ASP.NET MVC - How to make it work with IIS6 - asp.net

I am having some issues with deploying my MVC 2 application on a IIS 6 server.
I have the following project structure:
/
App/
Controllers/
Helpers/
Infrastructure/
Models/
Views/
Public/ # This folder contains CSS and JS files
Global.asax
Web.config
I have a custom System.Web.Mvc.WebFormViewEngine that tells my application to lookup the views in /App/Views instead of the default /Views.
It works fine on Cassini and IIS 7.5.
I need to deploy my application in a virtual directory on IIS 6 and I am getting 404 errors when trying to access any of my controllers.
I read that I needed to add a Default.aspx with the following code behind:
protected void Page_Load( object sender, EventArgs e ) {
HttpContext.Current.RewritePath( Request.ApplicationPath, false );
IHttpHandler httpHandler = new MvcHttpHandler();
httpHandler.ProcessRequest( HttpContext.Current );
}
It actually called my default controller, and showed the corresponding view, but it's the only page I've been able to get so far.
I tried to enable the wildcard mapping, it didn't change anything. But I'm using ASP.NET 4.0, and it enables routing of extension-less URLs.
I'm not really sure what to do now, I'm not finding any other helpful sources of information on the Internet.
How could I make it work?

See this walkthrough by Phil Haack.

Can't comment yet, but that walkthrough is it.
I did wildcard myself.
It was a while ago, so I don't remember the damn details of what I had to do to get it fixed now, but it took me a few hours.
I was missing some really small detail in his instructions, if I remember correctly. What error/incorrect behavior are you getting? You might trigger my memory.

Related

Cannot route static files in ASP.NET WebForms

We have legacy code to maintain and, to solve a specific customer customization problem, we want to route calls to some files to other files. That is, when the app calls a particular ASPX, it will end up hitting another ASPX.
If you call:
www.foo.com/admin/admin.aspx
It will actually hit:
www.foo.com/customizations/customer1/admin/admin.aspx
This is not a good design but this is legacy code. We just want to solve this.
We are using the System.Web.Routing framework to solve it. This works fine when you set RouteExistingFiles to true, except for static files (CSS, JavaScript and Images).
When I first tried it, it retrieved this error:
There is no build provider register for the extension '.css'.
So I did register a build provider in the web.config file for the .css extension. I used this build provider: PageBuilderProvider because someone recommended it in the internet.
It works! But the CSS is being served with text\html content type.
How do I achieve this?
TL;DR: I want to use routes in ASP.NET Web Forms to make a call for a specific CSS file to actually retrieve another one. A customer needs this for customization.
Try coding a HttpHandler. I had to do something similar but for PDF files, I coded a custom HttpHandler in the end - works very well. You can even set the content type in the HttpHandler code and have a pattern matched path the handler will be used for in the web.config. You can also configure it in web.config not to execute if the path does not point to an existing file e.g. so a 404 is returned without having to code that in the handler itself. I can't post my code (VB.NET) ATM because I'm using a tablet but google search for tutorials. You will also probably need to use the TransmitFile function to actually write out the css file. Is it a web forms project or web site? If its a web site there is a special way of registering the HttpHandler in the web.config.

Want to add MVC4 to WebForms app, don't have access to global.asax file

I did some research on "mixing and matching" with mvc4 and webforms and came across a few links, notably This one.
Seems doable, except that I'd like to add this to an existing webforms app whose global.asax codebehind I don't have access to. I update my part of the current webforms app by dropping my dlls in the bin folder of the application root.
Is there another way for me to register the routes, filters and bundles if I can't do it in the application_start method in the global.asax?
In other words, where would this code go?
protected void Application_Start()
{
AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();
WebApiConfig.Register(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration);
FilterConfig.RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
AuthConfig.RegisterAuth();
}
You would have to hack it in in some ugly way or another so the best solution would be to persuade the guys controlling global.asax to give you some kind of hook.
But the routes could ve registered anywhere as long as it only happens once and early in the application lifetime, so perhaps a static constructor somewhere?
The problem would them be to ensure that the type holding the ctor is accessed during app start which could introduce a new headache but it could be doable.
But again: some kind of hook in the startup event would be preferable.
Take a look at the App_Start folder. According to the article on code project:
"And also we can avoid touching Global.asax file when using any new
nugget packages that needs to use Application_Start from Global.asax"

How to add the Project root to the localhost path

My asp.net project, currently runs from http://localhost:51143/default.aspx
Is there anyway, I could include the root to this like http://localhost:51143/TOrders/default.aspx The reason I want to do this is because the URls that get called on the menu click events refer to "TOrders/Reports/aaa.aspx and so on and in production it would refer to intranet/TOrders/Reports/aaa.aspx and so on.
One solution could be to intercept every request in Application_BeginRequest method in Global.asax.
There you can create a rule to remove TOrders/ from the beginning. Try something like this:
void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Request.RawUrl.StartsWith("TOrders/"))
Server.Transfer(Request.RawUrl.Substring(8));
}
This may not the nicest solution, but it should be enough to give you idea what to do.
Edit:
Since you have web project (not a web site), you can set virtual path of your project. I think this is what you are looking for.
If you are using VS2010, in Solution explorer right click on your project and chose Properties, then on Web tab, in Servers section, change virtual path of your project to /TOrders/ instead of / which is default value. Now you should get http://localhost:51143/TOrders/default.aspx
You need HttpRequest.ApplicationPath property
or HostingEnvironment.ApplicationVirtualPath property.
Also useful for building virtual paths is VirtualPathUtility class.
EDIT:
Try to copy your project into a subfolder of you web root, for eg. in IIS:
C:\inetpub\wwwroot\ (or what you set)
C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyProject\
Now in IIS Managment Console, in your Default Web, you create a new 'Application'. Either you upgrade the existing folder or you create a virtual new one to your folder.
Then select a virtual path (TOrders) and set the physical path. There you will also set the AppPool if you have .NET 4, or select the runtime if you have 2.0/3.5 on IIS6.x. Try the highest version first...
Go to localhost/TOrders/

Adding Cache headers via a Web.config for specific locations only

We have an application that has been developed by the third party, and I don't want to go back to them to get them to add in cache control for specific pages.
All the pages that need caching disabled are in a single directory.
The issue is that IE seems to not follow Cache-control:nocache properly, so we need to add in Pragma:nocache and cache age as well.
Is there a way to do this using configs in the directory? will it cascade through all child directories? Can it be done via the main web.config?
To be clear, I'm not looking for a way to do this via code, it needs to be via configuration of either IIS or the web.config files.
We're using ASP.NET 2.0 and 4.0, on IIS 6.0.
This can be done in IIS using the UI, it's actually quite easy, or atleast it was in my use case.
All you do is simply open up IIS manager, navigate to the site and then the directory you want to add the headers to Right Click -> properties.
Click the "Headers" tab, and add in the headers you require.
This goes recursively down the child directories, and adds the headers before any added by the code.
In IIS 7.0/7.5, you can use the StaticContent section of a web.config in each of the directories.
You can do that on global.asax
protected void Application_BeginRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = (HttpApplication)sender;
string cTheFile = HttpContext.Current.Request.Path;
if (cTheFile.Contains("/ExtraDir/"))
{
// add your header here
app.Response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
}
//... rest code of...
}

Custom Errors for "App" folders? (ASP.NET)

Where can I setup custom errors for directories in my application such as App_Code, App_Browsers, etc.? I already have customErrors configured in the web.config and that works as expected. For example,
http://www.mysite.com/bla.aspx > redirects to 404 page
but
http://www.mysite.com/App_Code/ > displays "The system cannot find the file specified."
There's no physical App_Code directory for my site. Is this something that I can change in IIS?
You are trying to server content from an Protected Folder... ??
I think you might need to allow access to these folders to get the nice errors you are looking for...
http://www.webdavsystem.com/server/documentation/hosting_iis_asp_net/protected_folders
That being said... there is a reason these folders are protected.
I would never put anything i needed IIS to serve in protected folders.
But there are always reasons to do do something? i have broke a few rules in my short lifespan :)
UPDATE:
Found this when i tried this locally: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942047/
Looks like those reserved directories throw special 404's you might be able to get IIS to Target the 404.8 type... with out opening up serving to those directories
I believe you will need to set the error pages in IIS itself, as the requests you talk about never reach the ASP.NET application. The reason your first example works is because IIS recognises the .ASPX extension and forwards it to ASP.NET.
One way is to provide a redirect in the global.asax file:
void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//uncomment this to narrow down 'helpful' microsoft messages
//HttpRequest request = ((HttpApplication)sender).Context.Request;
Exception ex = Server.GetLastError();
//ErrorManager is a custom error handling module
ErrorManager.ProcessError(ex);
Response.Redirect("~/error.aspx?error=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(ex.Message), true);
}
{ On a side note, I was getting an exception that I just couldn't track down - it just said 'file not found' but didn't say which file was missing. It turned out to be a broken image reference in a css file - breaking on line two of the code above helped identify the missing file }
Add a Wildcard Mapping to IIS to run ALL Requests through ASP.net, then you can use Global.asax to handle the error.
Taken from here:
Follow these steps to create a wildcard script map with IIS 6.0:
Right-click a website and select Properties
Select the Home Directory tab
Click the Configuration button
Select the Mappings tab
Click the Insert button (see Figure 4)
Paste the path to the aspnet_isapi.dll into the Executable field (you can copy this path from the script map for .aspx files)
Uncheck the checkbox labeled Verify that file exists
Click the OK button

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