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Publishing IIS Websites

Publishing IIS Websites

GateBeacon includes a dedicated IIS Web Server catalog application for publishing Microsoft IIS sites from a Windows device. This app is Windows-only.

Step by Step

  1. On an already-enrolled Windows device (see Enrolling a Windows Device), open the catalog in the customer portal and choose IIS Web Server, then Install.
  2. The installer checks for an existing IIS installation:
    • If IIS is already installed, it is left as-is and simply connected to GateBeacon's routing.
    • If IIS is not installed, GateBeacon installs the required Windows features (Web Server Role, Common HTTP Features, Default Document, Directory Browsing, and related IIS sub-features) automatically via DISM.
  3. On a fresh install, GateBeacon replaces the default IIS welcome page with a GateBeacon-branded placeholder page, then restarts IIS.
  4. GateBeacon publishes the site securely over HTTPS on port 443 at the network edge. IIS itself continues to serve plain HTTP on 127.0.0.1:80 locally — you do not configure a certificate inside IIS at all.
  5. Deploy your website content into IIS as you normally would (default site root, or your own site and bindings). GateBeacon forwards public HTTPS traffic to whatever IIS serves on port 80.

Defaults

  • Local target: http://127.0.0.1:80.
  • If your IIS site is bound to a different local port, update the port field when installing/configuring the app to match.

Limitations

  • One IIS publish per device. Unlike App Publishing HTTPS, the IIS Web Server catalog app is not designed for multiple installs on the same device. To serve multiple sites, use IIS's own host headers or bindings under a single site rather than expecting separate GateBeacon entries per site.
  • Health checks use a basic TCP connect, not an HTTP status check — IIS can legitimately return a wide range of status codes for its default or a custom page, so GateBeacon only verifies that something is listening on the port rather than checking for a specific response.
  • Do not configure HTTPS bindings inside IIS. Public visitors never connect to IIS directly — GateBeacon's edge is what terminates TLS. Keep IIS itself on plain HTTP; adding your own HTTPS binding inside IIS has no effect on what the public sees and is unnecessary.

Basic Troubleshooting

Symptom Check
Site unreachable after install Confirm the World Wide Web Publishing Service is running (services.msc).
Site unreachable after install Confirm your site is actually bound to port 80 — not a different port than the one GateBeacon is targeting.
Placeholder GateBeacon page still showing Your own content hasn't been deployed to the IIS site root yet — deploy your site files, IIS will serve them once in place.
Device shows Online but site is down Check IIS locally on the device first (http://127.0.0.1 on the device itself) before assuming a GateBeacon-side issue.

Next Steps

Need to publish something other than an IIS site — a custom app, another local service — from this same device? See Publishing an App over HTTPS.

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