IIS changes the physical path to application it self - iis

I have set two websites in my IIS 8.5. I have one for production version and one for development (need this for the team work purposes). The structure is simple. Website is simple static page using BackboneJS and API calls to get all the data. All virtual paths and applications were set at the beginning manually by my self. For some reason some API calls didn't worked in dev site. I found out the physical path to the API project has changed. Do you have any idea, where can be the problem? Actually some of my collegues face this issue too.
Only think that cames to my mind is that when bdebugging the API, I use "Attach to process" in Visual Studio, where I connect to the correct IIS process - w3wp.exe with user name IIS APPPOOL\Dev or IIS APPPOOL\Prod according to the site I'm debugging.
Nevertheless I don't think the path should change itself. Where can be the problem? Does anyone have any idea how to prevent this strange behaviour?

Related

iis 10 Static Website: Deleting default site and creating completely new site (how to access new site)

This post needs help from experienced iis administrators, but must be explained in details for EXTREME newbies.
What I am doing:
I have two computers, both running Windows 10. One is a desktop and one is a laptop.
iis is enabled on both computers. Each computer can access the iis web server from the other and pull up a page from the other - using the ip address.
There is no DNS or host files being used (this is by ip address only), nor do I want to use any sort of naming.
Both computers are running an identical website, and the website files are in a different directory than the default. The structure is like this:
C:\inetpub\ROOT\myWebsite\myIndex.html
web.config
Changes I've made - now a few problems.
On both computers I have deleted the DefaultAppPool and the default website that comes installed with iis. This has not stopped the website from completely working, so adding that back seems unlikely to fix my problem.
I have deleted my application pool and website from iis (never deleting the actual files from the file system) several times, and added it several times. Each time I do this, my site comes back, but with the same problem I am having.
I have deleted all of the default documents, and the only default document listed in iis is myIndex.html.
myIndex.html initially displays a graphic image (using the standard tag), and this image comes up. Sort of. See explanation below.
The problem I am having
Before I started this project, I had iis working on the desktop with the default site and app pool and simply added some of my own files with really simple text content and some pics. I had replaced the default iis splash image with my own image, and all that worked with no problem.
the image that comes up is a link to another page that has a list of links to other stuff in my website. It all works no problem there.
Now, with the setup I have now, on the desktop I was originally using (in the paragraph above) if I pull up my website locally, myIndex.html loads in the browser and my image comes up, and everything works fine.
The same is true on the laptop, when I access the site locally.
However, if I attempt to access the desktop site (using its ip address) from the laptop, it pulls up the old splash image from the default site I deleted.( I left those files there even though I deleted the site from within iis). All those files are in the default location C:\inetpub\wwwroot.
If I move those files to another directory, thus leaving C:\inetpub\wwwroot completely empty, then when I access the site on the desktop (via the ip address) from the laptop, my new site comes up without a problem.
While it seems I may have solved my problem by moving the file from the previous project, doing that does not teach me how iis is actually working, and why files from a website that no longer exists in iis are still being accessed from remote computers.
So, please teach me something about the internal workings of iis, and how it chooses to access the different application pools and websites.
Again, please word your answers for complete newbies, because I know a little but not enough to get real technical.
I have been reading posts on stackexchange.com and other sites; links to microsoft docs etc. That's not helping as those docs are expecting too much prerequisite knowledge, and speaking in terms that are not really explaining things in a way I can understand.
You have described several different problems. I will try to address each of them (contrary to S/O recommendations).
First, when you make changes, and they don't seem to show up, it is usually because of caching. IIS always wants to cache files/configs. So does your web browser. So, to force an accurate test, you need to dump your browser cache and cycle IIS (to make sure it drops its cache and loads new files and configs). Start there.
Second, IIS is designed for settings inheritance. Which means, each app and each folder will inherit settings and permissions from the parent, unless you override them. Overriding them can be done by files and/or IIS configs (application vs folder). The IIS configs are the stronger of the two.
Also, the IIS config for "default files" might have come into-play for your test. If you didn't set up MyIndex.html as the top-most default file, then IIS would look for other files first. In fact, if you don't have MyIndex.html in the list of default files, IIS would have to depend on your app to choose that as a default page (MVC routing, etc).

Azure Mobile Services on Local IIS rather than IIS Express

OK, I've created an Azure Mobile Services project in Visual Studio 2013.
I run it up as-is, then in the browser I test it by adding a todo item via the simple browser app that seems to get baked into these service projects. It gives me a '201 success' message - brilliant.
I then convert the project from IIS Express to Local IIS as the web host, recompile and try again, and although I get the same smiley face app telling me that everything is OK, when I try and add a todo item I get a 404 error. This is contrary to the Microsoft article that gives these instructions, which clearly says I am able to choose either IIS Express or Local IIS when setting up the project.
My guess is that web.config is missing something when this project runs on the local IIS server.
I'm hoping someone already has a solution before I spend hours trying to work out how to configure IIS for this type of project.
I've already wasted a load of time working through loads of bugs and gotchas with Azure Mobile, and I'm starting to run out of steam - so I'm hoping someone can help me before I go and grab an account at Parse.com
Many thanks in anticipation.
Dean
The easiest approach for your situation might be to just deploy to the cloud, and use that service for your testing. Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 makes it easy to deploy your app and connect to it for remote debugging. It is a little slower than using a local instance, but you are also assured that there will be no surprises when you eventually go live (since you are live the whole time).
That said, we will investigate the issue you are seeing with using IIS directly. Some things you might want to try on your own:
Verify that you can view the web side from your Mac's browser, to make sure that the firewall is letting the requests through.
Try using the "Getting Starting" link from the smiley-face page, to see if the REST endpoints are behaving correctly.

IIS not able to locate the web.config

I have a deployed a web application in IIS. Which used to work without any issues. Recently i have shifted that web application to another machine, Here is the problem. Once i setup the Webapplication when i opened the default document in IIS im getting the File not found error as following
Internal Server Error
\?\C:\inetpub\wwwroot\application\web.config
I have no clue why the IIS is not able to find the web.config. The file is present in the path C:\inetpub\wwwroot\application\web.config but the IIS is looking in the path \?\C:....
Please let me know how to resolve this??
Firstly this is documented on support.microsoft.com so I would suggest that anyone who has this issue read this first as it covers a number of solutions which I won't
Now from personal experience I encountered this error after setting up a new development machine. What I had forgotten to do was install the Url Rewrite 2.0 IIS module. Sadly the IIS error gives absolutely no idea that this is the actually issue.
Therefore to solve this issue investigate the system.webServer setting in our web.config and ensure that you have installed all the iis modules that you use. I did this by systematically removing elements from my web.config until I came across the cause.
In my case, I was running ASP .NET Core website so I had to install .Net Core Runtime from
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/current/runtime
I know it's old post but I resolved the same issue as follows:
If you are using TFS and you are getting this problem then Reason is ".vs" file is not excluded from commit.
Because of that ".vs\config\applicationhost.config" gets the local version of another user/Developer.
To Solve the error, First open that file Update Physical path inside "" xml tag.
Also ask user to exclude this folder from TFS to prevent future issues.
If you are getting mysql localhost error. What I will do will work for you.
Control Panel(View by: Large Icons) >> Programs and Features >>
(Usually upper left corner) Turn Windows Features on or off >>
Internet Information Services >> Web Management Tools and World Wide Web Services
After Restart.

What is the aspnet_client folder for under the IIS structure?

I notice that there's frequently an aspnet_client folder under the standard IIS web folder structure. What is this used for? Is it needed?
In the .NET 1.1 days and before, this folder provided ASP.NET with its JavaScript support for the validation controls and other functionality. If you don't have a .NET 1.1 site or older running it should be safe to delete it. I would rename it first to ensure it doesn't cause any problems.
In addition to what others have said, it's usually created by the aspnet_regiis tool, which can be (re-)run by things like Windows Update/AddRemove Windows components/IIS. So sometimes even if you do delete it, it can come back randomly. There may be a way to stop this behavior, but I haven't found it (maybe changing the application version to .NET 2 would do it actually).
So unless you're using certain features of .NET 1.0/1.1 (validation, Smart Navigation etc) you can delete it without any problems, just don't be too surprised if it comes back!
aspnet_client is a folder for "resources which must be served via HTTP, but are installed on a per-server basis, rather than a per-application basis".
Some of the uses of aspnet_client include storing resources (eg. JavaScript, images) for:
JavaScript for ASP.NET Web Forms controls when using client-side validation (mainly to manhandle older browsers like IE5, it seems)
ASP.NET 2.0 (until at framework 4.0) for 'Global Themes' (global to all sites on a server, that is)
some versions of Crystal Reports
There probably are/will-be further (ab)uses of this folder in the future. Needless to say, since it contains things which are "necessary for the application to run correctly" but which "are not supposed to be deployed by the application", it will remain something of a nightmare for both developers and system administrators.
It seems that the 'prototype' for the contents of the folder is in C:\inetpub\wwwroot, and it seems reasonable to suppose that if any given IIS website lacks a /aspnet_client resource, then IIS will try to do the right thing and ... as a last resort ... make a physical folder in the web site root folder, and copy the files there. It seems that IIS will do this at least when "ASPNET_regiis /c" is invoked a given server - which probably occurs automatically at some critical junctures ... like when .NET framework updates are applied to a server which has the IIS role.
Strategies for handling the aspnet_client directory include:
specifying a virtual directory mapped to C:\inetpub\wwwroot in the hope that IIS will forgo creating a physical directory
deleting the physical directory from time to time if you're sure your site doesn't need it and it really bothers you
ignoring aspnet_client
running "ASPNET_regiis /c" yourself if you're missing the folder, and need it
Probably most importantly, as a developer, you should clearly understand and document your applications' dependencies on the aspnet_client directory, and make sure that your installation procedure has relevant instructions for making sure that the directory exists. However, you should probably not bother to actually supply the directory as part of your packaged web application or web site - how could you possibly do this for each version of the .NET framework which the server will see over the lifetime of your application?!
Some links I will come back to later:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/certification/mcts/9780735657489/2dot-using-master-pages-themes-and-caching/ch02s03_html?query=((aspnet_client))&reader=html&imagepage=#snippet
What is the aspnet_client folder in my ASP.NET website?
iis express path for global theme directory
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/web-development/microsoft-aspdotnet/0735621772/aspdotnet-configuration/111?query=((aspnet_client))#X2ludGVybmFsX0J2ZGVwRmxhc2hSZWFkZXI/eG1saWQ9MDczNTYyMTc3Mi8xMTE=
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/web-development/microsoft-aspdotnet/9780471785989/working-with-themes/ch41lev1sec8?query=((aspnet_client))&reader=html&imagepage=#X2ludGVybmFsX0h0bWxWaWV3P3htbGlkPTk3ODA0NzE3ODU5ODklMkZjaDQxbGV2MnNlYzEwJnF1ZXJ5PSgoYXNwbmV0X2NsaWVudCkp
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/web-development/microsoft-aspdotnet/067232542x/performing-form-validation-with-validation-controls/ch03lev1sec1?query=((aspnet_client))&reader=html&imagepage=#snippet
http://scn.sap.com/thread/3157366
It also has certain icons and scripts that are required for crystal reports to run properly even in versions later than 1.1
The folder is usually for storing client side Javascript, which ASP.NET uses for things like validation.
It should be safe to delete.
Figured I'd add this here as this is the link I kept being directed to when I googled this question. Apparently with .NET 4.0 and newer this folder is no longer needed and can be removed without issue.
If you are using Installshield to configure ASP.net website, be aware that this feature was present in Installshield 2010 and is missing in Installshield 2012.

How to run classic ASP scripts under IIS 5.1 (WinXP Pro) alongside .NET & CF?

I'm running into a problem setting up my development environment. I've been working on ColdFusion and .NET applications up until recently I haven't needed to touch IIS. Now, I have to set up a classic ASP application for some one-off work.
I added a virtual directory in IIS and pointed it at the actual codebase on my local machine. I then set the security to low (for ISAPI extensions, i.e. ASP) and allowed for script execution. For some reason though, if I hit any .asp page it says the page cannot be found. However, HTML and static files load up just fine.
EDIT: URLScan fix seems to have done it. Fired up the app in another browser (i.e. not IE6), and I'm getting better error reporting. Looks like we're missing some includes, but it is executing the scripts. Thanks!
You need to make sure that the "Active Server Pages" web service extension is set to an allowed status.
Check out: http://classicasp.aspfaq.com/general/why-does-iis-hang-and/or-stop-serving-asp-pages.html
Also, you should be aware that a virtual directory may affect the include file paths in the asp pages themselves. If the original asp application does not use a virtual directory, then your local copy shouldn't either.
Take a look at your URL scan settings and see if .asp is an allowed file extension
On my XP machine the relevant file is located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\urlscan\urlscan.ini

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