Changing IIS to Not Stop Worker Process in IIS 7.0 and Later

Overview

When using IIS version 7.0 and above, by default, the worker process terminates after a period of inactivity. If Secret Server is in its own application pool, the application pool will stop after a period of no requests. To make sure that the application pool associated with Secret Server does not stop when idle:

  • Set the idle time-out to 0 minutes.
  • Set the regular time interval to 0.
  • Ensure there are no specific times scheduled for recycling.

Additionally, by default, IIS launches a worker process when the first request for the Web application is received. So if the Secret Server application takes a long time to start, we recommend launching the worker process as soon as IIS is started by setting the start mode to AlwaysRunning to launch the worker process for the Secret Server application pool as soon as IIS is started.

Procedure

To change IIS advanced settings:

  1. Open Internet Information Server (IIS) Manager: On the taskbar, click Server Manager, click Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

  2. In the Connections pane, expand the server name.

  3. Click Application Pools.

  4. Locate the application pool Secret Server is running as. To determine this:

    1. Expand Sites at the left, then find the website Secret Server is running on.

    2. Click on the Secret Server website or virtual directory (if it is running on one).

    3. Click Basic Settings on the right panel. This indicates Secret Server's application pool.

  5. Right-click the application pool, and select Advanced Settings. The Advanced Settings panel appears.

  6. Go to the (General) section.

  7. Set Start Mode to AlwaysRunning.

  8. Set Maximum Worker Processes to 1.

  9. Go to the Process Model section.

  10. Set Idle Time-out (minutes) to 0.

  11. Go to the Recycling section.

  12. Set the Regular Time Interval (minutes) to 0.

  13. Select Specific Times.

  14. Either click the > expander arrow to see if there is time specified below. Or click the ... to see if there are any values in the TimeSpan Collection Editor dialog box. If so, clear it out.

  15. Click the OK button. The dialog closes.

  16. Click the OK button.