There is following situation.
We have a single page site implemented with JavaScript/AngularJS building the frontend. It is currently hosted on IIS 10 with a very simple web.config with this content.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<authentication mode="Windows" />
<authorization>
<allow verbs="OPTIONS" users="*"/>
<!-- deny users="?" /-->
</authorization>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
<defaultDocument>
<files>
<add value="index.html" />
</files>
</defaultDocument>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
On the other side, there is an existing Web API site implementing the backend also hosted on IIS 10.
Now we want to merge the frontend site into the backend site.
There is low experience with IIS and therefore i tried the following naive approach.
I copied the directories from FE into BE, included the section
<defaultDocument>
<files>
<add value="index.html" />
</files>
</defaultDocument>
into the backend web.config file which is now looking like this.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
For more information on how to configure your ASP.NET application, please visit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=301879
-->
<configuration>
<configSections>
<!-- For more information on Entity Framework configuration, visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=237468 -->
<section name="entityFramework" type="System.Data.Entity.Internal.ConfigFile.EntityFrameworkSection, EntityFramework, Version=6.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</configSections>
<appSettings>
<add key="webpages:Version" value="3.0.0.0" />
<add key="webpages:Enabled" value="false" />
<add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true" />
<add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true" />
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5.2" />
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5.2" />
<authentication mode="Windows" />
<authorization>
<allow verbs="OPTIONS" users="*" />
<!--deny users="?" /-->
</authorization>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<add name="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="*" />
<add name="Access-Control-Allow-Headers" value="Content-Type" />
<add name="Access-Control-Allow-Methods" value="GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
<handlers>
<remove name="ExtensionlessUrlHandler-Integrated-4.0" />
<remove name="OPTIONSVerbHandler" />
<remove name="TRACEVerbHandler" />
<add name="ExtensionlessUrlHandler-Integrated-4.0" path="*." verb="*" type="System.Web.Handlers.TransferRequestHandler" preCondition="integratedMode,runtimeVersionv4.0" />
</handlers>
<defaultDocument enabled="true">
<files>
<add value="index.html" />
</files>
</defaultDocument>
</system.webServer>
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Newtonsoft.Json" culture="neutral" publicKeyToken="30ad4fe6b2a6aeed" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-9.0.0.0" newVersion="9.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Optimization" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0" newVersion="1.1.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="WebGrease" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-1.6.5135.21930" newVersion="1.6.5135.21930" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Helpers" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.WebPages" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-5.2.3.0" newVersion="5.2.3.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Antlr3.Runtime" publicKeyToken="eb42632606e9261f" culture="neutral" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="0.0.0.0-3.5.0.2" newVersion="3.5.0.2" />
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>
<entityFramework>
<defaultConnectionFactory type="System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.LocalDbConnectionFactory, EntityFramework">
<parameters>
<parameter value="mssqllocaldb" />
</parameters>
</defaultConnectionFactory>
<providers>
<provider invariantName="System.Data.SqlClient" type="System.Data.Entity.SqlServer.SqlProviderServices, EntityFramework.SqlServer" />
</providers>
</entityFramework>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="EnterpriseSuiteEntities" connectionString="data source=.;initial catalog=MyDatabase;integrated security=False;User Id=ItsMe; password=***;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
<system.codedom>
<compilers>
<compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.CSharpCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:6 /nowarn:1659;1699;1701" />
<compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb" type="Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform.VBCodeProvider, Microsoft.CodeDom.Providers.DotNetCompilerPlatform, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/langversion:14 /nowarn:41008 /define:_MYTYPE=\"Web\" /optionInfer+" />
</compilers>
</system.codedom>
</configuration>
Behavior is now like this:
Calling http://MySite:8080
shows the content of ...\Backend\Views\Home\Index.cshtml and not the frontend page as specified in the modified web.config.
Calling http://MySite:8080/index.html
shows the content of the frontend page, but there are also errors.
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found) http://MySite:8080/views/project-management/hidden/systemdata.html
The file ...Backend/views/project-management/hidden/systemdata.html does exist and everyone has read permissions on it.
Where is IIS looking for the files in this situation or is there something basically wrong?
Best regards