Host ASP.NET Application in IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) are used to host ASP.Net Web application for either used it to show your development progress or for a test run of your websites. Or if you are a freelancer and you want to show your sites to your customer, IIS might be your best and easiest way.

For beginners like me, I created simple instructions in publishing ASP.NET MVC Application in IIS.

I. Go to IIS sites root folder and create new folder.

1. First open your IIS Manager. By going to start menu and typing “IIS” and select Internet Information Services from the search result. Refer to the image shown below.

Start Menu

2.>In your IIS manager expand sites folder and right click on Default Web Sites. Then select Explore to open root directory.

                                                             Internet Information Services Manager

3.>wwwroot directory appear create a folder inside the directory. This is where we publish our Websites. In my case I name it as MySites. 

                                                                            wwwroot directory

II. Publish ASP.NET Website

My Site Preview:

                                                                                  My Site

1.> Open your project in visual studio 2013 and go to solution explorer. Right click on your project name and select publish.

                                                                      Publish

2.> In the Publish Web Window choose Profile and then create new profile name for your publish profile.

                                                                              New Profile

3.> Enter your desired publish profile name. Then press “OK”.

                                                                             Name your profile

4.> Click “Next” to proceed. Use File System as your publish method.

                                                                         Publish Method

5.> Select your published directory. In my case it is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MySites which the default website directory of IIS. Then click “Open”.

                                                                           Select Directory

6.> Lastly click on publish button.

                                                                       Publish Option

7.> Wait for Visual Studio to finish publishing.

Successfully Published

III. Convert your website to IIS Application

1.> Go to your IIS Manager and navigate to Sites-> Default Web Sites. Then search for your folder name where we published our websites. In my case I name it MySites. Right click on MySites folder and select Convert to Application.

                                                                          Open IIS Manager

2.> You’re done!! To browse your site right click on MySites Select Manage Application then choose browse.

                                                                             IIS Manager

3.> Browser will appear with your site preview.

4.> You can also access your websites using your local IP ex. http://192.168.1.2/MySites