Setting location path in web.config results in 404 (IIS, ASP.NET Core)

Question

We are migrating from ASP.Net to ASP.Net Core.

We need to configure different authentications for different paths

<location path="controllerpath/method">
    <system.webServer>
        <security>
            <authentication>
                <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" />
            </authentication>
        </security>
    </system.webServer>
</location>

But as soon as we add the <location path="xyz"> entry the specified path is no longer reachable and the caller get's a 404 error. Even just putting

<location path="xyz/abc">
</location>

Is enough to trigger the 404 response. If I remove this entry is can be accessed again. The 404 comes from IIS directly, because even if the app fails to start (and all other calls result in a 503 for example), the path specified via location path still results in a 404.

Here is the full web.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <location inheritInChildApplications="false">
    <system.webServer>
      <handlers>
        <remove name="aspNetCore"/>
        <add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="*" modules="AspNetCoreModuleV2" resourceType="Unspecified"/>
      </handlers>
      <security>
        <requestFiltering>
          <requestLimits maxAllowedContentLength="52428800"/>
        </requestFiltering>
        <authorization>
          <add accessType="Allow" users="*" verbs="OPTIONS"/>
        </authorization>
      </security>
      <aspNetCore processPath="dotnet" arguments=".\assembly.dll" hostingModel="inprocess"> 
         <handlerSettings>
        <handlerSetting name="debugLevel" value="file" />
        <handlerSetting name="debugFile" value="c:\temp\ancm.log" />
     </handlerSettings>
      <environmentVariables>
        <environmentVariable name="ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT" value="Development" />
      </environmentVariables>
      </aspNetCore>
      <httpProtocol allowKeepAlive="false">
        <customHeaders>
          <remove name="X-Powered-By"/>
        </customHeaders>
      </httpProtocol>
          <directoryBrowse enabled="true"/>
          <httpCompression>
            <dynamicTypes>
              <remove mimeType="*/*"/>
              <add mimeType="*/*" enabled="true"/>
            </dynamicTypes>
          </httpCompression>
        </system.webServer>
      </location>  
        <location path="xyz/abc" allowOverride="true">        
        </location>
    </configuration>
    <!--ProjectGuid: 29529648-A3F4-44CB-827B-B6B81B00A09C-->

Eike S · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-12 08:22:26Z

4

I found the solution:

the attribute inheritInChildApplications="false" made it that the handler was not registered for the other paths. After removing the attribute (or changing the value to true) everything works as expected. I guess IIS then tried to locate the path as a resource.

answered Jul 12, 2022 at 8:22

Eike S

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2 Comments

Herman Van Der Blom Over a year ago

thanx, this is why node.js will win! all those difficult settings to get something working in .dotnet you get crazy looking for.

DKATyler Over a year ago

Encountering the same problem. I do not have inheritInChildApplications in my web.config. In fact, I get the problem even when I use an empty web.config other than an empty location tag.

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