Can an iisnode-hosted web application work out the virtual path at which it is hosted?

Question

I am using iisnode to host a node web application in IIS on Windows. When I set up my routes on the web server (say Express or Restify) I want do do it in a way that is inde

Answer 1

@GraemeF: This is a little hacky, but this is who I got around this limitation.

First, I added a global variable to my app called home:

var express = require('express'),
    app = express.createServer(),
    home = process.env.deployPath || '';

Then, I set up my routes using the home variable:

app.get(home + '/baz', function(req, res) {
    res.send('This is the /baz route');
    res.end();
});

Then, it's just a matter of setting the deployPath appSetting in your apps web.config:

Machine 1:

<appSettings>
    <add key="deployPath" value="/foo" />
</appSettings>

Machine 2:

<appSettings>
    <add key="deployPath" value="/bar" />
</appSettings>

You can manually set the value on each machine, have your build process set the value, or even add the setting to the target machine's global web.config.

Answer 2

This answer suggests getting the path from the web.config file.

Also, this link might be of some help as well:

The solution turns out to be well addressed, at least for "express" framework apps using app.use()

When you call app.use(app.router), you can pass a namespace prefix for your virtual directory and then requests will succeed BUT who would want to hard-code their virtual directory name into their app [yuck!]?

The solution turns out to be quite simple because IISNODE promotes appSettings to environment variables. Taking advantage of this fact, you can add an entry to the apps web.config such as:

<appSettings>
        <add key="appvirtdir" value="/nodetest" />
</appSettings>

Then you can make one simple modification to your server.js file like this:

app.configure(function () {
....
    app.use(process.env.appvirtdir || '', app.router);
....
});

Answer 3

Both express and restify allow the definition of paths with regex. By using regex paths you can avoid prefix issues entirely.

Instead of

server.get({ path: '/virtual/directory/structure/status/',...

use

server.get({ path: /.*\/status/,...

and there'll be no need for any magic.

Answer 4

I am not aware of a way to avoid seeing the path segment corresponding to the virtual directory within your node.js application hosted in iisnode. The best way to ensure your application code is host agnostic is to host it at the root of an IIS web site.