Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and IIS 5.0 Administrator's Pocket Consultant

Author William R. Stanek Pages 396 Disk N/A Level All Levels Published 04/04/2001 ISBN 9780735610248 ISBN-10 0-7356-1024-X Price(USD) $29.99 To see this book's discounted price, select a reseller below.	More Information About the Book Table of Contents Sample Chapter Index Related Series Related Books About the Author Support: Book & CD Rate this book

Chapter 3: Configuring Web Sites and Servers continued

Redirecting Browser Requests

• Look for files in another directory.
• Look for files on a different Web site.
• Look for files on another computer.
• Look for a specific file instead of a set of files.
• Run an ISAPI application instead of accessing the requested files.

Each of these redirection techniques is examined in the sections that follow. Tips for creating customized redirection routines are examined in the "Customizing Browser Redirection" section of this chapter.

Redirecting Requests to Other Directories or Web Sites

1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, click the plus sign (+) next to the Web site you want to work with.
2. Right-click the directory you want to redirect and then select Properties.
3. Click the Virtual Directory or Directory tab as appropriate, and then select A Redirection To A URL, as shown in Figure 3-10.


Click to view graphic

Figure 3-10.  You can redirect requests for files in one directory to another directory.

4. In the Redirect To field, type the URL of the destination directory or Web site. For example, to redirect all requests for files in the /Docs directory to the /CorpDocs directory, type /CorpDocs. To redirect all requests for files located at www.microsoft.com/Docs to the techsupport.microsoft.com/CorpDocs, type http://techsupport.microsoft.com/CorpDocs.
5. Click OK. Now all requests for files in the old directory are mapped to files in the new directory. For example, if the browser requested /Docs/adminguide.doc and you redirected requests to http://techsupport.microsoft.com/CorpDocs/, the browser would request http://techsupport.microsoft.com/CorpDocs/adminguide.doc.

Redirecting All Requests to Another Web Site

1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, right-click the Web site you want to work with, and then select Properties.
2. Click the Home Directory tab and then select A Redirection To A URL, as shown in Figure 3-11.


Click to view graphic

Figure 3-11.  Another redirection technique is to redirect all requests for files to a specific location at another Web site.

3. In the Redirect To field, type the complete URL path to the page at the new site, such as /oldsite.html.
4. Select The Exact URL Entered Above and then click OK. Now all requests for files at the old site are mapped to a specific page at the new site.

Retrieving Files from a Network Share

1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, right-click the Web site you want to work with, and then select Properties.
2. Click the Home Directory tab and then select A Share Located On Another Computer, as shown in Figure 3-12.
3. Type the UNC path to the network share in the Network Directory field. The path should be in the form \\ServerName\SharedFolder, such as \\Gandolf\CorpWWW. Afterward, click Connect As and then enter the username and password that should be used to connect to the shared folder.
4. Click OK. Now all requests for files on the Web site are mapped to files on the specified network share.


Click to view graphic

Figure 3-12.  Network shares can be used as source directories for content. To map to a share, you must use redirection.

Redirecting Requests to Applications

1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, click the plus sign (+) next to the Web site you want to work with.
2. Right-click the directory you want to redirect and then select Properties. If you want to redirect all requests for the site, right-click the Web site entry and then select Properties.
3. Click the Home Directory, Virtual Directory, or Directory tab as appropriate, and then select A Redirection To A URL.
4. In the Redirection To field, type the URL of the application including any variables needed to pass parameters to the program, such as /CorpApps/Login.exe?URL=$V+PARAMS=$P, where $V and $P are redirection variables. A complete list of redirect variables is provided in Table 3-1.
5. Select The Exact URL Entered Above and click OK. Now all requests for files in the directory or site are mapped to the application.

Customizing Browser Redirection

In all of the previous discussions, when you selected A Redirection To A URL, additional options were displayed under The Client Will Be Sent To. Without selecting additional options, all requests for files in the old location were mapped automatically to files in the new location. You can change this behavior by selecting any of the following options under The Client Will Be Sent To:

• The Exact URL Entered Above  Redirects requests to the destination URL without adding any other portions of the original URL. You can use this option to redirect an entire site or directory to one file. For example, to redirect all requests for the /Downloads directory to the file DOWNLOAD.HTM in the home directory, select this option and then type /DOWNLOAD.HTM in the Redirect To text box.
• A Directory Below This One  Redirects a parent directory to a child directory. For example, to redirect your home directory (designated by /) to a subdirectory named /Current, select this option and then type /Current in the Redirect To text box.
• A Permanent Redirection For This Resource  Sends a "301—Permanent Redirect" message to the client. Without using this option, redirections are considered temporary, and the client browser receives the "302—Temporary Redirect" message. Some browsers can use the "301—Permanent Redirect" message as the signal to permanently change a URL stored in cache or in a bookmark.

You can customize redirection using redirect variables as well. As Table 3-1 shows, you can use redirect variables to pass portions of the original URL to a destination path or to prevent redirection of a specific file or subdirectory.

Table 3-1.  Redirect Variables for IIS

Variable	Description	Example
$S	Passes the matched suffix of the requested URL. The server automatically performs this suffix substitution; you use the $S variable only in combination with other variables.	If /Corpapps is redirected to /Apps and the original request is for /Corpapps/LOGIN.EXE, then /LOGIN.EXE is the suffix.
$P	Passes the parameters in the original URL omitting the question mark used to specify the beginning of a query string.	If the original URL is /Scripts /COUNT.ASP?valA=1&valB=2, then the string "valA=1&valB=2" is mapped into the destination URL.
$Q	Passes the full query string to the destination.	If the original URL is /Scripts/COUNT.ASP?valA=1&valB=2, then the string "?valA=1&valB=2" is mapped into the destination URL.
$V	Passes the requested path without the server name.	If the original URL is //Gandolf/Apps/COUNT.ASP, then the string "/Apps/COUNT.ASP" is mapped into the destination URL.
$0 through $9	Passes the portion of the requested URL that matches the indicated wildcard.
!	Use this variable to prevent redirecting a subdirectory or an individual file.

The final way you can customize redirection is to use redirect wildcards. Use redirect wildcards to redirect particular types of files to a specific file at the destination. For example, you can use redirect wildcards to redirect all .htm files to DEFAULT.HTM and all .asp files to DEFAULT.ASP. The syntax for wildcard redirection is:

*;*.EXT;FILENAME.EXT[;*.EXT;FILENAME.EXT…]

where .ext is the file extension you want to redirect and FILENAME.EXT is the name of the file to use at the destination. As shown, begin the destination URL with an asterisk and a semicolon, and separate pairs of wildcards and destination URLs with a semicolon. Be sure to account for all document types that users may requests directly, such as .htm, .html, and .asp documents.

You can use wildcard redirection by completing the following steps:

1. In the Internet Information Services snap-in, click the plus sign (+) next to the Web site you want to work with.
2. Right-click the directory you want to redirect and then select Properties. If you want to redirect all requests for the site, right-click the Web site entry, and then select Properties.
3. Click the Home Directory, Virtual Directory, or Directory tab as appropriate, and then select A Redirection To A URL.
4. In the Redirection To field, type the wildcard redirection values. For example, if you want to redirect wildcards to redirect all .htm files to DEFAULT.HTM and all .asp files to DEFAULT.ASP, you would enter:

*;*.HTM;DEFAULT.HTM;*.ASP;DEFAULT.ASP

5. Select The Exact URL Entered Above and then click OK. Now all requests for files in the directory or site are mapped using wildcards, if possible.

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Last Updated: Friday, July 6, 2001