IIS 7 – Single Page Application URL issues when aliased

asp.net-mvciis-7

A client of ours has the following setup under IIS

Sites
 - applications (binds to http://applications.domain.com)
  - app1
  - app2

app1 and app2 are both .NET Single Page Applications (combination of .NET MVC and .NET Web API).

The applications are under the C:\inetpub\applications\ folder and both have been converted to applications. Thus app1 is available under the following URL http://applications.domain.com/app1 and app2 is available under http://applications.domain.com/app2

The problem I'm running into is that all the AJAX routes are relative to the root (/) route and are therefore non existant e.g. http://applications.domain.com/api/products doesn't throws a 404 since the route is actually http://applications.domain.com/app1/api/products.

Is there an IIS setting that will allow me to make this work short of re-writing all my AJAX calls with the prefix? Or is there a different way I can configure this kind of setup under IIS? Thanks.

Best Answer

What you want to do is put both apps in their own virtual directories -- then most of the asp.net calls will get the correct document root and things will be righter with the world.

To do so:

make a fake document root and fake website -- iis7 needs someplace to stash a web.config file and this should be unique to this app. I'd use something like c:\inetpub\applications\deadroot; add an IIS site looking at this folder.
Add a virtual application for app1 pointed at app1's folder inside this site
Add a virtual application for app2 pointed at app2's folder inside this site

Each will then stand on it's head.

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In ASP.NET MVC you don't browse to your view files directly. You have to use the routes that are setup in your site's Application_Start() event.

For example, a new ASP.NET MVC project adds this route by default in global.asax:

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It also adds a default controller and action:

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Instead of using the address http://mysite.com/Views/Home/Index.aspx you would use http://mysite.com/Home/Index

You can learn more about routing here: http://www.asp.net/learn/mvc/#MVC_Routing

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You can set IP restrictions in applicationHost.config in a location tag for your site. If you do that, then it won't cause an appdomain recycle. URL Rewrite at the global level is another option.

Week 12 and week 18 of my video series cover AppDomains and editing apphost.config.

To script it, use appcmd. The best way to do that is to start with Configuration Editor in IIS, make the change you want, then "Generate Script" from the actions pane on the right. The appcmd command will be there.

As for the 2nd question, you'll need to get a handle on your application startup within your project and have that trigger an event. An async call will allow it to start your startup script while allowing the page to continue, otherwise you'll run into a locking issue.

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