MCP Server IIS

MCP Server IIS – Bringing AI‑driven web administration to the Windows ecosystem

The MCP Server IIS fills a niche that many developers and system administrators face: automating the management of an on‑premises IIS web server using natural language prompts. In environments where a dedicated AI assistant (Claude, for example) is already integrated into the developer workflow, the ability to expose IIS configuration and monitoring commands as first‑class tools can dramatically reduce context switching. Instead of opening PowerShell, logging into the server, and typing , an assistant can issue a concise request to the MCP server, which in turn translates that intent into a API call and streams the result back to the client.

At its core, this MCP server implements a lightweight HTTP endpoint that listens on the standard ASP.NET Core pipeline. When an AI client sends a request—formatted as per MCP’s tool invocation schema—the server interprets it, executes the corresponding IIS command (e.g., listing sites, starting or stopping a site, retrieving application pool status), and streams the response over Server‑Sent Events (SSE). The SSE transport is chosen for its simplicity and compatibility with browsers and CLI tools that already consume event streams, making it a pragmatic choice for local tooling where full duplex WebSocket support is unnecessary.

Key capabilities include:

• Site enumeration – Return a structured list of all websites, their bindings, and current state.
• Lifecycle control – Start, stop, or restart individual sites or application pools with a single command.
• Configuration inspection – Retrieve properties such as physical path, SSL settings, or authentication modes.
• Event logging – Stream real‑time IIS event logs to the assistant for quick diagnostics.

These features enable a range of practical scenarios: a developer can ask, “Show me all sites that are currently stopped,” and receive an instant list; a DevOps engineer can trigger a site restart from within the chat while troubleshooting a deployment issue; or a QA team can verify that a test environment is correctly configured before running automated tests.

Integration into AI workflows is straightforward. Once the MCP server is registered with a host that supports MCP (e.g., VS Code or Claude Desktop), the assistant automatically discovers the endpoint and can invoke any of the exposed tools. The streaming nature of SSE allows assistants to present progress updates or incremental data, improving user experience for longer operations such as fetching large log files. Because the server runs locally on the developer’s machine, it respects existing IIS security settings and does not expose remote management capabilities, aligning with many corporate compliance requirements.

What sets this server apart is its focused scope and tight coupling to the native IIS administration API. By avoiding generic remote management protocols (like WinRM or SSH) and instead leveraging the official library, it offers higher fidelity and fewer permission headaches. Developers who already rely on MCP for other tools will find the IIS server a natural extension, enabling end‑to‑end automation from code deployment to live site management—all through conversational AI.