Question

Configuring IIS 6.0 to run an MVC3 application

I think I have a configuration issue on my IIS 6 server and I’d like to see if there’s anything I’ve missed.

The problem that I’m having is that anytime when a RedirectToAction(“Index”, “Home”) is executed (e.g. in a method that returns an ActionResult) I would expect that I would be returned to:

http://servername.domain.com/virtualdirectoryname

However, instead I get redirected to:

http://servername.domain.com/virtualdirectoryname/virtualdirectoryname

That is a second instance of the virtualdirectoryname appended to the end of the URL and can’t figure out why – this URL will of course yield a 404 resource not found error. I written and deployed several MVC3 applications both in corporate intranet and public internet environments and can’t figure out what I’ve done wrong. My global.asax.cs seems ok –

public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
    public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
    {
        filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute());
    }

    public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            "Default", // Route name
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults
        );
     }

    protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (HttpContext.Current.User != null)
        {
            if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.IsAuthenticated)
            {
                if (HttpContext.Current.User.Identity is FormsIdentity)
                {
                    FormsIdentity id = (FormsIdentity)HttpContext.Current.User.Identity;
                    FormsAuthenticationTicket ticket = id.Ticket;

                    // Get the stored user-data, in this case, our roles
                    string userData = ticket.UserData;
                    string[] roles = userData.Split(',');
                    HttpContext.Current.User = new System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(id, roles);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

        RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
        RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
    }
}

The Application_AuthenticateRequest handles the storing of the roles for logged on users, but other than that, it seems pretty vanilla. The only think I can think of is that I’ve somehow messed up the virtual directory.

Prior to performing any of these steps, I had verified that MVC3 and v4.0 of the .NET framework were installed on the server. There are also other ASP.NET 4.0 applications on this server that have been running without incident. There is also an MVC2 application (MVC2 is also installed) running on this server and has been running without incident.

1. I created a virtual directory off of the main “default site” using the IIS manager.
2. Setup appropriate permissions on the folder that this virtual directory points to. Tested with a quick “Hello, World” index.html file.
3. Copied the application from my development PC where the application works as developed to the folder described in #2.
4. Updated the Web.Config file, editing the connection strings to point to the test database server; I had also verified these connection strings on my development PC.
5. Open the web browser and hope for the best.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think what you may be seeing is:

http://servername.domain.com/virtualdirectoryname/applicationname

If you have named your virtual directory the same name as your application then I could see how that could confuse you. If you had no virtual directory and just your application at the root of the Default Web Site you’d be seeing:

http://servername.domain.com/applicationname

Is your virtual directory the same name as your application name? If so, that is why you see this.