my shared hosting only allows me to create 2 virtual directories. and i want to host multiple webapps... say an asp.net mvc blog, a forum, a personal site etc...
isnt there any other way of doing this? cant i simply just ftp the blog folder to one of my virtual directories and then access it online??
For ASP.NET web applications, typically each would live in its own virtual directory which serves as the application starting point.
Technically you could "piggy-back" two applications on the same application starting point in one of two ways:
Put all the files for each application in the same directory (and appropriate sub directories)
If you don't have ANY files that overlap, you can get away with this. Of course, it's likely that you won't with such files as the default or index pages, etc. And this would be pretty messy anyway.
Put all the non-binary files for each app in an appropriate subdirectory and the binaries in the main virtual's \bin directory.
You'll be able to do this only if each application's binary files don't overlap by name AND there are no namespace ambiguity conflicts between assemblies (two different assemblies by file name, but with the same namespace). The latter is much less likely to happen if you are trying to piggy-back two different applications.
The big problem I see with the latter solution is that any parts of the application that make use of application root references will break. When some code tries to resolve a reference to some resource (like an image) based on an application root reference such as
~/images/logo.gif
the ~ will get resolved to the virtual directory, but will not include the additional (non-virtual and non-app starting point) subdirectory in which the application lives. So instead of this:
/vd1/app1/images/logo.gif
you'll end up with this:
/vd1/images/logo.gif
Obviously, that won't work.
So... you won't break either app if you can put them both in the same virtual directory, however, you'll have to check for file conflicts and such. Possible namespace conflicts will be unavoidable without separate application starting points.
Can't you just put each app in a separate subdirectory in either of the virtual directories. e.g. if you had http://server.com/vd1, you could partition it like http://server.com/vd1/app1, http://server.com/vd1/app2, etc.
Related
I have an asp.net project that I use for a couple different purposes. We have addresses that access the same virtual directory via different paths (use1.company.com and use2.company.com) I do not want to break the project up as they use similar functionality that seems redundant to have in two places. None the less as it stands use1.company.com/default.aspx and use2.company.com/default.aspx both are the same. I want to make it so that use2.company.aspx/default.aspx is not accessible. Is there a way to do that from the App Pool/Virtual Directory settings or do I just have to hope that external users dont type /default.aspx?
I know I can set the default document to like survey.aspx (purpose of the second url) but that does not prevent some savvy users from typing in default.aspx just to see what it does. Any assistance here would be great.
Since they point to the same .aspx file could you not include an if statement at the start of the file to grab the URL and if it includes use2 then go back?
I have a rather large site with hundreds of files and a footprint of many hundreds of mgs. I have in a place an assignment system that we utilize to work on enhancements and bug fixes. What I'd like to do is setup a system in which each assignment gets pushed to the web server (testing server) in it's on "sandbox".
Typically I'd just create a copy of the site under a virtual directory, replace the files affected by the assignment and proceed with testing. Problem here is we would be making many copies of massive amounts of files.
What I have in my head would be a system where a "master" copy of the site contains all the current files (presumably from source control). From there create a virtual directory for each assignment with symbolic links to all files and folders except for those actually changed for the assignment.
I essentially want to create a integrated build process that will create the virtual, pull the sym links from master and then replace the links of the files that changed with the actual changed versions from the assignment.
Is this a possibility with Windows Server 2003 and IIS?
Probably possible, but sounds like a nightmare. Must all of these files be copied to each testing site? If they are merely content files (htm, gif, jpeg, etc), leverage VDIRS to a common location. It can even be a network location.
What files should/should not be stored in the cgi-bin folder/directory on a web server?
Obviously, executable scripts/files that make up a web application, called from a web browser can be stored there.
But is there a common industry opinion about what else can be stored there?
Is there a very strong reason why nothing else apart than the scripts/executables is allowed there?
My preference is to store all files belonging to an application in the cgi-bin directory/folder, as a subfolder off it - for each application.
For example directory cgi-bin/myapplication would contain:
the cgi scripts/executables
datafiles
configuration files
This simplifies installation and also simplifies the steps to run different versions of a application in parallel, e.g. for trialling a new version.
Concerns about security access to non-script files can be addressed by using the correct user permissions and also Apache .htaccess to control access to the directory and files.
It would seem that popular free applications are in favour of this everything-under-one-directory approach: The versions of bugzilla, the free defect and feature tracking tool, e.g. 3.4.4 are offered in this structure, while earlier versions, e.g. 2.x installed bugzilla components to at least three folders.
Drupal, the powerful and popular free content management system also takes this approach of everything-under-one-directory, albeit doesn't use the cgi-bin folder but the approach is the same.
What are your thoughts?
There is nothing special about the cgi-bin folder. It is like any publicly-accessible web folder that has the "allow-script" flag set (or the equivalent for your web server) - something that has become almost meaningless in the world of PHP/JSP and the likes.
You should only store files that you wish to be public in any folder under your webroot. You probably don't want your data and configuration to be downloadable by any user on the internet, so don't keep them in /cgi-bin
Certain servers may try and execute any file in /cgi-bin if requested. This could cause problems, especially if text or data files are executed as shell script.
Applications like Drupal are intended to be easy for anyone to install, regardless of what permissions they may have on their web-host. This is the main reason it keeps everything together. If you have the ability to put files where you want, it is always a good practise to keep non-public files outside of the webroot. If you must keep them under the webroot, then ensure that you use your server's configuration to deny public access to the non-public files.
Windows 2003/IIS 6...
I have a virtual directory on a web site that closely mirrors the configuration another virtual directory on the same site will need. Since we have multiple dev/staging/test/prod environments, I'd like to be able to export the values of one virtual directory and quickly fire one up on either the same machine (with a different name/source directory) or on another machine (with perhaps the same name/source directory).
Can that be done? I see you can export the configuration through the IIS manager, but it seems to have a lot of keys embedded in it and I'm not sure if that can be directly imported into a separate entity on the same/different machine, or if it's only used for backups in case the original gets corrupted and needs to be restored.
You may want to take a look at the sample VBScript files installed with IIS 6. On my system they are in C:\Windows\System32
Two in particular seem relevant to your question:
iisvdir.vbs - allows listing, creating, and deleting virtual directories locally or remotely.
iiscnfg.vbs - allows exporting configuration for copying to another machine.
Neither one of these does exactly what you want, but it looks to me like they could be used as sample code to help you get to where you want.
Have you taken a look at the IIS6 Migration Tool yet? It may address your needs.
I have multiple websites that all have the same code, but different app settings.
I want to place my app settings in a separate configuration file that is located in a virtual directory. This will allow me to have a single copy of all of the code shared across all of the sites with a different virtual directory for each site.
Unfortunately, when I try to configure this, IIS doesn't process the config file when it is in a virtual directory.
If you have a solution to this, I would appreciate your help.
Maybe using the machine.config file on your web server would be a suitable alternative? Otherwise you could create a web.config file in a global folder somewhere and open it using the WebConfigurationManager.OpenMappedWebConfiguration() method.
It's not possible to use a virtual directory (or even files outside of the current website; only the current folder, or a sub-folder).
One possible way to share setting across projects would be to do it at build-time - either by coping it in, or using a Linked File in VS to have it copied to the folder on publish.
If you really need this functionality on the server, you could try (though I can't say how well it would work) a Junction.