Why doesn't IIS7.5 show my default document with URL rewriting? - asp.net

I'm using IIS7.5. I have a simple ASP.NET webforms site that uses basic URL rewriting in global.asax, intercepting requests for .aspx pages and passing them to various template pages.
For example, you can request http://www.mysite.com/default.aspx. In global.asax I first check if this exists as a "true" page. If it doesn't, I go off to the data store to get the details and redirect to template.aspx?page=default (or something similar).
This all works great. However, there's one issue. If I browse to http://www.mysite.com/default.aspx I get the page I expect. If I set the default document to default.aspx, either in the web.config or in IIS, then browse to http://www.mysite.com/ I get the error about directory browsing not being allowed.
Why is IIS ignoring the default document in this case? It appears to be because the file "default.aspx" doesn't exist. If this is the case, is there a workaround for the problem?
EDIT
To clarify, I don't have control over the IIS system and it's on really basic hosting, though I can request some changes, so I can't use any URL rewriting modules.

Workaround for you situation: Create Index.aspx as default document as physical file and redirect user to Default.aspx URL. So when user comes to mysite.com/ then index.aspx will kick in and force redirect to default.aspx which can then handle your template redirection logic.

Related

How to block access to directory listing and certain pages in asp.net?

I have several issues with how I am configuring my web.config due to my inexperience.
I want to set a page, login.aspx, as my default page. If the user logs in successfully, he will be redirected to a page in a protected folder /Protect/Edit.aspx . All users can still access a page in root folder named Show.aspx, will be redirected to login.aspx if they try to click or write the path to Edit.aspx, and I am unsure on how to do this.
My other problem is that if I write just localhost it shows me the directory listing, and I want to avoid this, but setting
still gives me the directory listing. What am I doing wrong?
You need to implement forms authentification for your app. Here is a tutorial
Seems like you don't have a default.aspx page, so IIS couldn't find any document to load first. You can either configure IIS to use Show.aspx as a default page, or just add default .aspx.

How can I set the default page for https requests?

We have a website which has a Virtual Directory containing the secure portion of the website.
If users come to http://www.mydomain.com, they should get directed to default.aspx of the main site, but if they go to https://www.mydomain.com, they should go to default.aspx of the virtual directory.
The default page for the main site works fine, as does the secure page if I navigate to it using the full name, however I can't figure out how to set the default page for https traffic that doesn't specify a specific page.
http://www.mydomain.com - Works
https://www.mydomain.com - Page Not Found
https://www.mydomain.com/myvirtualdirectory - Page Not Found
https://www.mydomain.com/myvirtualdirectory/default.aspx - Works
What do I need to do to make links 2 and 3 load the default page show in 4?
My website is running on IIS 6.0 in Windows Server 2003
Overall, this is an anti-pattern as you state the entire behavior of the site changes based on the port. I am not stating definitively you are doing this, but consider the following:
If you are redirecting due to a user needing to see other things, you can make conditional controls that display only when in HTTPS. The same can be done for authenticated and authorized versus not.
If you are redirecting because an HTTP user needs to log in, the more consistent pattern is to have them click a log in button. And, you can force HTTPS at this point without breaking the pattern.
If you really need to redirect for some reason, there are a couple of ways of handling this:
In IIS
HTTP Handlers
URL Rewrite - requires the URL Rewrite bits for IIS 7
I imagine there are some other ways to solve this.
I finally figured out my issue. In my case, it turns out the problem was an old URL Rewrite rule I wasn't aware of that was transferring all https traffic that didn't have a file name specified to index.php, which of course didn't exist.
I found this out by viewing the IIS error logs, which was telling me the 404 was being caused by index.php

URL Redirects in ASP.NET

Ok, wierd problem I cant figure out. Hopefully someone where can. I have inherited a site that was developed with a very over-architected Content Management System. I am having problems now with the redirection functionality built into it.
This is on a dedicated Windows 2003 server running ASP.NET 3.5 sp 1. The redirects are stored in the database, and I have confirmed that the correct redirect is in place in the database. Finally, the file extension .html has been mapped in IIS to the ASP.NET ISAPI. And there is an HttpHandler created to redirect the .html requests. The default documents on the server, in order, are:
default.aspx
index.aspx
default.asp
index.asp
default.html
index.html
for this example, we have two redirects both pointing to the same content page. /example and /example.html
when requesting /example.html it correctly finds the appropriate redirect in the database and does its magic. Bueno. When requesting /example it gives a 404 page. Its not even the asp.net yellowish 404 generic error page. Its the standard vanilla IIS 404 response so it appears that asp.net is not intercepting these requests.
Let me know if any other information is requested and I will try to provide what I can. Thanks in advance for all the great recommendation I am sure will come from the community.
You should be able to map a wildcard extension to go through the ASP.Net ISAPI DLL is the solution.
Installing Wildcard Application Mappings (IIS 6.0) may also be useful.
Without rewriting the CMS, you can put a physical file in a new directory "/example". This will trigger ASP.NET to intercept the request, and hopefully load your page.
If you want to really hack it up you can change the IIS 404 page to be a .NET page in your application that can handle the original request and redirect to the page you really want.
Yes this is correct because /example is not pointing to any file, it is pointing to directory in the web server. Check that Default.aspx/ default.html or any other atleast one of them exists in your app.
If you are using ASP.Net MVC for REST then check your actions are properly written.

IIS7 Custom Error URL Redirects Not Working with non-physical files

So here's the issue. We run Sitecore, which does URL rewriting, and allows for something like example.com/Folder/Page.aspx to be a proper URL.
Now, "Folder" doesn't actually exist on the file system, and neither does "Page.aspx". But those URL's work, because ASP.NET does what it's supposed to.
Okay, so now say I try to go to a web page that doesn't exist like example.com/idontexist.html. This doesn't exist in on the file system, and doesn't use ASP.NET to resolve the file, so then we get a IIS7 404 Error.
Now, I want to change the 404 Error Page to a Custom Error Page, by using a URL. Say, the URL is example.com/ErrorPage.aspx. This page is actually, not a physical page, but an item in Sitecore.
In the Custom Error configuration in IIS Manager, I am trying to change the 404 Error to point to a "URL Redirect" and I'm using "/ErrorPage.aspx" as the URL redirect. When I try to then go to a URL that doesn't exist, IIS7 blows up with an error saying that it can't find /ErrorPage.aspx.
In IIS6, this isn't an issue, and everything works fine. But on IIS7, I redirect to a URL that isn't physically on the server.
Help!
to make a very long story short, here's the thing:
1) configure IIS so that 404 errors go to "default.aspx"
2) create a page that actually handles what you want to handle.
Reference links, SDN originals:
http://sdn5.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore6/handling_http_404_a4.pdf
http://sdn.sitecore.net/upload/sitecore6/dynamic_links_a4.pdf

ASP.NET/IIS: 404 for all file types

I set up 404 handler page in web.config, but it works ONLY when extension of URL is .aspx (or other which is handled by ASP.NET).
I know I can setup static HTML page in website options, but I want to have a page.
Is there any options to assign ASPX handler page for all request extensions in IIS?
The direct question was whether or not there are options to assign the ASPX handler to all request extensions: Yes, there is. I'll discuss how to do that shortly.
First, I think the "hidden" question -- the answer you really want -- is whether or not there's a way to redirect all 404 errors for pages other than ASPX, ASMX, etc. Yes, there is, and this is the better choice if it'll solve the issue you're having.
To redirect all 404s in IIS 6, right click your web application root (whether it be its own site or a virtual directory in the main site), and choose "Properties." From there, choose the "Custom Errors" tab. Find 404 in the list and change it to the redirect you want.
Now, if that won't suffice -- and I really hope it does -- yes, you can run every page through the ASPX handler. However, doing so comes at a fairly high cost in terms of efficiency -- raw HTML/image serving is considerably faster than anything dynamic.
To do this, right click your web application root and choose "Properties." Choose the "Home Directory" tab. Click "Configuration;" a new window will pop up. Copy the path from one of the ASP.NET page serves, and then use it for a wildcard application map.
Bear in mind, again, this is the wrong answer most of the time. It will negatively impact your performance, and is the equivalent of using a chainsaw to carve a turkey. I highly recommend the first option over this one, if it will work out for you.
For information:
This is one of the several nice things that IIS7 brings - all pages are routed through the handler such that you can do custom 404s and - usefully - directory and file level security for any file (based on the same web.config stuff as for asp.net files prior to IIS7).
So notionally "use II7" is an answer (will be "the" answer in time) - but of course its not a terribly practical one if you're not hosting/being hosted on W2k8 (or higher).
The web.config can only set up errors pages for pages controlled by it's web site. If you have any other pages outside the purview of the ASP.Net application, then you set up handling for them in IIS. There's an option in there for configuring the 404 page where you can point it to your custom page.
Only other thing i can think of is passing ALL extensions to asp.net.
This way all types of files get processed by asp.net and your custom error page will work.
In the IIS application configuration, you can set a wildcard mapping (".*") to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll
You can setup wild card mapping in IIS (Application configuration/Mappings/Wildcard mappings/ - just set aspnet_isapi.dll as executable and uncheck the Verify that file exists box) that will route all incoming requests to your app - so you can control the behavior directly from it.
You don't have to setup static page in your IIS application settings. Imho, you should be able to setup valid url (e.g. /error_handler.aspx) from your app that will be used as landing page in case of specific server error.
In IIS you can set a Custom Error for 404 errors and direct it to a URL in the site properties.
It shows a static html by default
C:\WINDOWS\help\iisHelp\common\404b.htm
You can change it to a relative url on your site.

Resources