Recieving 404 error for everything except homepage in ASP.NET MVC APP

Question

I have what seems to be a strange problem to me. I am working on creating an ASP.NET MVC project and when I load the site using the 'Visual Studio Development Server', everything works as expected. However, if I change the project properties to 'use local IIS Web Server' and load the site, only the Home Page works. If I try to load any other page I get a 404 error. The application is running on Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.

Any suggestions on how to fix this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Sounds like you haven't configured wildcard mapping (the best option if you have access to the IIS server). Here's a good guide for you to follow.

Answer 2

Not strange at all. You need to setup IIS6 to route requests to the ASP.NET engine.

Steve Sanderson has a fine article discussing different options on deploying ASP.NET MVC to IIS 6.

He presents five alternative solutions - pick one:

1. Use a wildcard mapping for aspnet_isapi.dll
2. Put .aspx in all your route entries’ URL patterns
3. Use a custom filename extension in all your URL patterns
4. Use URL rewriting
5. Upgrade to Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7

Answer 3

IIS6 need to be setup for working with MVC:

You sould map . to "c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll"

ASP.NET MVC on IIS 6 Walkthrough

Answer 4

Url rewriting can help you to solve the problem. I've implemented solution allowing to deploy MVC application at any IIS version even when virtual hosting is used. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/iis-aspnet-url-rewriting.aspx