ASP.NET MVC not serving default document

Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC application where the default page should be index.html which is an actual file on disk.

I can browse to the file using www.mydomain.com/index.html so I know it will be served and exists but if I use www.mydomain.com I get a 404.

I have ensured that the default document is correctly set in IIS7 and I have even gone so far as to commented out all the routes defined in my global.asax to ensure I don't have a route causing this problem.

So to summarize:

• I have an index.html file on disk and IIS7 is set to use index.html as the default document.
• If I remove my ASP.NET MVC application and leave the index.html file is served as the default document as expected.
• If I publish my ASP.NET MVC application then the index.html doesn't get served by default document.

Does anyone know how to get ASP.NET MVC to serve the default document?

Answer 1

I suspect you added index.html yourself as that extension would be unknown to the mvc framework.

Your default index page in mvc is //domain/home/index and is physically index.aspx.

If you call your domain using //domain then the routing engine will assume /home/index.aspx and not index.html.

Answer 2

Hey there griegs, I found a way around this just now. IF you want index.html to be in the root of your MVC application (i.e next to your controller/model/view/appdata etc folders), you can do this:

say you have home.html, aboutus.html, contactus.html

//this route matches (http://mydomain.com/somekindofstring)

routes.MapRoute( "SingleRootArg", "{id}", new { controller = "Home", action = "Details", id=""}); //

so now that you have your route for all those random strings. I had to do this for vanity urls. mydomain.com/ronburgandy etc. however, mydomain.com/index.html will also come in just how you'd expect.

//Just an example of what you COULD do. the user would see it as root html.

Public ActionResult Details(string id) {

//let me save you the trouble - favicon really comes in as a string *ANGER*
if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(id) || id.ToLower().Contains("favicon.ico"))
    return Redirect("~/index.html");
if(id == "aboutus.html")
    return Redirect("~/aboutus.html");
if(id == "contactus.html")
    return Redirect("~/contactus.html");
if(id == "index.html")
    return Redirect("~/index.html");

}

//yes this really works. index.html aboutus.html index.html are at the same level as my CSPROJ file lol

Good luck!

Answer 3

You could ignore the route in your MVC application and let IIS serve it.

routes.IgnoreRoute("index.html")
etc