Changing virtual path and enabling/disabling sites in code - c#

I am working on a web project that contains three web services and a website. My source code is stored in TFS for version control and I regularly have to work in several different branches on the same code. These branches are merged regularly and are all set up in the same way. They all use WebDev.WebServer as default host. Which is fine because it saves other teammembers from having to continuously alter settings in IIS to switch to the proper folder.
Well, guess what?
I want to move to IIS and still be able to use the same config for every branch. This will results in conflicts since I Need to change the virtual folders for these projects every time when I switch branches. I also need to be able to turn off these IIS sites to enable the use of WebDev. Manually, that's a bit of work and I'm a programmer. This needs to be automated...
My idea is to create a small web application running on my local host, which I can use to change the virtual folder and/or to turn on/off the IIS site. Sounds simple enough so all I need are two things:
How do I change the virtual folder of an IIS site from one location to another in code?
How to turn on and off a site in IIS?
Simple, right? So, point three: do you have any other suggestions that I could use?
Oh, other developers are also working on the same project. Not all of them will use IIS to run it. Thus I cannot alter the config files for these projects. I must manage it all through IIS.

Personally, I would use Powershell in this instance.
$websitePath = "IIS:\\Sites\Path to your website in iis"
$fullWebSiteFilePath = "file path to your content"
if(-not (test-path $websitePath))
{
new-item $websitePath -physicalPath $fullWebSiteFilePath -type Application
}
else
{
Set-ItemProperty $websitePath -name physicalPath -value $fullWebSiteFilePath
}
with a little jigerry pokery you could read the different configurations from an xml file and then call the shell script passing the xml file name as a parameter.

To manage IIS7 programmatically, you can start with the ServerManager class.

Related

Unable to determine if a file is on a web server because the various methods of determining the directory do not work

I am developing an application in asp.net, vs2015 using c# and the development environment is a Win10Pro machine. I can use any of the various methods to obtain the working directory and see if a particular file exists on the dev pc, but not on the Web Server. I have tried the methods laid out on:
Get current application physical path within Application_Start
All work on the Dev PC, but when used on the Web Server it will not return the working directory. The Server is a 2016 Data server using IIS10. The issue is that the web site I am putting together work fine, except to display GrapeCity ActiveReports reports AR15. The web page containing their web viewer opens just fine and is looking for a report file (MyReport.rdlx). The global.aspx file is pointing to the root directory but when the web viewer opens up, it says File Not Found. I have absolutely no idea and tech support is not sure. Is this an IIS issue that is preventing the code to locate and verify the file is there? Any direction would be much appreciated. This has been very frustrating and time consuming.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory does not work, HttpRuntime.AppDomainAppPath does not as well as all the others. The request comes back blank.
string filename = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory.ToString() +"SPU01_Dates.rdlx";
if (File.Exists(filename))
{
Response.Write("YES");
}
else
{
Response.Write("NO");
Response.Write("</br");
Response.Write(filename);
}
All this just returns nothing.
Thanks.
Try this code
if (File.Exists(Server.MapPath(filename)))
Check if a file exists on the server
In my test, it returned YES and worked well. Did you put "SPU01_Dates.rdlx" file in root folder?
In the development environment, it returned YES, and when I deployed it to IIS, it returned NO. I found that during the deployment process, the rdlx file was not deployed with the project, so I recreated one in the deployed folder, and it returned YES.
The test proves that AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is the most accurate way to get the file path. When you test this code in IIS, does it return NO or empty? Returning empty means that this piece of code has not been executed.

Can't see path to another server in ASP.NET MVC

I have an internal ASP.NET MVC site that needs to read an Excel file. The file is on a different server from the one that ASP.NET MVC is running on and in order to prevent access problems I'm trying to copy it to the ASP.NET MVC server.
It works OK on my dev machine but when it is deployed to the server it can't see the path.
This is the chopped down code from the model (C#):
string fPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(#"/virtualdir");
string fName = fPath + "test.xlsm";
if (System.IO.File.Exists(fName))
{
// Copy the file and do what's necessary
}
else
{
if (!Directory.Exists(fPath))
throw new Exception($"Directory not found: {fPath} ");
else
throw new Exception($"File not found: {fName } ");
}
The error I'm getting is
Directory not found:
followed by the path.
The path in the error is correct - I've copied and pasted it into explorer and it resolves OK.
I've tried using the full UNC path, a mapped network drive and a virtual directory (as in the code above). Where required these were given network admin rights (to test only!) but still nothing has worked.
The internal website is using pass through authentication but I've used specific credentials with full admin rights for the virtual directory, and the virtual dir in IIS expands OK to the required folder.
I've also tried giving the application pool (which runs in Integrated mode) full network admin rights.
I'm kind of hoping I've just overlooked something simple and this isn't a 'security feature'.
I found this question copy files between servers asp.net mvc but the answer was to use FTP and I don't want to go down that route if I can avoid it.
Any assistance will be much appreciated.
First, To be on the safe side that your directory is building correctly, I would use the Path.Combine.
string fName = Path.Combine(fPath, "test.xlsm")
Second, I would check the following post and try some things there as it seems to be a similar issue.
Directory.Exists not working for a network path
If you are still not able to see the directory, there is a good chance the user does not have access to that network path. Likely what happened is the app pool running your application has access to the directory on the server. The production box likely doesn't have that same access. You would have to get with the network engineer to get that resolved.
Alternatively, you could write a Powershell script to run as a user who has access to both the production and the development server to copy the file over to the production server if that is your ultimate goal and your server administrators could schedule it for you if that is allowed in your environment.

File.Exists() always returns false on IIS

The file path that I'm checking with File.Exists() resides on a mapped drive (Z:\hello.txt). The code runs fine in debug environment, however in IIS, it always returns false
var fullFileName = string.Format("{0}\\{1}", ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FileName"], fileName);
if (System.IO.File.Exists(fullFileName))
Why is this so, and how can I workaround this?
I have granted everyone full read/write permissions in that mapped drive
EDIT:
I tried deleting the file via \\192.168.1.12\Examples\Files\2.xml and I get the same result. It doesn't detect the file on IIS, but works fine on debug
I think your application do not has permission on "Z:"
Is "Z:" network disk?
I have had similar issues using network mapped drives, when running debug code application works perfectly and when running release version application cannot find the file.
If the files are stored on the same server as the application is deployed we found a solution by storing the local drive directory location of the mapped drive for example Z:\files\ could be E:\folder\folder1\
If the application is deployed on a separate server we found using the full network name works for example \\server1\folder\
I hope this proves helpful to you.
Your web application is running under a certain security context and you need to find out what context this is. If it's a normal user, open a command prompt as the user (using the runas tool), map the required drive using the command prompt (be sure to use the /persistent:yes flag)
Alternatively why can't you just use a UNC path (\\serverName\shareName) and avoid all this nonsense?
EDIT: 2013-05-27
To troubleshoot this, create a new application pool, based on whatever app pool you want. Then set the identity that this pool runs under as shown in the attached screenshot.
Make sure that this user has the correct privileges on the file share and then retest it
May be you should use Path.DirectorySeparatorChar

Server Root and MapPath()

I have a file structure set up like this:
ServerRoot
applicationRoot
filePage.aspx
files
chart.png
My application page called filePage.aspx uses another app to custom build charts. I need them saved in files folder. This is how our client's production server is set up and I cannot change this.
I do a _page.Server.MapPath("/files") but it gives me a InvalidOperationException and states Failed to map the path '/files'.
UPDATE:
So it has to be set up this way MapPath("/"). My local asp.net server can't handle the MapPath that way, but our IIS development box has no problem with it and it works fine. Interesting.
How do I get it to save to files?
I believe it's a security violation to go outside the directory structure of the virtual directory in asp.net 2.0 and up. You'll need to make a virtual directory to the directory and use that.
Use
Server.MapPath("~/files")
The ~ represents the root of the web application so the folder returned will be correct no matter which subdirectory you are in.
Try
_page.Server.MapPath("files")
_page.Server.MapPath() will attempt to map from the root of the application (NOT the root of the server).
Try _page.Server.MapPath("../files").
EDIT
You may run into security issues when trying to map outside of your application root. If that is the case, you can do something like this:
Server.MapPath("~").Substring(0, Server.MapPath("~").IndexOf(VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~").Replace("/", "\"))) + "\files"
This looks rather complex, but essentially says "map my application, then remove the application root from the end and add '\files' instead".

Visual Web Developer (Express): Setting Document Root for Dev Environment

I'm developing a site in Visual Web Dev Express, and when I run/debug, I'd like to be able to set my application's document root so that I can use safer paths, like "/css/style.css' instead of "css/style.css". How would I accomplish this?
Click on the web site node in the solution explorer.
Press F4 to see the properties window.
Change the virtual path from /projectname to /
Bear in mind that this has an impact on how you expect the application/web site to be deployed. If it is ever used outside the root of a web server, the URL paths will be incorrect.
I have been looking for the virtual path field in the properties window but haven't been able to find it... it only shows me the following options
aperture directory URL
complete access route
policy file
port
use dynamic port
Do you know of some place else where I could find the Virtual Path field?
Select the "Web" tab and it's in the Servers section

Categories