Static rewrite issue

[mindeka]

Pretty sure this is due to my ineptitude, so I apologize in advance, but here goes:

IIS8 with rewrite module.
node Express app, hosted on default web site, under directory "/foo".
So the dir structure is "foo/app.js", "foo/public/css/styles.css" etc.
Accessed like "http://localhost/foo" or "http://pc-name/foo" over LAN.

Rewrite rules in web.config is setup as recommended:

<rule name="StaticContent">
  <action type="Rewrite" url="public{REQUEST_URI}" />
</rule>
<rule name="DynamicContent">
  <conditions>
    <add input="{{REQUEST_FILENAME}}" matchType="IsFile" negate="True" />
  </conditions>
  <action type="Rewrite" url="app.js" />
</rule>

Routes in app.js are set up like so:

app.get('/foo', render.index);
app.get(/foo/bar', render.bar);
// etc.

Express static handling turned off.
This resulted in 404 for any of the static files.
My solution, which worked, is to make a rule for each static file in web.config individually like so:

<rule name="style_css" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="style.css" />
    <action type="Rewrite" url="public/css/style.css" />
</rule>

and set links in the template like so:

doctype 5
html
    head
        title= Foo
        link(rel='stylesheet', href='foo/public/css/style.css')

Which makes them load properly, but it seems hackish and is kind of a PITA to do it this way.
The question is, how to do it properly?

[tjanczuk]

URL rewriting configuration is a little bit like PERL programming: write only language. Did you check out the URL rewrite rules in the web.config template in http://tomasz.janczuk.org/2012/05/yaml-configuration-support-in-iisnode.html? They should cover your needs I think.

[mindeka]

Thank you for reply. Yes, I actually did use the exact config from that post, with no luck :(

[ismyrnow]

I believe the issue is because {REQUEST_URI} includes the subdirectory that the node application is in ("foo" in this case). So the rewrite is turning "/css/style.css" into "public/foo/css/style.css", which is not what is expected.

The only workaround I know of besides not hosting your node app in a subdirectory is nesting your static files on level deeper in a folder named the same as your application. For example:

public
  foo
    css
    - style.css

This allows you to use the boilerplate static rewrite rule:

<rule name="StaticContent">
    <action type="Rewrite" url="public{{REQUEST_URI}}"/>
</rule>

[alvarotrigo]

+1...

[alvarotrigo]

Is it open because actually there's no solution for it to server static files?

Or is it open just because the author didn't find a solution for his problem.

[aeciolevy]

@tjanczuk @rramachand21 I am running iisnode and node.js.
I could not access my public folder. I followed what you recommended on this post: #160 (comment)
However it didn't work.
I tried to use this in my server.js, but did not work either:

app.use(express.static(__dirname + "public"));
app.use(express.static("public"));

this is my route:

app.get("/usina2", function(req, res) {
  res.render("index.ejs");
});

This is my project structure:

[thall1961]

I'm having the same problem as @aeciolevy , the only difference is that I handle the url rewriting in app.js that gets pulled into start.js. I tried nesting the public folder contents in a folder named the same as the app, but that didn't work. It's got to be a simple thing that I'm missing...

[rayterrill]

Bump. Running into this same exact issue.

[miljosh68]

Has this worked? I am having problems serving CSS and JS files. I have defined the following in server.js,
app.use("/assets", express.static(__dirname + "/css_js_files"));

The 'css_js_files' directory is in the same directory as my server.js. But, I I always get '404' error for the CSS or JS files that I try to load from the EJS file using <link href="assets/mystyles.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen" />

I am using the following rule in my web.config.

<rule name="StaticContent" stopProcessing="true">
          <match url="\.(?:css|js)$" />
          <action type="Rewrite" url="assets{REQUEST_URI}" logRewrittenUrl="true" />
</rule>

Last but not the least, I have 'myapp' virtual directory created in IIS. So, my URL looks like 'http://localhost/myapp/index.html'
Thanks.

[cfrefah]

Banged my head against the wall with this issue. I only wanted to serve static files in my root/styles- and root/scripts-folder. This finally solved it for me, and is independent of location of files:

                <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false">
                    <add input="{{REQUEST_FILENAME}}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <match url="\.(?:jpg|jpg|css|png|js|ico|html|eot|woff|woff2|ttf|gif)$" />
                <action type="Rewrite" url="{REQUEST_URI}" logRewrittenUrl="true" />
            </rule>

[craigdrabiktxmq]

Unless it's important that Express handle your static files, why not let IIS handle it for you? Add a condition of conditions to exclude your static files from the rewrite rule and they will fall back to IIS serving your static content. Something like:

<rule name="DynamicContent">
  <conditions>
    <add input="{{REQUEST_FILENAME}}" matchType="IsFile" negate="True" />
    <add input="{REQUEST_URI}" negate="True" pattern="^/public" />
  </conditions>
  <action type="Rewrite" url="app.js" />
</rule>

[jasmasher]

app.use(`/public`, express.static(`public`));