How to host multiple ASP.NET websites on one shared hosting account?

Question

With PHP, I can make numerous PHP websites locally and then upload each of them to its own sub-directory of my PHP hosting service.

However, with ASP.NET, it seems that I can only upload my ASP.NET to the root of my hosting service. If I upload to a sub-directory, I get an error in

section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level
<authentication mode="Windows"/>

• is there a way to get around this so I can have numerous ASP.NET websites each in its own directory?
• if not, would using ASP.NET MVC be able to get around this problem?
• or is it generally not possible to FTP multiple ASP.NET sites to a shared hosting provider?

Answer 1

I don't know about YOUR hosting service, but my cheap GoDaddy service allows me to specify subdirectories as ASP.NET applications. I'm running both BlogEngine.NET and BugTracker.NET, each with their own Web.config's.

You need to contact your hosting service, use their Help pages, etc.

Answer 2

In IIS, you can configure sub- and virtual directories as applications. Most IIS hosting providers should have some sort of tool that allows you to do this.

In my hosting provider, discountasp.net (arguably one of the most popular and best ASP.NET hosting providers!), it can be found in the main navigation when you're logged in under "Web Application Tool".

Additionally, if you have the ability to create and manage subdomains under your main domain, I've written an open source tool that will let you map applications to subdomains ... for example, instead of having to do mydomain.com/app1, mydomain.com/app2, etc, my tool will let you do app1.mydomain.com, app2.mydomain.com, etc. It can be found on CodePlex here: http://www.codeplex.com/sharedhostingsplittr

Answer 3

You need to talk to your hosting provider, this should be possible, but that's only if they allow it. I'd imagine you need to create multiple virtual directories.