If you would like to block a website from being viewed on your Windows computer, follow these steps:

1. You need to run C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

2. Then, backup the hosts file.

3. Open hosts file there from the notepad.

4. At the end of the line you can see as per below.

127.0.0.1 localhost

5. Append the following line at the end

127.0.0.1 BlockSitename.com # replace the BlockSitename.com with the site name that you want to block.

6. Then go to Start->Run-> type ipconfig /flushdns

In this tutorial, I will show you how to use Traceroute on your Windows. Please go to Startà Runà Cmd. Then, you must type tracert, give a space then add your domain name. See this example below:



IP Whois – Also pronounced as Who is, this tool is more often used to know information about the IP address of a particular domain, its location and the details about the registrar and owner. It basically is a query and response protocol used extensively to lookup to databases holding information about registered users of an Internet resource.

Reverse DNS lookup – Also referred to as the rDNS, it is mandatory to have it on your server. It is used for determining the association of a domain name with a particular IP address using the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.

SPAM DB Lookup – This tool enables server administrators to look for the possible accounts on server to be included in the spammers list. Spam DB lookup enables them to check if the server and its IP’s have been added to the list due to a possible spamming activity carried out by someone using the server.

DNS Lookup – DNS lookup is used to determine various DNS records such as A, MX records, CNAME etc. for a particular domain. Using this simple tool, one can check where a particular site is hosted.

Yesterday, we have just talked about how to connect FTP with Web Browser. In this tutorial, I will show you the error message that sometimes shown when we connect with Filezilla. This in a common error message that you will find on Filezilla:

Failed to retrieve directory listing.

Here is the image:



As the image shows, the connection enters Passive (PASV) Mode and after that, the error occurs. A solution that could work, is to disable passive mode. Here’s how you do that in FileZilla:

- Open Filezilla, go to Edit -> Settings
- Click on Connection -> FTP: Choose Active
- Click on Connection -> FTP -> Active Mode: Select "Ask your operating system for the external IP address”
- Click on Connection -> FTP -> Passive Mode: Choose Fall Back to Active Mode
- Press OK.



Hope it helps. Good luck

There are many ways to connect by FTP to a host, we can use tools such as Filezilla, CoreFTP, or SmartFTP. But I would recommend to use Filezilla, very simpe, FREE, and easy to use. In this article, I will assume you cant connect or you don’t have a FTP client software. So, in this case you need to use Internet Explorer to connect it.

You can upload and delete files at your online server using Internet Explorer.

In order to connect by FTP with your browser, use the following address:

ftp://FtpUserID:[email protected]

For example, let’s assume the following:

FTP User: HostForLife
Password: googletest
Site: www.testFTP.com

The above information would use the following in the Internet Explorer Address bar:

ftp://HostForLife: [email protected]

However, if your FTP user used to connect is similar to [email protected], then you will have to URL encode it like this:

ftp:// FtpUserID%40YourDomainName.com:[email protected]

In the case above, it is important to note what the FTP username is:

FtpUserID%40YourDomainName.com

This address is URL-encoded and comes from [email protected] where @ has been substituted with %40, which is the ASCII code for @.

After visiting your website by using the above exampled address, Internet Explorer will open the site content in its window. Then from the “View” menu of Internet Explorer, you may select “Open FTP site in Windows Explorer” to edit, upload or delete the files at your web server.

Hope this tutorial will help you.