OWIN/Katana selfhost generic handler (ashx) not invoked

Question

I'm trying to use OWIN/Katana selfhosted console app with my generic ASHX handler, but just can't get it working. Is that even supported? I have it registered in app.config with path MyHandler.axd as I'd do for an ASP.NET application (and where it works with this equivalent setup):

 <system.webServer>
    <handlers>
        <remove name="ExtensionlessUrlHandler-Integrated-4.0" />
        <remove name="ExtensionlessUrlHandler-ISAPI-4.0_32bit" />
        <remove name="ExtensionlessUrlHandler-ISAPI-4.0_64bit" />
        <add name="MyHandler" path="MyHandler.axd" verb="*" type="My.AssemblyName.Handlers.MyAsyncHandler, My.AssemblyName, Culture=neutral" />
    </handlers>
</system.webServer>

The handler implementation (that is not invoked):

 namespace My.AssemblyName.Handlers
 {
     public class MyAsyncHandler : HttpTaskAsyncHandler
     {
        public override async Task ProcessRequestAsync(HttpContext context)
        {
            // code that is not hit
        }
    }
}

My Startup class is implemented like this:

public class Startup
{
    public void Configuration(IAppBuilder appBuilder)
    {
        HttpConfiguration config = new HttpConfiguration();
        config.Routes.IgnoreRoute("MyHandler.axd", "{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
        config.Routes.IgnoreRoute("MyHandler.ashx", "{resource}.ashx/{*pathInfo}");
        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new {id = RouteParameter.Optional}
            );

        appBuilder.UseWebApi(config);
    }
}

And the application is invoked with

using (WebApp.Start<Startup>(url: baseAddress))
{
    Console.ReadLine();
}

These are my installed NuGet packages:

• Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Client
• Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Core
• Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.Owin
• Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.OwinSelfHost
• Microsoft.Owin
• Microsoft.Owin.Host.HttpListener
• Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb Microsoft.Owin.Hosting
• Also Note that my handler is HttpTaskAsyncHandler, so I'm also referencing System.Web.dll

EDIT: I see handlers are configured here with Nancy for the ASP.NET Host (Microsoft.Owin.Host.SystemWeb). How's that possible?

Answer 1

No, there's no support for running any System.Web components in Katana selfhost. Only the WebApi, SignalR, and other OWIN compatible frameworks are supported by Katana selfhost.