Using Custom Domains With IIS Express

Question

Traditionally I use custom domains with my localhost development server  Something along the lines of   dev example com dev api example com   This has provided me a ton of flexibility when working with external API s such as Facebook  This has worked great in the past with the built in Visual Studio Development Server  because all I needed to do was add a CNAME to those DNS records pointing to 127 0 0 1   However I have not been able to get this to work with IIS Express  Everything I have tried seems to have failed  I have even added the correct XML config to the applicationHost config file for IIS Express  but it doesn t seem to recognize the entries as valid as a true install of IIS would    lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    1288 dev example com    gt    Whenever I enter this line and try to request http   dev example com 1288 I get the following message      Bad Request - Invalid Hostname   Does anybody know if I am missing something obvious  Or did the IIS Express team really lack the foresight to see this type of use

User · Answer

The invalid hostname indicates that the actual site you configured in the IIS Express configuration file is (most likely) not running. IIS Express doesn't have a process model like IIS does.

For your site to run it would need to be started explicitly (either by opening and accessing from webmatrix, or from command line calling iisexpress.exe (from it's installation directory) with the /site parameter.

In general, the steps to allow fully qualified DNS names to be used for local access are Let's use your example of the DNS name dev.example.com

edit %windows%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file to map dev.example.com to 127.0.0.1 (admin privilege required). If you control DNS server (like in Nick's case) then the DNS entry is sufficient as this step is not needed.
If you access internet through proxy, make sure the dev.example.com will not be forwared to proxy (you have to put in on the exception list in your browser (for IE it would be Tools/Internet Options/Connections/Lan Settings, then go to Proxy Server/Advanced and put dev.example.com on the exeption list.
Configure IIS Express binding for your site (eg:Site1) to include dev.example.com. Administrative privilege will be needed to use the binding. Alternatively, a one-time URL reservation can be made with http.sys using

netsh http add urlacl url=http://dev.example.com:<port>/ user=<user_name>
start iisexpress /site:Site1 or open Site1 in WebMatrix

User · Answer

On my WebMatrix IIS Express install changing from    80 localhost  to    80 custom hostname  didn t work   Bad Hostname   even with proper etc hosts mappings   but    80   did work--and with none of the additional steps required by the other answers here   Note that    80    won t do it  leave off the second asterisk

User · Answer

This is what worked for me  Updated for VS 2013  see revision history for 2010  for VS 2015 see this  https   stackoverflow com a 32744234 218971    Right-click your Web Application Project    Properties   Web  then configure the Servers section as follows   Select IIS Express   from the drop down Project Url  http   localhost Override application root URL  http   dev example com Click Create Virtual Directory  if you get an error here you may need to disable IIS 5 6 7 8  change IIS s Default Site to anything but port  80  make sure Skype isn t using port 80  etc     Optionally  Set the Start URL to http   dev example com  Open  USERPROFILE  My Documents IISExpress config applicationhost config  Windows XP  Vista  and 7  and edit the site definition in the  lt sites gt  config block to be along the lines of the following   lt site name  quot DevExample quot  id  quot 997005936 quot  gt       lt application path  quot   quot  applicationPool  quot Clr2IntegratedAppPool quot  gt           lt virtualDirectory             path  quot   quot              physicalPath  quot C  path to application root quot    gt       lt  application gt       lt bindings gt           lt binding             protocol  quot http quot              bindingInformation  quot  80 dev example com quot    gt       lt  bindings gt       lt applicationDefaults applicationPool  quot Clr2IntegratedAppPool quot    gt   lt  site gt    If running MVC  make sure the applicationPool is set to one of the  quot Integrated quot  options  like  quot Clr2IntegratedAppPool quot     Open your hosts file and add the line 127 0 0 1 dev example com     Start your application    Some great advice from the comments    You may need to run Visual Studio as Administrator  If you want to make other devs see your IIS run netsh http add urlacl url http   dev example com 80  user everyone If you want the site to resolve for all hosts set  bindingInformation  quot   80  quot   Use any port you want  80 is just convenient  To resolve all hosts you ll need to run Visual Studio as an administrator

User · Answer

Like Jessa Flint above  I didn t want to manually edit  vs config applicationhost config because I wanted the changes to persist in source control  I also didn t want to have a separate batch file  I m using VS 2015   Project Properties Build Events Pre-build event command line       The following configures IIS Express to bind to any address at the specified port    remove binding if it already exists   programfiles  IIS Express appcmd exe  set site  MySolution Web   -bindings  protocol  http  bindingInformation    1167     apphostconfig    SolutionDir  vs config applicationhost config     add the binding   programfiles  IIS Express appcmd exe  set site  MySolution Web    bindings  protocol  http  bindingInformation    1167     apphostconfig    SolutionDir  vs config applicationhost config     Just make sure you change the port number to your desired port

User · Answer

David s solution is good  But I found the  lt script gt alert document domain   lt  script gt  in the page still alerts  localhost  because the Project Url is still localhost even if it has been override with http   dev example com  Another issue I run into is that it alerts me the port 80 has already been in use even if I have disabled the Skype using the 80 port number as recommended by David Murdoch  So I have figured out another solution that is much easier    Run Notepad as administrator  and open the C  Windows System32 drivers etc hosts  add 127 0 0 1 mydomain  and save the file  Open the web project with Visual Studio 2013  Note  must also run as administrator   right-click the project -  Properties -  Web   lets suppose the Project Url under the  IIS Express  option is http   localhost 33333    then change it from http   localhost 33333  to http   mydomain 333333  Note  After this change  you should neither click the  Create Virtual Directory  button on the right of the Project Url box nor click the Save button of the Visual Studio as they won t be succeeded  You can save your settings after next step 3  Open  USERPROFILE  My Documents IISExpress config applicationhost config  search for  33333 localhost   then update it to  33333 mydomain  and save the file  Save your setting as mentioned in step 2  Right click a web page in your visual studio  and click  View in Browser   Now the page will be opened under http   mydomain 333333   and  lt script gt alert document domain   lt  script gt  in the page will alert  mydomain     Note  The port number listed above is assumed to be 33333  You need to change it to the port number set by your visual studio   Post edited  Today I tried with another domain name and got the following error  Unable to launch the IIS Express Web server  Failed to register URL    Access is denied   0x80070005   I exit the IIS Express by right clicking the IIS Express icon at the right corner in the Windows task bar  and then re-start my visual studio as administrator  and the issue is gone

User · Answer

When using Visual Studio 2012 with IIS Express  changing an existing binding does not work permanently   It may work until you close VS  but after that  things get really messed up    The key is keeping the existing localhost binding and adding a new binding after it   Unless you re running as administrator  you ll also need to run netsh add urlacl  to give yourself permissions to run a non-localhost site as a standard user    If you want to allow any host name  the full process is as follows    Create your web application  and find out what port it is using  see project properties  Web tab  Project Url   From an administrator prompt  run the following commands  replacing portnumber with the port number you figured out in  1    netsh http add urlacl url  http     portnumber   user everyone netsh http add urlacl url  http   localhost portnumber   user everyone    You can also use your user name  DOMAIN USER  instead of everyone for better security    Open applicationhost config  usually under My Documents IIS Express config   and find the  element with your port number  Add one more binding with the host name you want  in this case      For example    lt site name  MvcApplication1  id  2  gt       lt application path     applicationPool  Clr4IntegratedAppPool  gt           lt virtualDirectory path     physicalPath  C  sites MvcApplication1    gt       lt  application gt       lt bindings gt           lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    12853 localhost    gt           lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    12853      gt       lt  bindings gt   lt  site gt     Note that  if want to open up all host names      you ll need two netsh commands  one for   and one for localhost   If you only want to open up a specific host name  you don t strictly need the second netsh command  localhost   just the one with your specific host name is sufficient

User · Answer

I was trying to integrate the public IP Address into my workflow and these answers didn t help  I like to use the IDE as the IDE   But the above lead me to the solution  after about 2 hours of beating my head against a wall to get this to integrate with Visual Studio 2012   Windows 8  here s what ended up working for me    applicationhost config generated by VisualStudio under C  Users usr Documents IISExpress config       lt site name  MySite  id  1  gt           lt application path     applicationPool  Clr4IntegratedAppPool  gt               lt virtualDirectory path     physicalPath  C  Users usr Documents Visual Studio 2012 Projects MySite    gt           lt  application gt           lt bindings gt               lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    8081 localhost    gt               lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    8082 localhost    gt               lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    8083 192 168 2 102    gt           lt  bindings gt       lt  site gt     Set IISExpress to run as Administrator so that it can bind to outside addresses  not local host  Run Visual Stuio as an Administrator so that it can start the process as an administrator allowing the binding to take place    The net result is you can browse to 192 168 2 102 in my case and test  for instance in an Android emulator  I really hope this helps someone else as this was definitely an irritating process for me   Apparently it is a security feature which I d love to see disabled

User · Answer

The up-voted answer is valid   and this information helped me quite a bit   I know this topic has been discussed before but I wanted to add some additional input  People are saying that you must  manually edit  the application config file in the Users IISExpress Config directory     This was a big issue for me because I wanted to distribute the configuration via Source control to various developers   What I found is that you can automate the updating of this file using the  C  Program Files IIS Express appcmd exe  program    It took a while to find out the control parameters but Ill share my findings here   Essentially you can make a  bat file that runs both the NETSH command and the APPCMD EXE  and perhaps swap out a host file if you like  to make host header configuration easy with IIS Express   Your install bat file would look something like this   netsh http add urlacl url http   yourcustomdomain com 80  user everyone    C  Program Files IIS Express appcmd exe  set site  MyApp Web    bindings  protocol  http  bindingInformation    80 yourcustomdomain com     I also will make a  Uninstall  bat file that will clean up these bindings   because often times Im just faking out DNS so that I can work on code that is host name sensitive   netsh http delete urlacl url http   yourcustomdomain com 80    C  Program Files IIS Express appcmd exe  set site  MyApp Web   -bindings  protocol  http  bindingInformation    80 yourcustomdomain com     I hope this information is helpful to someone   It took me a bit to uncover

User · Answer

I was using iisexpress-proxy  from npm  for this   https   github com icflorescu iisexpress-proxy

User · Answer

For Visual Studio 2015 the steps in the above answers apply but the applicationhost config file is in a new location  In your  solution  folder follow the path  this is confusing if you upgraded and would have TWO versions of applicationhost config on your machine     vs config   Within that folder you will see your applicationhost config file  Alternatively you could just search your solution folder for the  config file and find it that way   I personally used the following configuration      With the following in my hosts file    127 0 0 1       jam net 127 0 0 1       www jam net   And the following in my applicationhost config file     lt site name  JBN Site  id  2  gt       lt application path     applicationPool  Clr4IntegratedAppPool  gt           lt virtualDirectory path     physicalPath  C  Dev Jam shoppingcart src Web JBN Site    gt       lt  application gt       lt bindings gt           lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    49707     gt               lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    49707 localhost    gt        lt  bindings gt   lt  site gt    Remember to run your instance of visual studio 2015 as an administrator  If you don t want to do this every time I recomend this   How to Run Visual Studio as Administrator by default  I hope this helps somebody  I had issues when trying to upgrade to visual studio 2015 and realized that none of my configurations were being carried over

User · Answer

Following Jaro s advice  I was able to get this working under Windows XP and IIS Express  installed via Web Matrix  with a small modification and was not limited to only localhost  It s just a matter of setting the bindings correctly     Use WebMatrix to create a new site from folder in your web application root   Close WebMatrix   Open  USERPROFILE  My Documents IISExpress config applicationhost config  Windows XP  Vista and 7 paths will be similar  and edit the site definition in the  lt sites  config block to be along the lines of the following    lt site name  DevExample  id  997005936        lt application path     applicationPool  Clr2IntegratedAppPool            lt virtualDirectory             path                 physicalPath  C  path to application root          lt  application       lt bindings           lt binding             protocol  http              bindingInformation    80 dev example com          lt  bindings       lt applicationDefaults applicationPool  Clr2IntegratedAppPool      lt  site    If running MVC  then keep the applicationPool set to one of the  Integrated  options

User · Answer

Leaving this here just in case anyone needs     I needed to have custom domains for a Wordpress Multisite setup in IIS Express but nothing worked until I ran Webmatrix Visual Studio as an Administrator  Then I was able to bind subdomains to the same application    lt bindings gt        lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    12345 localhost    gt       lt binding protocol  http  bindingInformation    12345 whatever localhost    gt   lt  bindings gt    Then going to http   whatever localhost 12345  will run

User · Answer

Just in case if someone may need    My requirement was   SSL enabled Custom domain Running in  default  port  443  Setup this URL in IISExpress  http   my customdomain com To setup this I used following settings  Project Url  http   localhost 57400 Start URL  http   my customdomain com   vs  solution-name  config applicationhost config settings   lt site     gt       lt application gt                   lt  application gt       lt bindings gt           lt binding protocol  quot http quot  bindingInformation  quot   57400  quot    gt           lt binding protocol  quot https quot  bindingInformation  quot   443 my customdomain com quot    gt       lt  bindings gt   lt  site gt

User · Answer

This method has been tested and worked with ASP NET Core 3 1 and Visual Studio 2019    vs PROJECTNAME config applicationhost config  Change  quot   44320 localhost quot  to  quot   44320   quot    lt bindings gt       lt binding protocol  quot http quot  bindingInformation  quot   5737 localhost quot    gt       lt binding protocol  quot https quot  bindingInformation  quot   44320   quot    gt   lt  bindings gt   Both links work   https   localhost 44320 https   127 0 0 1 44320  Now if you want the app to work with the custom domain  just add the following line to the host file   C  Windows System32 drivers etc hosts  127 0 0 1 customdomain  Now   https   customdomain 44320  NOTE  If your app works without SSL  change the protocol  quot http quot  part

User · Answer

I tried all of above  nothing worked  What resolved the issue was adding IPv6 bindings in the hosts file  In step 5 of  David Murdochs answer  add two lines instead of one  i e    127 0 0 1 dev example com   1 dev example com   I figured it out by checking   ping localhost from command line  which used to return   Reply from 127 0 0 1  bytes 32 time lt 1ms TTL 128  Instead  it now returns   Reply from   1  time lt 1ms  I don t know why  but for some reason IIS Express started using IPv6 instead of IPv4

[iis] Using Custom Domains With IIS Express

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