Best practices for deploying an MVC application on IIS7 - asp.net-mvc

I'm not a web admin, and I'm new to IIS. So, I'm looking for advice.
My MVC application (e.g. fooapp) is the default application for my site (e.g. foo.bar). I used IIS Manager to add the site to IIS7. When I import the application, IIS Manager wants to put it in it's own directory (/foo), and tells me I shouldn't put it in the base (site) directory. This means that to get to my default MVC view, I have to enter the URL http://foo.bar/fooapp/. Needless to say, I want to get there via http://foo.bar/
I see 2 possible solutions:
Add a default page to the site directory that redirects to the MVC app.
Ignore the IIS admonition and load the app into the site directory.
My IIS7 knowledge is limited. I have played around with some options (such as HTTP Redirect). Since nothing changed, I obviously don't understand what I'm doing.
Anyway, if there are some considered "best practices" and/or other suggestions, please let me know.

Tbh, I'm not sure why the IIS manager is trying to convince you to add it as a sub app.. Maybe you just didn't do it right >_>
I've got a couple servers running with IIS7/7.5 and they have apps running in the root of the website.. No problem there :)
You might want to create a new website in IIS (right click on websites, choose "Add Web Site"), point the "Physical Path" directly to the folder your website's stored in, and set the Host name to whatever host you use (foo.bar ? :) )
This should work just fine )
In terms of deployment, if you use VS2010 I'd really recomment looking at Web Deploy.. It's a new addon written for IIS7, and allows one-click publish to IIS directly from VS2010. I'm using it on my site and it works flawlessly :)
Check out Scott Hansellman's talk about it, or check it out in the IIS website

Related

How to debug an ASPNET Core application in a subfolder

I have a ASPNET Core application that works fine on my machine with URL https://localhost:5001/, but not on the client's server, where the application's URL is https://example.com/subfolder/.
The problem seems to be an error in a redirect on one of the pages, where a user is sent to /something rather than /subfolder/something. I'm using relative URL's only. In the rest of the application, redirects work fine.
I was wondering if it is possible to debug the application in Visual Studio and have it run in a subfolder, preferably using Kestrel, but IIS Express might be an option too.
Update after comments While adding specifics about the problem, I found out that I was looking at it from the wrong angle. The actual problem seems to be that the application is started as https://example.com/subfolder (no trailing slash). Redirecting to ./something (or just something) will result in https://example.com/something.
(My real question therefore would be: If https://example.com/subfolder is opened, how can I redirect to https://example.com/subfolder/? I'll first try to fix this myself, maybe it should be configured in the webserver. In the meantime, I'd still like to know if subfolders can be used in debugging)
In development, it seems you can't debug your program in subfolder.
I don't recommand you to spend a lot of time to serach how to do that, and I also suggest you use IIS. Because in IIS, it supports Virtual Application, and I think it is you want.
Steps:
create a main website, and create a virtual application.
choose the project folder as Physical Path, mainsite and virtualapplication.
open vs2019 as administrator, maybe you need open it twice,and one for main site and another for virtual application.
then you can attach to a running process on your local machine.
you can start your two webapp in one port, and you can debug them.

URL Routes In IIS7 MVC 5 (Single Paged Application)

After publishing a MVC5 web application of mine to my IIS server (Individual User Accounts), it would seem that the URL is accessed incorrectly.
During debug, it would be e.g http://localhost:1234/api/Account/UserInfo?=XXXXX
The debug works just fine. The only issue kicks in after I've published it via my IIS7 server.
After publishing and using Google Chrome's console, it would appear that the page is requesting for a resource at mydomainname.com/api/Account/UserInfo?=XXXX instead of mydomainname.com/WEBAPPLICATIONNAME/api/Account/UserInfo?=XXXX.
My best guess is to modify the URLs in /Scripts/app/app.datamodel.js but it would just cause more parsing problems.
I've searched around and can't seem to find any related problems. I hope someone here will be able to lend a hand.
Look like you are using relative path like "/api/Account/UserInfo". Instead i'll recommend you to use #Url.Content("/api/Account/UserInfo"). This will solve your problem
Explanation
In local system when we run application in WebDev server it never have sub folder (like WEBAPPLICATIONNAME) therefore you relative path work correctly. but when you host your application in IIS under Default website in another new website /Virtual folder (like 'WEBAPPLICATIONNAME') then "/api/Account/UserInfo" fall back to Default Website because for '/' in starting. #Url.Content or #Url.Action make sure to add virtual directory name, hence changing your path to "/WEBAPPLICATIONNAME/api/Account/UserInfo" in IIS.

Any tutorials about how to create an ASP.NET MVC 2 website and run it against Local IIS Web Server (not use Cassini)

does anyone have any good links/tutorials about how to create a simple ASP.NET MVC website, and have it run against a Local IIS7 Web Server, instead of the default Visual Studio Development Server (aka Cassini).
Yes, i tried google, but i fail at getting some good keywords, etc.
Cheers :)
Here are my steps:
In IIS, Sites -> Add Web Site...
Fill in the name, whatever you want.
Set the physical path where your app is located.
In the Host Name option, type for example local.test.com
Hit OK
Then I update the hosts file located in $windir$\System32\drivers\etc
Adding the line
127.0.0.1 local.test.com
Don´t forget changing in the application pool of the created website the framework version.
I´m sure there must be other ways, I just follow this steps every time I want to create a new site in my local IIS and it works.
Good luck!

Best way to deploy an ASP.NET MVC app on IIS 7 / Server 2008?

So far, the only successful strategy I've been able to get by with is the following:
Configure YOURAPP.Web to "Use Local IIS Web Server" and set "Project Url" = http://localhost/yourapp.web
Click "Create Virtual Directory"
In IIS Manager ensure that "Classic .NET App Pool" is selected
Add wildcard mapping * named "ASP.NET-MVC" that points to IsapiModule
BUT I don't really like the idea of having the full ASP.NET pipeline invoked when requesting any resource (javascript file, stylesheet, image, etc...) which is exactly what happens with the wildcard mapping.
So is there a way around this?
Is there a better method to running mvc apps on IIS 7?
I'm definitely open to suggestions as I'm not all that satisfied with what I got so far.
Thanks - wg
Make sure IIS7's "Managed pipeline mode" is set to "Integrated". That has been the single most important thing to do (for me) to get my MVC app running smoothly on IIS7.
Here's a good blog post too.
When developing the app, I have had no issues using the "Visual Studio Development Server" for running the app.
Assuming that all of your CSS/JS/image files reside in the Content directory, you could add an ignore route.
routes.IgnoreRoute("Content/{*wildcard}");
This will prevent any requests to the content directory being handled by MVC.
IIS7 is designed to take all requests and push off the static file stuff efficently. I wouldn't worry about it in the same way one worries about wildcard mappings on IIS6. There is no "load ASP.NET pipeline" penalty because IIS7 is a mean honking ASP.NET pipeline all the time.

Disable Visual Studio Web Server Directory Browsing

I'm using Visual Studio's built in web server to test and EPiServer applicaiton. When I have the app running in IIS, if I hit the root of the virtual directory, EPiServer will take over and server the defaul page to me. Using the Visual Studion server (which I am doing for license reasons with the SDK), it always gives me the 'Directory Listing' view of my site. Does anyone know how to configure this web server to not allow the directory listing/browsing?
Additional Information:
This problme only seems to effect the root of the visual studion web server (i'll call it cassini from here on in). As an example, if I run a site from localhost:6666, then what I will find is that localhost:6666/en/ will work just fine and the EPiServer VPP will know what it is doing. If I use localhost:6666/, then the VPP never kicks in (or so it seams). It seems to me that when the root of cassini is hit, it checks to see if the page exists (which it does not as I have no default). If it decides that the page does not exist, then it serves up the directory listing, rather than 404. The first thing to do for me is to dispable directory browsing in cassini, then look at why the VPP is not being actioned correctly.
So I suppose the base of the question is: Is there a way to modify these settins in Cassini when it is Visual Studio starting everything off?
(EPiServer may be a red herring, but just in case, it's CMS version 5)
Further Update
I managed to get hold of the source for Cassini 3.5 and gave that a whirl. 3.5 works just fine and behaves like IIS in this instance. I.e. the lack of default document does not lead to a Directory listing, rather if allows the HTTP handlers to kick in and then EPiServer does the rest! So the question is, can I achieve the same in Visual Studios effort at a web server?
Make sure you have a ~/Default.aspx file. It won't render, but it's needed in cassini for the virtual path providers to get a chance to handle the request for '/'.
Of course, if you make it anyway you might as well use it for the start page :-)
Even if you could get the server to not show the directory listing, could you get EPiServer to take over?
EDIT: From comments
The fact that it works with /en/ makes me think this is something that Microsoft could fix. I suggest you ask the vendor if they have a workaround. If they do not, then please create a suggestion at http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio/. Be sure to specify details about EPIServer, URL to the vendor, etc.
Be clear that it works with /en, but you want a setting permitting it to work at the root.
Once you create the suggestion, please edit your question to include the link to the suggestion you create. That way, others reading your question can vote on how important they think this is.
The EpiServer part confuses me. However, if you are asking how to set the default page for the VS development server (based on the Cassini code), you're expected to do that in the project properties (right click on web project), Web, Start Action, Specific Page, foo.aspx.
I suspect the cassini/VS development server doesn't have a default page feature-- the source code for the cassini server (the ancestor of the VS development server) is on the web and you can check that and add a default page by building a custom version. And it doesn't have a very long list of other features that IIS has.
Which EPiServer version are you running?
Did you install it using EPiServer Manager?
There has always been some differences in the configuration between running the site at the root of a host name or as a (virtual) directory.
Check the site settings block in web.config and make sure you have a default.aspx at the project root.

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