Develop Reference

Convert URL page extension(.aspx) into HTML(.html)

I want covert aspx page into html at runtime for SEO.
like example
localhost:45556/index.aspx => localhost:45556/index.html

Google wouldn't care if it's aspx or html. The more important part is that the domain name tells something about what the site is about, and the URL path tells something about the page you are on.
www.domain.com/shirts/tshirts/green/ is a better URL than www.domain.com/prodId=3999944

You could use the IIS Rewrite Module like described in this post:
Remove HTML or ASPX Extension
and change the match URl criteria to
<match url="(.*).html" />
and change the action to the following
<action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}.html" />

You can do this in c#.NET to change the .aspx to .html
Please put this code in your Global.asax file.
protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HttpApplication app = sender as HttpApplication;
if (app.Request.Path.ToLower().IndexOf(".html") > 0)
{
string rawpath = app.Request.Path;
string path = rawpath.Substring(0, rawpath.IndexOf(".recon"));
app.Context.RewritePath(path+".aspx");
}
}

Trailing slash required on Windows Server IIS for MVC area

I have an area in my ASP.NET MVC 5 application that's defined as follows. Notice the second "alias" route I'm trying to setup.
public class MyAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
public override string AreaName
{
get
{
return "My";
}
}
public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
{
context.MapRoute(
"My_default",
"My/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
);
context.MapRoute(
"My_Legal",
"Legal_Stuff",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" }
);
}
}
}
My client requires a specific URL for accessing the page, /Legal_Stuff
The following URL works fine on my workstation with IIS Express launched by Visual Studio 2013:
localhost:XXXX/Legal_Stuff
However, once I place the app to a Windows 2008 R2 server (IIS), the URL gives "Page Not Found"
Once I add a trailing slash, it works.
www.mysite.com/Legal_Stuff -- Page Not Found
www.mysite.com/Legal_Stuff/ -- works
However my client doesn't want the trailing slash.
Is there a way to overcome this problem?
I searched stackoverflow for solution and found some people recommending the IIS Rewrite module. However, none of the solutions worked for me.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

URL Rewrite IS the more efficient way to do this, but tends to be more technical demanding.
Here is a friendly article that can help you with that:
http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/creating-rewrite-rules-for-the-url-rewrite-module
Another easier way it so to redirect in your IIS Manager -> Click on your website -> Use the HTTP Redirect feature to redirect to your website to the same website containing a containing slash.
URL Example : www.mysite.com/Legal_Stuff/
Keep in mind that the server will redirect to your address and will result in response 302 in case someone would try to access your website.

Thanks for the link.
Here's the solution:
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Legal_Stuff" patternSyntax="ExactMatch">
<match url="/Legal_Stuff" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="/LegalStuff/" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>

How to specify a different port with the RequireHttps attribute in MVC3

I am just learning ASP.NET MVC, and I have recently found the [RequireHttps] attribute to automatically redirect a GET request to use SSL, like so...
[RequireHttps] //apply to all actions in controller
public class SomeController
{
[RequireHttps] //apply to this action only
public ActionResult SomeAction()
{
...
}
}
When using IIS Express as the development server, this successfully redirects the request from http://localhost:55945/... to https://localhost/....
However on my development system, my project is using HTTPS on port 44300 (this was configured automatically by Visual Studio 2010), and I have not yet found any way to tell MVC to use that port number in the redirection, so that it goes to the required https://localhost:43300/... instead.
I really expected this to be automatic, given the SSL port number was set automatically by Visual Studio, and as far as I can tell, this must be effecting all developers using the [RequireHttps] attribute in MVC3. In my searching for a solution, I have seen a few patchy "work around" solutions, but nothing that appears to be definitively "the right way" to fix it.
So doing things "the right way", what do I change (either in the source code, or in my project configuration) to tell the [RequireHttps] attribute in MVC3 to use the HTTPS port that my project is configured to be using?
Or alternatively, is there some other completely different and better "right way" to set up SSL support in an MVC3 project, that does not have this problem?

The RequireHttpsAttribute is quite simple and it cannot be parametrized to redirect to a specific port. If you really need this you could create a subclass and override the HandleNonHttpsRequest method to compose the redirect url differently.
protected override void HandleNonHttpsRequest(AuthorizationContext filterContext) {
base.HandleNonHttpsRequest(filterContext);
// redirect to HTTPS version of page
string url = "https://" + filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.Host + ":" + MyConfig.SslPort + filterContext.HttpContext.Request.RawUrl;
filterContext.Result = new RedirectResult(url);
}
However, if your entire site runs with HTTPS you could just configure in VS in the web project properties (Web -> Start Action -> Start URL) to open the correct HTTPS url with your port and not use the redirect feature for local testing.

I have this same issue, and I'm solving it by using both the RequireHttpsAttribute and a URL rewrite rule in Web.config. The rewrite rule matches the nonstandard port numbers, and executes ahead of the attribute. You can use a Web.config transform to remove the rewrite rule on deployment, but if you leave it in it shouldn't have any effect. In production you'll use standard port number that the rule won't match. Then the attribute will catch it.
Here's the rule:
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<!-- Redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS, using the non-standard development ports.
On deployment, this rule is removed, and the RequireHttpAttribute filter globally applied
in SlicerWeb.FilterConfig takes over. This rewrite rule executes before the attribute
would be applied, and so can apply the port numbers -->
<rule name="HTTPS redirect" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
<add input="{SERVER_PORT}" pattern="60470" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{SERVER_NAME}:44300/{R:1}" redirectType="Found" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
The downside to this approach is that you're not relying on the attribute when running locally. But if you've applied it once globally, instead of adding it to every controller, that's OK in my opinion.

A few things that might be helpful.
There is a version of the source code of RequireHttpsAttribute in this thread: Where is the source for RequireHttpsAttribute?
There is also a nearly identical class called RequireSslAttribute on codeplex mentioned on the same thread. http://aspnet.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/63930#391756
Here is a sample of an attribute that can be used to toggle either from http to https or the reverse based on the TargetUriScheme property. It also includes properties for specifying port numbers.
I have chosen to use an #if DEBUG block in my constructor to set my local development ports when I am building under the Debug configuration. This works for me since I always build under release when deploying, in which case the port numbers will default to null and will be left out of the url's.
The port numbers can also be set when applying the attribute to an action method. I could also see hooking these to a config file or some other configuration source to determine the port numbers at runtime.
public class ToggleHttpHttpsAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter
{
//supported uri scheme values
public enum UriScheme
{
Http,
Https
}
public ToggleHttpHttpsAttribute(
UriScheme uriScheme = UriScheme.Http)
{
TargetUriScheme = uriScheme;
#if DEBUG
//set DEBUG ports
HttpPort = 55892;
HttpsPort = 44301;
#endif
}
private UriScheme TargetUriScheme { get; set; }
public int? HttpPort { get; set; }
public int? HttpsPort { get; set; }
public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext)
{
if(filterContext == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("filterContext");
}
bool isHttps = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.IsSecureConnection;
if ((isHttps && TargetUriScheme == UriScheme.Http) || (!isHttps && TargetUriScheme == UriScheme.Https))
{
ToggleUriScheme(filterContext);
}
}
private void ToggleUriScheme(AuthorizationContext filterContext)
{
//only allow toggle if GET request
if (!string.Equals(filterContext.HttpContext.Request.HttpMethod, "GET", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
throw new InvalidOperationException("ToggleHttpHttpsAttribute can only be used on GET requests.");
}
filterContext.Result = GetRedirectResult(filterContext);
}
private RedirectResult GetRedirectResult(AuthorizationContext filterContext)
{
string prefix = TargetUriScheme == UriScheme.Http
? "http://"
: "https://";
int? port = TargetUriScheme == UriScheme.Http
? HttpPort
: HttpsPort;
string url = string.Format(
"{0}{1}{2}{3}",
prefix,
filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.Host,
port == null ? "" : string.Format(":{0}", port),
filterContext.HttpContext.Request.RawUrl);
return new RedirectResult(url);
}
}

I'm quite puzzled as to why I have had to spend hours trying to get this right. I did a URL rewrite similar to the way Scott Hanselman explains it here:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WorkingWithSSLAtDevelopmentTimeIsEasierWithIISExpress.aspx
This works perfectly and I just take out the rewrite rule on my production web server.

How to implement URL rewriting with Windows Azure?

I have an ASP.NET / C# website that's hosted on Windows Azure. The site is a predictions-based social site with a feed of prediction summaries on the main page. If you click on a summary, you're redirected to the details page for that prediction using a simple QueryString.
For example:
http://www.ipredikt.com/details.aspx?id=14
This particular prediction is entitled "Paris Hilton will win the Nobel Peace Prize" so what I'd like to do is implement URL rewriting for my site on Azure as follows:
http://www.ipredikt.com/predictions/14/paris-hilton-will-win-the-nobel-peace-prize
What are some strategies and best practices for doing this? And can someone point me to a good Azure-specific article or two.
The hyphenated title ("paris-hilton-bla-bla") is really just to make the URL more human readable; I don't envision relying on it at all in terms of loading pages. In fact, I'd probably allow duplicate titles since I'll be relying on the prediction ID in the URL.
EDIT:
Forgot to mention that we are NOT based on MVC. We came up w/ our own architecture that uses PageMethods and WebMethods to return JSON to the client. We rely on ASP.NET AJAX to do all of the JSON serialization, and almost all of our UI is built dynamically on the client using jQuery.
EDIT: SOLUTION
Thought I'd share my solution now that I have things up and running.
I made a new class as follows (copied verbatim from somewhere):
public class WebFormRouteHandler<T> : IRouteHandler where T : IHttpHandler, new()
{
public string VirtualPath { get; set; }
public WebFormRouteHandler(string virtualPath)
{
this.VirtualPath = virtualPath;
}
public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
{
return (VirtualPath != null)
? (IHttpHandler)BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath, typeof(T))
: new T();
}
}
I added the following method to Global.asax. The actual method is MUCH, much longer (it covers every page in the site). You'll see that I support calling the predictions page in lots of different ways: with an id, with an id + title, etc. (The "...fb" versions of pages are for the Facebook app version of my site which use a different MasterPage.)
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
// Details : 'predictions' Page
var routeHandlerDetails = new WebFormRouteHandler<Page>("~/details.aspx");
var routeHandlerDetailsFb = new WebFormRouteHandler<Page>("~/detailsfb.aspx");
routes.Add(new Route("predictions/{id}", routeHandlerDetails));
routes.Add(new Route("predictions/{id}/{title}", routeHandlerDetails));
routes.Add(new Route("fb/predictions/{id}", routeHandlerDetailsFb));
routes.Add(new Route("fb/predictions/{id}/{title}", routeHandlerDetailsFb));
}
...and this method is called from Application_Start()
void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
}
Then I added the following to web.config in the system.webServer block:
<!-- Added for URL Routing -->
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
<add name="UrlRoutingModule"
type="System.Web.Routing.UrlRoutingModule, System.Web.Routing, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
</modules>
<!-- Added for URL Routing -->
<handlers>
<add name="UrlRoutingHandler"
preCondition="integratedMode"
verb="*"
path="UrlRouting.axd"
type="System.Web.HttpForbiddenHandler, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" />
</handlers>
I also had to exclude the virtual "predictions" directory from authentication (because almost all parts of our site are accessible my non-auth users):
<!-- Url routing -->
<location path="predictions">
<system.web>
<authorization>
<allow users="*" />
</authorization>
</system.web>
</location>
Finally, I no longer rely on QueryString string parameters when loading pages, so I had to write some new helper methods. Here's one that extracts a numerical value from the new routing URL (I'll be cleaning this up to only have a single 'return'.):
public static int GetRouteDataValueAsNumber(HttpRequest request, string propertyName)
{
if ((request == null) ||
(request.RequestContext == null) ||
(request.RequestContext.RouteData == null) ||
(request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values[propertyName] == null))
{
return -1;
}
try
{
return System.Convert.ToInt32(request.RequestContext.RouteData.Values[propertyName]);
}
catch
{
}
return -1;
}
Now when I need to read a routing value (like a prediction ID), I do the following:
long _predictionId = System.Convert.ToInt64(WebAppUtils.GetRouteDataValueAsNumber(Request, "id"));
Works great! Now my site feels like an MVC app with friendly and self-documenting URLs.
Oh, last thing, you also need to enable HTTP Redirection as follows:
Start => Control Panel => Program => Turns Windows Features On => Internet Information Services => World Wide Web Services => Common HTTP Features => (select checkbox for) HTTP Redirection.

The easiest way to implement this would be a programmatic approach using the System.Web.Routing assembly.
This basically works by including the UrlRoutingModule in your web.config, and defining patterns that resolve the target page based on matching routes. If you are familiar with ASP.NET MVC, then you have used this routing strategy before, but MVC is not necessary to use Routing.
Here are some resources to help you get started:
MSDN Documentation for the System.Web.Routing namespace - official documentation
Scott Gu on URL Routing for MVC - * Note that this article explains routing in the context of an ASP.NET MVC application, however, the same methodology will work regardless of whether or not you are using MVC
ASP.NET Routing... Goodbye URL rewriting, by Chris Cavanagh - An explanatory article
Exploring System.Web.Routing, by Justin Etheredge - A case study explaining how to use routing independently of the MVC architecture
About Windows Azure ...
If you take this approach, it doesn't really matter that you are using Windows Azure. However, I found an article by Michael Kennedy called ASP.NET Routing in Windows Azure Using WebForms, explaining how to easily deploy such a solution on Windows Azure. The article even has a sample project for download.

Azure web roles have the IIS7 Url Rewriting module installed - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd573358.aspx
The "how to" for this module is at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/460/using-the-url-rewrite-module/
For your Paris example, you basically need to setup a rule that maps the url
http://www.ipredikt.com/predictions/14/paris-hilton-will-win-the-nobel-peace-prize
to
http://www.ipredikt.com/details.aspx?id=14
This is something like:
Pattern -
^predictions/([0-9]+)/([_0-9a-z-]+)
Action -
details.aspx?id={R:1}
For more on defining these rules see http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/461/creating-rewrite-rules-for-the-url-rewrite-module/

MVC routing when a file actually exists at the specified location

So I have a route like this in my MVC 3 application running under IIS 7:
routes.MapRoute(
"VirtualTourConfig",
"virtualtour/config.xml",
new { controller = "VirtualTour", action = "Config" }
);
The trick is that a file actually exists at /virtualtour/config.xml. It seems like the request is just returning the xml file at that location instead of hitting the route, which processes the XML, makes some changes and returns a custom XmlResult.
Any suggestions on how I can tell my application to hit the route and not the actual file in the event that the file exists on disk?
EDIT: It appears that I can use routes.RouteExistingFiles = true; in the RegisterRoutes method of Global.asax to tell the application to ignore files on disk. This, however, sets the flag globally and breaks a lot of other requests within the application. For example, I still want calls to /assets/css/site.css to return the CSS file without having to specifically set routes up for each static asset. So now the question becomes, is there a way to do this on a per-route basis?

So far the best answer to this that I have found is to globally apply routes.RouteExistingFiles=true and then selectively ignore the routes I want to pass through to existing files like .js, .css, etc. So I ended up with something like this:
public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
routes.IgnoreRoute("*.js|css|swf");
routes.RouteExistingFiles = true;
routes.MapRoute(
"VirtualTourConfig",
"virtualtour/config.xml",
new { controller = "VirtualTour", action = "Config" }
);
}
If anyone has a better solution, I'd like to see it. I'd much prefer to selectively apply an "RouteExistingFIles" flag to individual routes but I don't know if there's a way to do that.

No solution here, just an idea.
You can try to implement solution based on your own VirtualPathProvider that will provide your own mapping of web paths to file system paths and use default provider for all paths you don't want to take care of.

A very simple solution, certainly if you consider Scott's answer, would be eg: routes.IgnoreRoute("templates/*.html");,
routes.IgnoreRoute("scripts/*.js"); and routes.IgnoreRoute("styles/*.css");.
This gives you both the simplicity of just supplying paths to the RoutesCollection and avoids the work of having to initiate eg. a VirtualPathProvider.

You could try UrlRewiting e.g.:
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="VirtualTourConfig">
<match url="^virtualtour/config.xml" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="virtualtour/config" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
NB I'm using this for a different use-case (i.e. serving an angular app from asp.net MVC) - I haven't tested whether MVC routing occurs AFTER url rewriting.
In my case I have a normal MVC route (i.e. /Dashboard/ => DashboardController.Index()) but need all relative paths in the Views/Dashboard/Index.cshtml to serve static files without getting confused by MVC routing i.e. /Dashboard/app/app.module.js must serve a static file. I use UrlRewriting to map /Dashboard/(.+) to /ng/Dashboard/{R:1} as follows:
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Dashboard">
<match url="^dashboard/(.+)" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="ng/dashboard/{R:1}" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>