Not directly.
You see, the problem is, when you have a .NET-Core application, the application is run in Kestrell, not IIS (for .NET Core < 2.2).
Now, to host your .NET-Core application in IIS, the AspNetCoreModule starts your .NET-Core application with Kestrell on Port X of 127.0.0.1, and then reverse-proxies the traffic from your iis-domain+virtual directory to Port X on 127.0.0.1 (it might use something else than TCP).
Problem 1 is, Kestrell has pretty limited functionality, meaning no virtual directories.
Problem 2 is, unlike nginx, IIS does not really do the reverse-proxying properly, or should we say "completely".
IIS can forward domainxy:80 to 127.0.0.1:random alright.
But what it doesn't do properly is rewrite domainxy:80/foo to 127.0.0.1:random (images, header, json-ajax-results, urls, return-urls, cookies, etc. and vice-versa).
Instead it rewrites domain:80/foo to 127.0.0.1:random/foo, which is a problem if the server on 127.0.0.1:random (Kestrell) doesn't support virtual directories.
So if you want to run your application in your virtual-directory, you have two options (both involve modifying "your" application - if you can do that):
Put all your stuff into directory "foo" (including the MVC controller route), if your application is going to be deployed only once.
As suggested in https://github.com/aspnet/Hosting/issues/416#issuecomment-149046552 you can have the application-framework simulate that folder for you, kindof like in RoR:
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app,
IHostingEnvironment env,
ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
string virtual_directory = "/Virt_DIR";
// virtual_directory = "/";
if (virtual_directory.EndsWith("/"))
virtual_directory = virtual_directory.Substring(0, virtual_directory.Length - 1);
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(virtual_directory))
Configure1(app, env, loggerFactory); // Don't map if you don't have to
// (wonder what the framework does or does not do for that case)
else
app.Map(virtual_directory, delegate(IApplicationBuilder mappedApp)
{
Configure1(mappedApp, env, loggerFactory);
}
);
}
// Configure is called after ConfigureServices is called.
public void Configure1(IApplicationBuilder app,
IHostingEnvironment env,
ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
// [...] (here comes what used to be in your old Configure method)
}
You will have to configure the name of the virtual-directory somewhere.
Careful when you have/return URLs in JavaScript/ajax-requests, they won't be automagically mapped. You have to do this yourselfs, but that used to be this way with old ASP.NET, too.
Really, like RoR:
map Rails.application.config.relative_url_root || "/" do
run RedmineApp::Application
end
As for a virtual directory within the application:
No, this is not that simple.
IIS is a full webserver, which will serve the content of that mapped directory like it was there (if it can read the contents).
If you forward the entire parent directory to Kestrell, then IIS can't serve the subdirectory, and you're application would have to do that. That means you'll have to setup a static file server for that specific directory, and tell it where the files are, as you have done.
What you might be able to do, is tell IIS to not proxy that specific virtual sub-directory (just as you can define a static-file location in nginx - except that IIS probably does not support that feature).
However, you could create a symlink (or mount/junction) within your application directory that goes to the networked folder, if Windows is capable of that (mklink). Then .NET Core should be able to serve it statically. But really, that sounds like a hack.
If you can't configure IIS, you really should use app.UseFileServer() and define the document's location in the database. That way you can just delete&re-insert the application later.
