How do I deploy an ASP.NET MVC application if the ISP doesn't use a BIN directory?

Question

I need to do a Bin deployment on our ISP, Network Solutions. They have NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed on their servers, but NOT ASP.NET MVC.

I need to point my application to a directory called cgi-bin instead of bin. Network Solutions says that this is the only directory they have marked for execution as medium trust. I need to put the System.Web.Mvc DLL and the application DLL there, and I need my ASP.NET MVC application to find them in that directory.

It goes without saying that they won't put them in the GAC for me.

How do I tell my application to look in the cgi-bin directory instead of the bin directory for the DLL's?

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Solution is posted below.

Answer 1

You should be able to set the output directory or your project to cgi-bin if you want. If you right-click your project and click on Properties. From there you should be able to select Build in the left list of options and set the output directory to whatever you want.

Answer 2

Try moving to another ISP that will allow you to have a BIN directory as part of you application folder.

Answer 3

After tinkering for awhile, I finally decided to deploy to an actual bin directory that I created (a procedure that Network Solutions says will not work) following Phil Haacked's instructions exactly, and it appears to be working.

I did have to apply the routing patch described in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1169492/asp-net-mvc-default-page-works-but-other-pages-return-404-error/1169555#1169555, because Network Solutions is still running IIS6.

For those who are interested, you can specify a different bin directory in web.config like this:

<runtime>
  <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
    <probing privatePath="SomeFolder/bin" />
  </assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

I tried this with Network Solution's cgi-bin directory and my application did indeed find the mvc dll's.