Visual Studio 2017 Enable SSL

Ashley Bye picture Ashley Bye · Dec 10, 2016 · Viewed 53.1k times · Source

How do you enable SSL for a project in Visual Studio 2017?

In VS15, I could select Project -> Properties -> Debug -> Enable SSL. This option is not available in VS2017. Where has it moved to?

Edit:

I've even tried editing .\vs\config\applicationhost.config to no avail:

        <listenerAdapters>
            <add name="http" />
            <add name="https" />
        </listenerAdapters>

        <sites>
            <site name="WebSite1" id="1" serverAutoStart="true">
                <application path="/">
                    <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="%IIS_SITES_HOME%\WebSite1" />
                </application>
                <bindings>
                    <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation=":8080:localhost" />
                </bindings>
            </site>
            <site name="Filters" id="2">
                <application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
                    <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="c:\Users\Ashley\documents\visual studio 2017\Projects\Filters\src\Filters" />
                </application>
                <bindings>
                    <binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:51107:localhost" />
                    <binding protocol="https" bindingInformation="*:43107:localhost" />
                </bindings>
            </site>
            <siteDefaults>
                <logFile logFormat="W3C" directory="%IIS_USER_HOME%\Logs" />
                <traceFailedRequestsLogging directory="%IIS_USER_HOME%\TraceLogFiles" enabled="true" maxLogFileSizeKB="1024" />
            </siteDefaults>
            <applicationDefaults applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool" />
            <virtualDirectoryDefaults allowSubDirConfig="true" />
        </sites>

        <webLimits />

Edit:

Another option I've tried, which just feels clunky, and kind of defeats the point of an IDE, is to configure Kestrel to use HTTPS. This isn't ideal since I had to export a copy of a certificate for localhost from IIS, and IIS Express still tries to load the site on a different port.

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var host = new WebHostBuilder()
            .UseKestrel(options =>
                options.UseHttps(new X509Certificate2("path/to/cert.pfx", "password")))
            .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
            .UseUrls("http://localhost:5100", "https://localhost:4300")
            .UseIISIntegration()
            .UseStartup<Startup>()
            .Build();

        host.Run();
    }
}

Sadly, this doesn't work when run from VS17. The first time around I got a 502.2 (I think) error, now all I get is an unable to connect error in Chrome. I can run dotnet run from PowerShell and it works fine.

As a workaround, it does the trick. But it doesn't seem neat.

Answer

Mike Kushner picture Mike Kushner · Oct 19, 2017

Ports are locked down in IIS Express so that it doesn't have to be run as Administrator...

Valid Ports are 44300 - 44399

Check out the Dev Community article https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/39430/changing-port-number-in-a-web-project-does-not-imm.html

You can edit launchSettings.json, but the ssl ports must fall in this range.