Search code examples
model-view-controlleriis-7isapi

Mapping *.MVC to aspnet_isapi.dll on IIS7

We have a .net 3.5 application (MVC and WebForms mixed) that was hosted on IIS6. In order to make it work on IIS6 we had to add custom mappings to IIS such that *.MVC would map to aspnet_isapi.dll.

So our URL's would end up looking like this: <host>\someController.mvc\action

But now that were setting this web app up on IIS7, with classic mode pooling, were trying to do the same thing so that we don't have to change anything about the application.

But after adding the *.MVC Handler mapping in IIS7 it still does not seem to be picking it up. Every time we navigate to our MVC pages, we get 404 errors. However, our .aspx pages load fine.

On closer inspection the Failed Request Tracing keeps complaining about the following ModuleName="IIS Web Core", Notification="MAP_REQUEST_HANDLER", HttpStatus="404", HttpReason="Not Found", HttpSubStatus="0", ErrorCode="The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)", ConfigExceptionInfo=""

I'm running in circles. We were able to set this up on another IIS7 machine yet this one were trying to set it up on just refuses to work. I really don't know what I'm missing. Its like the mapping rule is not triggering at all. Because the same error occurs if we just type in random things for the file name in the URL.

Solution

  • I just dealt with this, and what really did it for me was getting rid of the entire MvcHttpHandler (remove it from your 

    <system.webServer>/<handlers>

    configuration tag).

    MSDN states that this handler is only useful when the UrlRoutingModule is not enabled for all requests (which in IIS7+ we can), hence why it's useful for IIS6 (and also why we need the *.mvc extension to route properly).

    So just remove the MvcHttpHandler reference in your handlers, and make sure you:

    • Have the application running in an app pool with Integrated Mode (not Classic)

    • You have the runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests modules attribute set to "true"

      <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">

    If you are still getting 404's then it's either your MVC doing it (which really sidetracked me :S) another reason.