I have been using the Uniform Server for doing local development without any huge commitment or any server-style footprint on my dev box.
I'd like to enable a similar experience for Asp.Net MVC 3 and Razor development. But I'd like to avoid installing IIS, SQL Server, and Visual Studio. I'd like to avoid installing any server software, except via a file copy. The express versions of VS aren't an improvement, for example.
I can deal with having to install frameworks, like the .Net Framework 4.0, MVC3, etc.
Questions:
Is there any existing software capable of this? Is it possible to bend my existing Apache file-copied deployment to do this and work with the .Net Framework?
If not, what is the least I could get away with? Is it possible to install some version of the Asp.Net Development Server without installing full IIS, SQL Server, and Visual Studio?
Reason:
My hosting provides PHP and Asp.Net support only, and I don't really want to use PHP. I don't want my in-development or throw-away projects to be public, so I'm not going to use my hosting for development. I also want to enable the whole "wipe it clean and start fresh by wiping a directory" development workflow.
On the web server side, the closest approach I know of to what you're suggesting is probably IIS Express.
For the database, have a look at SQL Server Compact Edition -- it's an embedded version that shouldn't require installation.
I believe Cassini is what you are looking for. While I haven't got around to using it, for exactly the same target (MVC 3), it has been sitting in my findings a while now, so please report back if you actually use it with MVC3!
As for a database solution, I would go with an embedded sql ce 4
Related
So, I setup a Win10 box as an Apache server; built VS19 Asp.net webforms app, which works as expected when run in VS. published to the C:\Apache24\htdocs folder. Now, I setup port forwarding on my ISP-provided "Internet IP Address" to point to my local server. If I use any browser (outside of my LAN) to access that address (e.g. http://xx.yy.zz.qq - not showing actual IP for security reasons) I will see the page titled "index of /", and the list of files that I published to that htdocs folder. If I put in INDEX.HTML file in that folder, it will be displayed; but since I see Default.aspx as the 1st entry in the IIS Default Documents list, with NO index.html present, I still just see the list of files, not the aspx. I don't think the fact that I've not yet established a DomainName-to-IP binding should make any difference to this issue, but I can't be sure. Any thoughts? As you might guess, I've not done this before! :) ). TIA!
Jim
I made sure that the VS instance of the website was not running, just in case that might cause IIS confusion; but I don't think that would be the case.
As noted, I can't see how a non .net server going to run/launch/process correctly aspx pages that require IIS as the web server?
I mean, IIS can't run a web site designed for Apache, nor can say IBM "web spere" web server either.
I am trying "hard" to think how a application built in .net framework going to work with a web server that not designed to work with the .net framework?
I mean, if you have a computer, and have a word document, then you need word installed to work with that document.
If you have a PDF file on your computer, then you have to install some PDF software to use that PDF document.
A web server is not some "magic" box, but is a plane jane computer, with some software installed on it. So, if you build a aspx .net framework site in .net, then that computer will require the .net framework to have been installed, and require the correct type of software to work with those pages - in this case IIS.
Now, to be fair, you CAN do this with .net core, since .net core can run on quite much "any" computer (that supports nigex). However EVEN in that case, they FAKE and TRICK you, since how they achieve this "magic trick" is when you build the .net core application, the build process includes a WHOLE WEB SERVER as part of the build!!! (this lighter weight web server (kestrel) thus can work if you forward the ports and requests say from Apache, or quite much any web server. But MAKE NO MISTAKE here, a WHOLE .net core compatiable web server is included in that build, and thus that .net web server IS STILL required to run that .net code.
Unfortunately, the .net framework (as opposed to the .net core choice) does not upon build of your web site INCLUDE that WHOLE WEB SERVER as part of the build.
So, .net framework sites requite the correct software to work, and that correct software in this case is the web server called IIS (Internet Information Services).
You can no more suggest/attempt/assume that some program to load and read a PDF document is now out of the blue going to consume and work with Excel files, or word files.
hint:
Software build to a particular library of code requires the correct software to run and work. Kind of simple!!
So, a computer with a web server?
That is JUST a computer with software installed on it, and you need the correct software installed on that computer to consume the files etc. it was designed form.
Apache web server can no more consume a "application" or "web site" designed for IIS then it can consume other files etc. that are designed for use with a 100% different application. this is how all software works, and it not clear why you would think that Apache, or IIS, or word or Excel would work any different at all here?
Now, there was the "mono" project, and that was a port of .net framework that allowed the .net framework to run say on Linux, and there are some examples of some attempts to run aspx pages that way, but it is a galactic mess of epic proportions, and really not the way to go.
However, as stated, the .net core system DOES run on just about any platform, and it does have the above "magic trick" of being able to run on Apache, but behind the scenes, that software build actually includes a WHOLE WORKING web server that is .net core compatible, and that WHOLE web server is included with your build, and thus some are "fooled" by this magic trick that .net core web sites can run on Apache. They look like they can, but they are not, and in that example case (of .net core, NOT .net framework), the site seeming to work on the Apache web server? Nope, what occurs is the Apache web server simple hands off any web request to the REAL WORKING AND INSTALLED .net core web server!!! (thus Apache really only acts as a router, or "hand off" machine, and all the REAL web processing occurs in the .net core web server called kestrel).
So, you can do as you ask, but you would have to dump "web forms" and build the web site with aspx pages as a .net core web site. If you do that, then YES you can use Apache, and it will work, but behind the scenes, it ONLY works because that build process of the .net site ALSO includes THAT WHOLE COPY AND WORKING COPY of a .net core web server as part of the build. As noted, this magic trick option during the build process is NOT available for .net framework, but is most certainly available for the .net core choice.
So, in your case of using Apache? Software designed for a particular type of web server must use the correct type of web server. Same goes for IIS - it can't consume nor run a web site designed for Apache. I mean, how software works on your desktop is not any different then how software on a web server
The pages you have implemented with the .aspx are part of the ASP.NET Web Forms framework. This framework is part of the .NET Framework. The main server required to host Web Forms applications is IIS (Internet Information Services). Since you are working on a Windows machine, you can research how to setup IIS to host your Web Forms site if you wish. If you still want to use Apache as the front end for your site, you can even have it proxy requests to your site hosted in IIS, although there's probably little benefit and much complexity from such a setup.
Apache out of the box does not include support for hosting Web Forms applications. There is an open source project called Mono that seeks to implement an alternative version of .NET Framework and allows the use of alternative web servers such as Apache. But Mono has largely been superseded by .NET Core.
.NET Core is the official replacement for .NET Framework. It is open source and cross platform by default, and the ASP.NET Core web framework that runs on .NET Core includes a Kestrel web server. This can be utilized with Apache (or any other web server) in front of it, acting as a reverse proxy. It is not a magic trick, but a rather standard approach for web applications these days. However, ASP.NET Core does not include the Web Forms framework, so you would need to re-implement your application in a more modern alternative that's supported by ASP.NET Core if you intend to stay in the .NET ecosystem. There are many alternatives in ASP.NET Core including MVC, Blazor, Razor Pages, and Web API.
I know its possible to develop and host an ASP.Net site on Linux using Mono and Apache, but I'd like to know how well it works and if its worth the hassle? I prefer open source, but for this project I want the quickest, easiest, most reliable solution.
The site I'll be building will be a fairly basic ASP.Net site using MySQL.
I'd like to know if anyone else has experience using Mono in a situation like mine and how the project went. How did it compare to using a Microsoft-centric solution?
I know Mono is still somewhat incomplete, but I'm hoping I won't need the features it lacks.
This question may be a bit "polarizing". Most similar questions seem to have responses from people who are either very pro-Microsoft or pro-Linux. I'm hoping for some unbiased responses, preferably from people with experience using both.
I switched from MS-centric solutions about a year and a half ago and now I'm hosting all of my websites and web projects on Linux/Mono/Apache/MySQL based virtual servers (I was originally using nginx instead of apache, but mono-fastcgi-server was randomly causing thrashing, so I choose apache as a web server). I can summarize my (subjective) experience with this configuration into a few points:
It can take some time to get used to difference between Linux and MS based environments (if you never used Linux before), but I do not regret this decision. What helped me a lot was creating installation and configuration procedures for particular technologies (for example mono parallel environments, apache virtual hosts configurations, dealing with certain issues) which are mostly repeatable and can be automated.
You can still use Visual Studio to develop your applications and then deploy them on Linux machine. If you are using this approach it's a good habit to test your apps regularly on mono for possible incompatibilities.
I deploy web applications via FTP which is probably the easiest way of doing it (well maybe WinSCP is even easier, because you don't have to set up FTP server, but it depends on your preferences).
So far I have run into 2 cases with Mono/Apache where memory leak caused unavailability of the website. This was probably caused by Boehm garbage collector which I was using on old mono installation. I haven't had similar problems with a new sgen GC on recent versions of mono.
What I like the most on mono running on Linux environment compared to MS stuff is that you don't have to click around all the time when doing administrative tasks. Shell is for me unified administrative interface which can speed up things (if you have some practice).
Hosting ASP.NET on mono from my experience is quite easy and fast. i has been host multiple of my project using Mono ASP.NET MVC 1 / 2 using MySQL and PostgreSQL, serve by Apache mod_mono.
Compared with deployment on Windows Server. It quite narrow when using modern linux distribution which already provides all package to deploy mono ASP.NET. the only drawback is you have to make sure your Web Application portable enough in term of IO accessing and only very short learning curve and experience needed to debug and publish your project.
For Deploying our project in Linux. It easy using Version Control (VS) such as Mercurial or Git if u have fully control on the server. If U have more experience using continues integration is more better. I mainly using mercurial so step bellow is the step i usually do, but i think it almost similar for Git:
Install mercurial, and configure mod_wsgi, hgweb.wsgi and hgwerb.config
Init VS repo and publish at hgweb.config and configure hook to update and invoke xbuild to automatically build when u push it
publish the repo (web part) as mono application at mod_mono.conf
So u just need to code at visual studio, commit and push your changes using tortoiseHg without event login to server (set repo url, user and password at your repo hgrc)
Please note that although you can deploy ASP on Linux via things like Mono, if you use a Microsoft ide such as Visual studio, webmatrix, or Visual web developer your licence only allows you to deploy these on Microsoft servers!
I've developed a very simple ASP.NET (jQuery) application.
The RDBMS is MS Sql Server but I could easily convert it in MS Access.
My client would like to have it available on a CD, ready to run.
I was thinking to convert it in a WinForm app but, still, I have to install the framework on the client.
Is there any other "possible" solution?
You're going to have more trouble trying to run a web app on a client machine than you will a desktop application.
A web app requires some sort of web server running, but a desktop app just needs the framework.
You're going to be better off converting it to a desktop app.
If your users are running versions of XP, Vista, or Windows 7 that include IIS, you could conceivably install the application into a virtual directory. That's a lot to ask from end-users, though. Most users won't have IIS installed even if they are running a version of Windows that offers it.
I haven't tried this, but I just found it by searching for "portable asp.net web server"
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/TinyWebServer.aspx
Introduction
Have you ever wanted to show up an
ASP.NET project where IIS was not
accessible? Have you ever thought of
if there can be a way to carry your
web server wherever you go, i.e., on a
USB flash stick or even a CD?
If so, then this cool TinyWebServer is
for you! This tiny portable web server
can be used for testing and developing
ASP.NET projects, wherever IIS is not
available.
Should be simple if you convert it to HTML & jquery script. As HTML doesn't require any seperate runtime & also worth considering asp.net runtime also does the same thing when the response is sent to the client.
You maybe able to do this by using something like cassini http://www.asp.net/downloads/archived/cassini/. This is a simplified version of the visual studio web server that you see when you run from visual studio.
In my team we have used this and wrapped it in a exe that allows us to start the cassini server and start a browser to the cassini server address.
This still relies on the right version of .NET Framework being installed.
EDIT: Some more recent links http://ultidev.com/Products/Cassini/ and
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmitryr/archive/2008/10/03/cassini-for-framework-3-5.aspx
Hi guys,
We have a mixed development environment of three servers running: Win Server 2003 & 2008, IIS 7 & IIS 6, ASP.NET 2.0 & ASP.NET 3.5. Previously, all three servers were Server 03/IIS6/ASP.NET 2.0, but with this new change, I am finding that pushing/moving any applications from server to server is always a terrifying experience because there are always a variety of problems with the web.config from server to server. I used to consider myself a confident ASP.NET developer but now I am frightened to come to work every day.
I have always used the web.configs that VS generates for me on the Win 2003/ ASP.NET 2.0 server. None of our web.configs are "leet", they are just normal, although we do use ScriptManager and UpdatePanel.
To get by, as a temporary fix, I'm having to remember that when projects are moved/tested/deployed, never to move or overwrite any web.configs and things get confusing very fast. I've tried "ducttaping" like suggested here my web.configs with the new IIS7 stuff but even that doesn't work all the time.
What can I do here, what's going on? Is there a standard web.config that will work on all of the servers and do the UpdatePanel and ScriptManager ?
[edited question]
Since IIS6 is the baseline install for your application, you should make sure to run the application in "Classic" mode under IIS7. This makes configuration the same as an IIS6 box. This is how we run our web applications for now until we have fully migrated to 100% IIS7 server environments and we have zero problems with deployment/runtime.
To do this you can either choose to run your app under the built in "Classic .NET AppPool" that comes with IIS7 or, assuming you create your own custom application pools, just make sure you set the "Managed Pipeline Mode" to "Classic" under the "Advanced Settings" dialog for the app pool.
You should seriously look at web deployment projects for visual studio 2008.
This is an official add-on for Visual Studio that gives you a new project type called web deployment project. Among the most useful features is the ability to do web.config search/replace as well as pre-compiled builds of your web sites or web application projects.
In your case, what you'd do is create a solution configuration in visual studio for all of your target web servers. Then you'd create a web deployment project for your web app. In the properties for the deployment project you tell it how you want to compile the project and what web.config replacements you want to use for each solution configuration.
The end result should be that you can open Visual Studio, pick a solution configuration, build the deployment project. The build will create a folder with everything you need for that environment including the correctly configured web.config files. Then you just copy the folder to your server and you are up-and-running.
Best of all, since the different config files are all stored in the projecct, it lets you manage your configuration in one place and check it all into source control.
Do note that there is no equivalent in Visual Studio 2010. Instead, VS 2010 has a whole new deployment mechanism called MSDeploy. With 2010 you don't need a seperate project for deployments, and MSDeploy goes a lot further allowing you to package your SQL databases and other stuff too.
You can use the Classic mode under IIS6 by changing the process. That is actually pretty simple and it should work.
Another approach would be to automating your deployment process and have it so that it deploys the correct web.config to the server when you need to update your application.
If you run your IIS 7 websites using the Classic .NET App Pool, then the config files will match what you would use for IIS 6. That's probably the easiest thing to do until you're ready to migrate everything to IIS 7.
Knowledge is a great way to get over fear. Figure out what's going on (you're currently grasping at straws) and the fear will go away.
It's my guess that you'll do better if you refactor the code that uses the config file. Sloppiness there can definitely explain your weirdness and inconsistencies. You can't control much with your config settings if the code isn't behaving properly.
I've been doing PHP/MySQL websites with shared hosting providers for the last couple years. The day-to-day process is basically:
develop in Eclipse, one website per folder
upload via FileZilla, one website per folder
use PHPMyAdmin to create and manage your local and online databases and transfer data from one to another
to backup the online database I do dump of the database tables into script and copy them locally
I now want to build websites with ASP.NET with SQL Server 2008 on shared hosting providers, and am trying to get into this new paradigm, hopefully some of you can give me some pointers based on your experience and tell me what I am not doing optimally:
I've installed both the Visual Web Developer 2008 Express as well as the full version of Visual Studio 2008, both seem to be full-featured tools for developing ASP.NET sites. In terms of websites at shared hosting providers, what can you do with the full version that you can't do with the express version?
I use FileZilla to upload my sites, which seems to work fine. Do you use an external FTP program to upload your sites or do you use the "Publish" or "FTP Website" in the above IDEs?
I installed SQL Server 2008 Management Studio and can now issue SQL commands to my online SQL Server database (although I strangely can't see my database in the list on the left, I can still access it, I assume this is some rights issue with my provider, www.domainbox.de, but this provider told me to use their online manager instead, which is called "ASP.NET Enterprise Manager" which is extremely simple but at least has a "Query Box" which allows me to send queries to my database.) Is this "ASP.NET Enterprise Manager" standard with ASP.NET hosters or is there something else that is better, e.g. where you could edit your data in the grid, etc.? And I assume that with most providers you are able to manage your online SQL Server database with SQL Server Management Studio, is that correct? (I remember back in 2001 managing online SQL Server 2000 database at a shared hosting provider with Enterprise Manager and it would take literally 10 minutes for me to see my database on the left because it listed out the other 800 customer databases as well -- hopefully this has been solved by now).
How do you backup your data in your online database to local storage? (currently I would have to write code that output my data to some other format, e.g. XML or SQL Script)
And after you make a number of structural and data changes to your local database, how do you transfer those changes and the new data to your online database? (I had to install SSMS Tools [http://www.ssmstoolspack.com] to be able to dump my data into a script so that I could get it back into my online database).
So, although I've gotten most things to work, I feel like there must be better ways to go about this, better providers, better tools, etc. Would like to hear some "best practices" advice from anyone who works with ASP.NET, SQL Server and shared hosting.
For the most part, what you're doing now will work with an asp.net website.
For your development environment, I don't think you will be limited by using Visual Web Developer 2008 express for what you want to do. Here is a microsoft page that compares every version of visual studio 2008, including Visual Web Developer 2008 Express: Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison
For deploying your website over the net, I would generall stick to deploying manually. You can use some of the automated stuff in visual studio, but your deployment will tend to be a little slower. After compiling your application, it will then delete every file in your destination website, and upload everying from scratch (uncompressed I think). Your whole site will be down while this happens. When you deploy manually you can upload just the changed files, or everything in a compressed format.
Regarding the SQL server, many shared hosting services will let you connect with some sort of local SQL management tool. However, connecting this way generally uses a lot of bandwidth so they throttle the allowed bandwidth for this way down. This is probably the performance issues you previously saw. If you can get by with it, I would use their hosted SQL tools for most of your work, but then use the management studio for anything it can't handle.
For backing up your SQL server, if your host doesn't have a way for you to perform an automatic backup then you will have to do something yourself. I would first check to see if they will allow you to at least run a SQL backup command. This will generate a .bak file of your database, but on the local database server. Most places will work with you on this, since many customers need this.
For applying changes to your database, your best bet is to script all of the changes into one sql script and run it using the remote SQL management tool. These aren't hard to write, and there are a few tools out there that will help you with it. I personally like to use Visio. It lets me compare two databases (local and remote) then generate a script to apply to the remote one with all the changes.
Good luck
As far as capabilities of VS Express vs Standard - Standard is still the better tool. It gives you a richer debugging experience, broader support for solutions/projects dependencies among other things.
These things still matter even when doing shared hosting b/c you absolutely need to debug your app (client and server side). You can do this adequately with Express with some caveats (cant attach to an arbitrary process, client side javascript debugging is a pain), Standard makes this MUCH easier.
For publishing/deploying - I would recommend 'Web Depoyment Projects' - an MSBuild extension that you can download from MS. This gives you a lot of customizability of how you want to build and deploy your website - which can include sending it to an FTP site. If you have ever used MSBuild and like it - Web Deployment Projects are the easiest hook to extend your build process with an ASP.NET website.