rewrite url rules to remove appearance of subdirectory in asp.net web.config file

Question

I have a domain that is hosted by discountasp.net (a standard .net web host). Call it http://example.com.

The domain hosts a default website, plus there are a couple separate web applications.

The website was created in Wordpress, and it lives in a /wordpress subdirectory of the domain's root directory on the host.

I want to make it so that there is no /wordpress in the URL the user sees in the browser. Previously, there was an index.html file in the root directory that would redirect requests for http://example.com/ to http://example.com/wordpress/. But that of course is just a redirect and leaves http://example.com/wordpress/ in the browser URL bar.

I thought I could achieve what I wanted with URL rewrite rules in my Web.config file in the root directory. Below is the text of that file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
      <rules>
          <rule name="wordpress redirect a">
              <match url="wordpress/(.*)"/>
              <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}"/>
          </rule>
          <rule name="wordpress redirect b">
              <match url=".*"/>
              <conditions>
                  <add input="{REQUEST_URI}" pattern=".*nm.*" matchType="Pattern" negate="true" ignoreCase="false"/>
                  <add input="{REQUEST_URI}" pattern=".*survey.*" matchType="Pattern" negate="true" ignoreCase="false"/>
              </conditions>
              <action type="Rewrite" url="wordpress/{R:0}"/>
          </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

The logic of the file is:

The first rule: if the url path (the part after the host:port/) starts with wordpress/, it removes the wordpress/ and continues processing rules with just the part that came after the wordpress/.
The second rule: for any url path that does not contains the special web application strings "nm" or "survey", put wordpress/ in front on the path.

This works, in the sense that if I put http://example.com/ into the browser bar, it shows the website correctly, and also this rewriting does not interfere with the web application calls such as http://example.com/nm/...

However, it still leaves the /wordpress in the URL the user sees (i.e., when I put http://example.com/ in the browser bar, I end up with http://example.com/wordpress/ in the browser bar after whatever rewrite/redirect it does. It may be that I'm just misunderstanding what rewrite rules do. But my understanding (and what I was trying to achieve with these rules) was that any incoming URL (except my special web application URLs) that does not include wordpress/ would be handled internally as if it did include /wordpress, but then returned to the client as the original URL not including /wordpress. So, not a redirect, just some internal fakery. And then the first rule is there because the links within the website would include /wordpress, and since I don't want to get /wordpress/wordpress, I need to strip it before adding it.

But obviously I'm misunderstanding something.

Another clue is that the second rule doesn't even seem to be doing its job when I use the url http://example.com/about/. The second rule should make this operate as if it were http://example.com/wordpress/about/, but instead I get a 404 not found error. But if I put http://example.com/wordpress/about/ in the browser bar, it shows that web page correctly. So I'm confused.

Why a downvote with no explanation? – M Katz Sep 14 '16 at 08:09 — M Katz, Sep 14 '16 at 08:09

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 15 '16 at 00:09

To answer my own question, at least partially:

You don't have to worry about Web.config url rewrite rules messing up web application urls. If a URL matches leads to a web application, ASP.net won't apply Web.config url rewrite rules "along the way" (e.g., if the Web.config is in your root directory) but will use the web application urls as-is.
The Wordpress admin control panel, under "general settings", has the option of setting both the physical directory of your wordpress files, and the "virtual" directory of how the URLs should appear to the user. It's best to use these options because trying to "fake out" wordpress with your own redirects is tricky.

rewrite url rules to remove appearance of subdirectory in asp.net web.config file

1 Answers1