UrlMapping giving 404 Page not found on IIS but working fine on local server port

Question

Hello guys!

Well I am having a problem when I have put my .NET 2.0 web site on IIS 6. I have used UrlMapping to redirect some old urls. It is working fine when I am using it on the VS local server port but when I deploy it to IIS 6, its giving a 404 Page not found error.

I've found that in a few forums they are talking about using Wildcard Mapping, but none of them provide me with a good explanation of how to achieve this. Added to this, what are the security risks of doing such a modification on IIS Level (if there are any?)

Thanks in advance, Cheers :)

Answer 1

What is likely causing your issue is that in the ASP.NET mapping on IIS, there is a check box "check that file exists" uncheck this and you should be fine.

No real risk in editing this.

http://forums.asp.net/p/890825/1017645.aspx

http://blog.codeville.net/2008/07/04/options-for-deploying-aspnet-mvc-to-iis-6/

Open up the properties on your website, go to the Home Directory tab, and hit Configuration.

Then in there find the .NET mapping, or create a wild card mapping... and make sure the option for 'check file exists' is not checked.

Answer 2

Crack open IIS on the target server.

Go to your Web Application, right-click and select Properties

Select the Virtual Directory tab

Click on the Confirmation button under Application settings

In the Wildcard application maps section, add this:

c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll

Answer 3

I beleive it happens because IIS6 is unable to hand off requests to ASP.NET when your URLs don't have extensions (like .aspx, for example). In the following sample setup

<add url="~/NewUrl" mappedUrl="~/Default.aspx?UrlId=12345" />

you will get 404 when you try to access http://yousite.name/NewUrl on IIS6. Here's the post in Phil Haack's blog on how to overcome this with wildcard mappings: http://haacked.com/archive/2008/11/26/asp.net-mvc-on-iis-6-walkthrough.aspx

P.S. I know, the post is about ASP.NET MVC, but I think it might help in your scenario too.