We have a web application written in ASP.NET 3.5. In it, we access a file in the code-behind. (Ordinary C# file access, done on the server during the page life-cycle, this has nothing to do with URLs or web browsers).
On our production systems, we specify the full path to the file in question in the web.config. We'd like to be able to include a local copy of the file in the project in version control, and then to use a relative path in the version-controlled web.config to point to it, so that a checked-out copy of the application could be run from within Visual Studio's debugger without having to do any configuration.
The problem is that when the web application is running in debug mode, its working directory is neither the project nor the solution directory. In a windows or console application, in a project's properties page I can set the working directory. But in a web application I cannot.
Any ideas on how I can manage to make this work?
To get the path of the root of the application:
//equivalent to Server.MapPath("/"); if at domain root, e.g Http://mysite.com/
string path = Server.MapPath("~");
This answer gives a rundown of a few different common Server.MapPath() uses that may also be of use to you.
In code behind: HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~")
Use:
Server.MapPath("~");
Related
I've written and ASP.net MVC web application that needs to be installed as a "normal" application (or as close to it as possible). By which I mean, I need to have a "double click on exe file and the webappp opens in default browser" behavior, or as close to that as possible.
Being used to Java, I stupidly thought that I could use and embedded webserver to run it, but after a bit of research (correct me if I'm wrong here) it seems this cannot be done (only ASP.net Core can do that, but I'm using the traditional .NET Framework) and the web app needs to be run in either IIS or IIS Express.
So, after more research, this page:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/extensions/using-iis-express/running-iis-express-from-the-command-line
seems to suggest that launching a site from a specific folder via IIS Express is possible, by using a command like:
iisexpress.exe /path:"C:\Program Files\MyWebsite\bin"
where the path above contains my compiled ASP.net MVC website.
This, however, doesn't seem to work. When I issue that command I get the following output:
c:\Program Files\IIS Express>iisexpress.exe /path:"C:\Program Files\MyWebsite\bin"
Copied template config file 'c:\Program Files\IIS Express\AppServer\applicationhost.config' to 'C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\Temp\iisexpress\applicationhost20179188941639.config'
Updated configuration file 'C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\Temp\iisexpress\applicationhost20179188941639.config' with given cmd line info.
Starting IIS Express ...
Successfully registered URL "http://localhost:8080/" for site "Development Web Site" application "/"
Registration completed
IIS Express is running.
Enter 'Q' to stop IIS Express
So basically IIS Express starts, but it's not running my website from the folder I specified, it runs some (presumebly) default empty website, called "Development Web Site". I checked some urls, and I can confirm that is not my website, but just an empty shell with no pages or anything else.
What am I missing here? How do you start a website in IIS Express via command line? Do I have to "register" the website first somehow?
EDIT:
After a bit more research, I found out I can register a website explicitly by doing:
appcmd.exe add site /name:MySite /physicalPath:"C:\Program Files\MyWebsite\bin" /bindings:http://localhost:8081
and then start it with:
iisexpress.exe /site:MySite
This however doesn't solve the problem: when I browse to the website via browser all I get are 404 errors, there's no content at all.
One thing I also must point out: since an ASP.net website is compiled into a DLL file, I don't understand how simpy registering/starting it using a path to a FOLDER would work... how would IIS Express understand which DLL to load the site from? Seems like there are some crucial pieces missing here...
After further tinkering, I figured it out. I was pointing to the /bin directory of the website. Instead, you have to point to the parent directory, the one that contains the Web.config file.
So, in my case, I changed:
iisexpress.exe /path:"C:\Program Files\MyWebsite\bin"
to:
iisexpress.exe /path:"C:\Program Files\MyWebsite"
and now it works correctly
I have a website that was building without any issue on multiple servers.
But, when I copy/move it on the same machine from one folder to another folder: I started getting the error
The Virtual Path Maps To Another Application Which Is Not Allowed.
What am I doing wrong?
The source of this problem is that when one copies an ASP.NET Web Site to a new folder -- the properties setting associated with the solution "Virtual Path" is set to the folder name and not the root. The solution is to change the Virtual Path setting from the folder name to "/".
This can be found by right click the project and opening the properties dialog: Solution->Properties->Virtual Path-> Change to "/"
This isn't why your error happened but it may be useful to someone researching the problem who ends up here.
If your web app is running as an application within another IIS site (set via the IIS administration tool) and is attempting to reach resources of the other site by means such as HttpResponse.Redirect, make sure the project isn't set to use a separate IIS in Visual Studio. If it is, it may be firing up inside a different IIS than the rest of the site.
Additional check: Missing global.asax also causes the same error.
If you are creating a new HttpContext and calling any external
service, it also causes the same error.
Key is you should not create new HttpContext, change the existing
context to your needs.
Can anyone explain, please, exactly how .net works. I create a web site in Visual Studio and publish it to a local server to a folder at
D:\WebSites\Project1
I create a web site in IIS and provide the address of the folder containing the files for the web site. When I publish the site, using 'fixed naming and single page assemblies', all the .aspx files go in the folder on the D drive and a dll for each page goes in the bin folder inside that folder.
I would assume that when someone wants to view a page in their browser, IIS retrieves the file(s) required from the folder specified, they get processed and turned into html and sent to the browser.
Recently when someone clicked a button on a page that calls a web service - a file not found error was reported. Apparently
C:\Temp\bx5tn2js.dll
could not be found. The thing is - why did IIS decide to look in C:\Temp for a file?
And, in the error message was a load of references to xml serialization. What is being serialized?
This file looks like the compile files that asp.net generates on compile.
This folder can be setup on web.config on compilation session with the
tempDirectory="C:\Temp"
If you do not have set this option asp.net is use a default folder that is usually inside the asp.net directory, inside the windows folder. But if you have set this, and this folder did not have the correct permissions, then asp.net fails to compile the project, and you can get a message like that.
I had a website hosted in IIS. One small section of it needed asp.net. So I just right-clicked that section/directory and made it an application and a virtual directory.
Is that alright? Or does the entire "website" need to be made into an application and virtual directory?
The reason I ask is that when I try to browse to the aspx page in this "application", I am getting a parser error message "Could not load type...MyCodeBehindType" in the page directive, which seems to me to indicate that it is not finding the dll's, or even the code behind class files (which are clearly in the same directory).
EDIT:
If I do it this way, with only a subfolder of my website actually being a web application, where do I put the dlls? In a bin folder of the website the web application is within? Or in a bin folder of the web application?
Making just a folder within a website, an application, should be fine. I usually have to remember to change the version of ASP.NET from 1.1 to 2.x, that may be what's causing the error.
In order to test the configuration, start with a blank test page (blank.aspx) with just HTML. If the HTML shows up, you know IIS is serving .NET pages.
If there is a problem with ASP.NET not being correctly registered for IIS, you could try re-registering it. Open the following folder:
%WindowsDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\x.x.x\
and run:
aspnet_regiis.exe -i
I am working on a ASP.Net web forms application which I inherited from a programmer who has already left the company a few months ago.
The application is deployed in our intranet servers and user go the application via the url:
http://TestApp/App1/(12345abcde)/login.aspx
When I checked the IIS Server, the application's folder is only set to
\inetpub\wwwroot\TestApp\App1\
and from that folder, you could see the login.aspx file.
I'd like to ask what IIS settings did the previous programmer tweaked so that the URL is a bit obscured, where the imaginary(?) folder named (12345abcde) has been inserted. Which settings do I need to check for in the IIS for this?
Another question is that in the login.aspx file, the following can be found: Codebehind="Login.aspx.vb", but the same file Login.aspx.vb is not on the application's directory. Although I did see that there is a bin folder where a dll file resides. Is it possible that the vb code behind file is compiled into that DLL?
By the way, if there is an available dll viewer which I could download, kindly post the same so that I could inspect the DLL in the webforms app.
Appreciate your inputs. Thanks.
This comes from using cookieless sessions in ASP.NET.
Basically, instead of storing the session id in a cookie, it is passed as part of the URL, which makes the app usable even when cookies are disabled in a browser.
To enable/disable this feature, use the following web.config entry:
<sessionState cookieless="true" />
Regarding your second question: when you use the "publish web site" function in Visual Studio, all code-behind files are compiled to DLLs (in the bin folder), and the ASPX file are changed to include a reference to the corresponding DLL (in the <#Page > directive).
And regarding the "dll viewer": have a look at .NET Reflector.