In ArcCatalog, you can create metadata for ArcIMS Image, ArcMap Image, and Feature Services the same way you create metadata for shapefiles. You don't need a Metadata Service to create metadata for ArcIMS services; this functionality is available through the ArcIMS Application Server.
However, before you can create metadata for an ArcIMS service, authentication must be enabled for the Servlet Connector. In your access control list (ACL), the users who will have permission to create metadata must have the role "metadata_service_author". The ArcIMS services for which the metadata can be created can either be explicitly listed. The "metadata_service_author" role can't be granted to the user "*", if one exists in your ACL.
For example, a file-based ACL file might contain the following entries:
<USER name="user1" password="md.author" services="SanFrancisco" roles="metadata_service_author" active="1" />
<USER name="admin1" password="ims.admin" services="SanFrancisco, SantaClara" roles="metadata_service_author" active="1" />
In the above example, user1 can create metadata for the SanFrancisco service. The user “admin1” can create metadata for SanFrancisco and SantaClara services.
If this is the first time you have enabled authentication for your ArcIMS site and you want to continue providing all of your Image, ArcMap Image, and Feature Services without requiring people to log in, you can do so by including the following anonymous user in your access control list. The person who authors metadata for the services will have to log in, but others won't have to log in to access the services and their metadata.
<USER name="*" services="*" active="1" />
Once authentication has been enabled and the access control list has been defined, restart the Web server or Servlet Engine, if appropriate. Then, check that authentication is working properly by logging in to your ArcIMS server from ArcCatalog with the different user names and passwords; make sure each user can see the services they are supposed to see.
See the 'Securing your services and Web site' section of the ArcIMS Help for more information.
Once authentication has been enabled and permission has been granted, connect to the ArcIMS Server in ArcCatalog with the appropriate user name and password. Select the service for which you want to create metadata, then click the Metadata tab. Metadata may be created for the service automatically depending on the settings in ArcCatalog. Click the Edit Metadata button on the Metadata toolbar to add information such as a title and description of the service using a metadata editor. To create a thumbnail for the service, click the Preview tab and click the Create Thumbnail button.
Each Image and ArcMap Image services can have one metadata document describing the information provided by the entire service. A Feature Service can have one metadata document describing the entire service; each feature class provided by the metadata service may additionally have a metadata document describing its contents and the purposes for which the data can be used.
Learn more about creating metadata in ArcCatalog
Once metadata has been created for ArcIMS services, it can be published to a Metadata Service run by another organization, such as the Geography Network; people searching the Geography Network will be able to learn about and use your services. If later you start your own Metadata Service, you can publish the services’ metadata there as well.
If you want to show the metadata for your ArcIMS service in your Web application, you can do so by sending the GET_SERVICE_METADATA request to the ArcIMS server; you can learn more about this and its related requests in the ArcXML Guide.
Metadata created with ArcCatalog is stored in XML format. The metadata XML documents describing ArcIMS services are stored in a Metadata directory on the machine hosting the Application Server. This directory is located at:
Windows: <ArcIMS install directory>\AppServer\Metadata
UNIX: <ArcIMS install directory>/Middleware/Application_Server/Metadata
The Metadata directory is created the first time metadata is created for a service. Inside this location, one subdirectory will be created for a service when metadata for the service is created; the subdirectory will have the same name as the service. Metadata describing the service will be stored in its subdirectory as an XML file that has the same name as the service; this file will not have a .xml file extension. For Image and ArcMap Image Services, there will only be one XML file in the subdirectory. For Feature Services, there may be several XML files; metadata describing the service's feature classes will have the same name as the feature class and these files will have a .xml file extension.
Once metadata for a service exists, it won’t be deleted by ArcIMS if the service is deleted; this saves the work of having to recreate the metadata when the service is restarted later. You must manually delete the service's folder from the Metadata directory when the service is retired.