ASP.NET Core controller routing instead of file system

Question

In my web application, I have a controller with a fallback-route so that every request goes to this controller, and additionally I use the PhysicalFileProvider to serve static files from a specific directory.

My fallback controller:

[ApiController]
[AllowAnonymous]
[Route("")]
public class PageRenderingController : ControllerBase
{
    [HttpGet("{*url:nonfile}")]
    public async Task<ActionResult> Get([FromRoute]string? url = null)
    {
        // return result
    }
}

My Program.cs:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
    // register services...
    var app = builder.Build();

    SetupFileServer(app);
    app.MapControllers();

    app.Run();
}

private static void SetupFileServer(WebApplication app)
{
    var staticAdminFileServerOptions = new FileServerOptions
    {
        EnableDefaultFiles = true,
        FileProvider = new PhysicalFileProvider(
            Path.Combine(app.Environment.ContentRootPath, "_admin")),
        RequestPath = "/admin",
        EnableDirectoryBrowsing = false,
    };

    app.UseFileServer(staticAdminFileServerOptions);
}

So my problem now is that even I registered the FileServer before the controllers, a request to http://host/admin/ goes to the controller instead of the FileServer (and serving the index.html file). Any ideas how to solve that?

Answer 1

I tested your code and found that the problem occurred in the call of the app.UseRouting(); middleware. You need to configure the corresponding configuration request routing for the project. If it is not configured, it will still be captured by the controller.

When I configured the corresponding middleware and visited http://host/admin again, I could see that the index page was fully rendered:

using Microsoft.Extensions.FileProviders;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Add services to the container.
builder.Services.AddControllersWithViews();

var app = builder.Build();
SetupFileServer(app);
// Configure the HTTP request pipeline.
if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
    // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
    app.UseHsts();
}

app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseStaticFiles();

app.UseRouting();

app.UseAuthorization();

app.MapControllerRoute(
    name: "default",
    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

app.Run();
static void SetupFileServer(WebApplication app)
{
    var staticAdminFileServerOptions = new FileServerOptions
    {
        EnableDefaultFiles = true,
        FileProvider = new PhysicalFileProvider(
            Path.Combine(app.Environment.ContentRootPath, "admin")),
        RequestPath = "/admin",
        EnableDirectoryBrowsing = false,
    };

    app.UseFileServer(staticAdminFileServerOptions);
}