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I have a Asp.net MVC 3 application which I want to give to a user to use without them having to host it in IIS to run.

What I would like to have is some sort of executable that they click or a service which will host the application and then they can use it from any browser on the network.

What are my options?

Marijn
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JD.
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    But MVC is a web app, it can't be used this way. It should be hosted in some server. – mohammedn Jul 15 '11 at 15:22
  • Hi. Have you solved this issue finally? I want to do something similar, but running web application locally, on the same machine. – Niko Oct 28 '16 at 08:28

4 Answers4

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Have you looked into IIS Hostable Web Core?

This feature basically allows you to host the entire IIS functionality within your own process. This gives you the power to implement scenarios where you can customize entirely the functionality that you want "your Web Server" to expose, as well as control the lifetime of it without impacting any other application running on the site.

Curt Nichols
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  • Hi Curt, not sure if you have used this, I ran the code provided, entered the directory to where my web page is (just some static page) but keep getting "page not found" in the browser. Any ideas? – JD. Jul 18 '11 at 13:32
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    Microsoft style. It requires IIS7 to be installed locally :) What's the point of embedding a server already installed/running? Makes it pretty pointless. – Ivan G. Oct 23 '12 at 12:50
  • I wouldn't say makes it pointless, but thanks for mentioning the requirement. – AaronLS Jan 02 '13 at 16:15
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    Setting up IIS application config is so complicated, you will eventually write a web server before you can successfully configure it. – Akash Kava Dec 24 '13 at 18:55
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    @AaronLS it sort of does - e.g. these days you might want to deploy to Linux, and this sort of silliness stops it. – Rob Grant Nov 05 '16 at 06:37
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You can look into IIS Express http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/868/iis-express-overview/ Although it is still IIS it's much lighter weight and might be what you need:

  • It doesn't run as a service or require administrator user rights to perform most tasks
  • IIS Express works well with ASP.NET and PHP applications
  • Multiple users of IIS Express can work independently on the same computer.
Hector Correa
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    By default, I do not believe that IIS Express can be accessed from machines other than the one it is running on. Here is a link that might show you how to get it to work (I haven't tried it myself): http://blogs.iis.net/vaidyg/archive/2010/07/29/serving-external-traffic-with-webmatrix-beta.aspx – Brian Jul 15 '11 at 15:51
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Take a look at the following example.

http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/signalr-20/getting-started-with-signalr-20/tutorial-signalr-20-self-host

http://owin.org/

http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/hosting-aspnet-web-api/use-owin-to-self-host-web-api

http://blog.micic.ch/net/owin-and-razor-enabled-mvc-application-framework

Regards

4

If the application is meant for production use, you need to host it under an IIS environment. IIS Express is intended as a development server and not for production use.

Otherwise, IIS Express is the way to go if you want someone else to work on it in a local development environment.

Marlon
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