Category Archives: Web

IIS, Visual Studio, Web

Running ASP.NET 5 MVC on IIS 8.5

This is how I got my ASP.NET 5 MVC site to run on IIS 8.5. I had some initial problems and most information I found on internet was about earlier beta versions of the framework. All of these had lots of steps and and none of them helped me.

Software Setup

  • Windows Server 2012 R2 (fresh install)
  • IIS 8.5
  • DNX Version: dnx-clr-x64.1.0.0-rc1-update1
  • Visual Studio 2015 Update 1

Server Installation

  1. Added Server Role: Web Server (IIS).
    And also ASP.NET 4.5 (under Web Server (IIS) -> Web Server -> Application Development).
    This will also include the feature ASP.NET from .NET Framework and ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters and also .NET Extensibility 4.5.
  2. Installed the HttpPlatformHandler 1.2 from:
    http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/httpplatformhandler

Publishing Site

  1. Compiled and Published the Web project in Visual Studio to a local folder.
    Configuration: Release – x64 (will probably work with Any CPU also).
    Target DNX Version: dnx-clr-x64.1.0.0-rc1-update1
  2. Copied the published output to the Web Server.
  3. Added a new  Site pointing to the wwwroot in the published folder.

And that was all that was necessary. Obviously running an ASP.NET 5 site is much easier now when the release candidate is out.

IIS, Visual Studio, Web

ASP.NET MVC4 site gives Error 403.14 on IIS 8.5

Publishig a new project created with Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 and ASP.NET MVC4 on IIS 8.5 and Windows Server 2012 R2 only resulted in Error 403.14.

Since it was the first MVC project on that server I thought is was a configuration issue in IIS. After testing almost all suggestions found on Internet (most of the referring to IIS 7.5), I found someone with that same problem and had a solution.

The problem was the setting “Precompile during publish” when publishing. I publish to a local folder before sending it to the server and I’d selected that because I thought it would make the site faster. But this completely broke the site!

Disabling “Precompile during publish”, republishing it (locally) and sending it to the server and now it worked as expected!

Visual Studio, Web

Remote Debugging ASP.NET Development Server with SPI Port Forward

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If you try to connect to the ASP.NET Development Server included in Visual Studio from another computer, you simply just can’t.

It’s a safety feature from the Visual Studio team, but also a big headache for many developers. If you want to test a PDA connecting to a web service on ASP.NET Development Server it is not even possible to run the test software locally on the same computer as the server.

After searching the web I found this question (and solution) on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1730280/accessing-asp-net-development-server-from-another-pc-on-the-network.

But since the answer on stackoverflow is linking to download.com, downloading the SPI Port Forward program is another headache. After the download the file is well hidden in some temp folder far away. So I added a download here.

Download SPI Port Forward here

After starting the program. You enter the port number you want to remote connect to your local ASP.NET Development Server with in Local port. Enter localhost as Remote host. And enter the port that the ASP.NET Development Server is using as Remote port. Then Activate to enable the port forward.

Now you can connect to your local ASP.NET Development Server by connecting to: 192.168.1.15:12345. Where 192.168.1.15 is your local computer (with server) IP. And 12345 is the port you entered in Local port.

 

SEO, Web

How long does it take to get listed at DMOZ.org?

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It’s a well known secret that being listed at DMOZ.org is one of the most important things when getting high ranks in Google. If a site is listed at DMOZ.org, it has been checked by a DMOZ editor and can therefore be believed to have high quality. The DMOZ directory was also mirrored to http://directory.google.com (but that has been discontinued), and if a site was listed in the DMOZ directory the classification was displayed in the Google search result (apparently also discontinued).

But according to the Goggle Webmaster video at the bottom of this post, there are no extra benefits from being in the DMOZ directory, not more than a link from any other site. But DMOZ tends to have a high pagerank and the directory is also mirrored to many other sites which will build pagerank.

Back to the question.

How long does it take to get listed at DMOZ.org?

Well, the quick answer is that it depends. It depends on which category and how active the editors are in that category. If you want to add your site to the “right” category it can take about a month. If you want to add your site to the “wrong” category, I’ve read in the DMOZ forum about people waiting for 2-3 years!

I’ve experienced this myself.

Some years (more than five I guess) ago I added a several sites to the DMOZ directory and I think I had to wait a few months for each to be added. Then I created a new site and submitted it to the DMOZ directory. I waited for months and months. Then I created a subdomain to the site with content that would fit better in a different category than the rest of the site. After submitting the subdomain to another category in DMOZ it was added in about a month. The first submission is still not added after waiting more than a year. So you have to be “lucky” and have a site goes into the “right” category.

Although Google does not give any extra credit for being in the DMOZ directory, it can’t be a bad since according to this list the directory is mirrored to almost 100 different sites.

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/full-index.html