Configure ASP.NET Web API application as a Virtual Directory under ASP.NET MVC application

Question

Due to various engineering requirements, I need to develop a new ASP.NET Web API application (named as BarApp) within the same Application domain of an existing application (named as FooApp).

I would like to configure an ASP.NET Web API application (BarApp) as a virtual directory under an existing ASP.NET MVC application (FooApp) on IIS 8.5. Though many many posts talked about how to configure a virtual directory, none of them work.

Here is the configuration snippet

        <site name="FooApp" id="3" serverAutoStart="true">
            <application path="/" applicationPool="FooApp">
                <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="E:\FooApp" />
                <virtualDirectory path="/Bar" physicalPath="E:\BarApp" />
            </application>
            <bindings>
                <binding protocol="https" bindingInformation="*:34566:" sslFlags="0" />
            </bindings>
        </site>

Here is the website structure:

-FooApp
|
|--Bin
|--View
|--Bar (as a virtual directory)
    |
    |--Bin
    |--View   

In the Foo App, I configured the routing: add an ingore route for all path with Bar

--RouteConfig.cs
  namespace FooApp
  {
       public class RouteConfig
       {
          public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
         {
             routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");
             routes.IgnoreRoute("{*path}", new { path = @"Bar\/(.*)" });

             routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
             );
         }
   }
}

--WebApiConfig, keep the automatically generated one.

 namespace FooApp
 {
    public static class WebApiConfig
    {
        public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
        {
            // Web API configuration and services
            // Web API routes
            config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();

            config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
                name: "DefaultApi",
                routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
                defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
            );
          }
     }
}

In the BarApp, the routing configure is modified as:

--RouteConfig.cs
namespace BarApp
{
    public class RouteConfig
    {
        public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
        {
            routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

            routes.MapRoute(
               name: "Default",
               url: "Bar/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
               defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
            );
         }
     }
}

--WebApiConfig
namespace BarApp
{
   public static class WebApiConfig
   {
       public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
      {
        // Web API configuration and services

        // Web API routes
        config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();

        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "Bar/api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );
      }
   }
}

However, the above configuration does not work, and the ignore route seems not taken into effect.
Failed to access page of Bar: https://mywebsite.test.com:4433/Bar/ HTTP Error 403.14 - Forbidden The Web server is configured to not list the contents of this directory.

Failed to access Web API of Bar: https://mywebsite.test.com:4433/Bar/api/values HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

the Web API library is 2.2.1

Answer 1

I think the problem with your approach is trying to host an Asp.Net application inside a Virtual Directory. Rather, you must add a child Application:

Then modify the web.config of the root application to avoid configuration collisions:

Reference: Disable inheritance in child applications and validateIntegratedModeConfiguration and inheritInChildApplications clash.

This way, you will be able to access your child web api without modifying any c# code: