ASP.NET Core app not working after publish to Azure

Question

I have an ASP.NET Core app which is running fine locally.

However, when I publish (Web Deploy) the site to Azure, I get a 403: You do not have permission to view this directory or page.

I have a default controller and a route defined in Startup.cs:

app.UseMvc(routes =>
            {
                routes.MapRoute(
                    name: "default",
                    template: "{controller}/{action}/{id?}",
                    defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" });
            });

The folder structure after web deploy to Azure looks like:

|_ home
  |_ site
    |_ wwwroot (contains DLL's and files specified through 'publishOptions' in project.json)
      |_ wwwroot (the contents of the 'wwwroot' folder I have in Visual Studio)
      |_ Views (contains MVC views)
      |_ refs (contains referenced DLLs, I think?)

Any idea of what I should look for in project.json or the Kudu portal to figure out what's wrong?

My project.json file:

{
  "title": "My Web App",
  "version": "1.0.0-*",
  "buildOptions": {
    "debugType": "portable",
    "emitEntryPoint": true,
    "preserveCompilationContext": true,
    "compile": {
      "exclude": [ "bin/**", "obj/**", "node_modules/" ]
    }
  },
  "publishOptions": {
    "include": [ "wwwroot", "Views", "appsettings.json", "appsettings.*.json" ]
  },
  "scripts": {
    "prepublish": [ "jspm install", "gulp build" ]
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics.EntityFrameworkCore": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.UserSecrets": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Debug": "1.0.0",
    "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.BrowserLink.Loader": "14.0.0",
    "System.IO.FileSystem": "4.0.1"
  },
  "frameworks": {
    "netcoreapp1.0": {
      "dependencies": {
        "Microsoft.NETCore.App": {
          "type": "platform",
          "version": "1.0.0"
        },
        "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel": "1.0.0"
      },
      "imports": "dnxcore50"
    }
  },
  "commands": {
    "web": "Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Kestrel --server.urls=http://*:8000/"
  }
}

Edit:

For one, I was missing the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration NuGet package. When I added it, I also got a web.config file in the site root (which I included through project.json).

I also added .UseIISIntegration() to my WebHostBuilder in Startup.cs:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
   new WebHostBuilder()
      .UseKestrel()
      .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
      .UseStartup<Startup>()
      .UseIISIntegration() // This was missing
      .Build()
      .Run();
   }

I can now run it on IIS Express locally (although I guess it's IIS fronting Kestrel?), but when published to Azure I get error: HTTP Error 502.5 - Process Failure

The event log in Azure states: Failed to start process with commandline '"%LAUNCHER_PATH%" %LAUNCHER_ARGS%', ErrorCode = '0x80070002'.

According to the documentation, the troubleshooting step is:

If the server does not have Internet access while installing the server hosting bundle, this exception will ensue when the installer is prevented from obtaining the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable (x64) packages online. You may obtain an installer for the packages from the Microsoft Download Center.

Not sure how this applies to Azure, though?

What version of dotnet are you using? Also, what packages do you have in project.json? — Victor Hurdugaci
@TedNyberg Probably problem occurs from missing web.config in publishOptions. Try to add web.config like ` [ "wwwroot", "Views", "appsettings.json", "appsettings.*.json", "web.config" ]`. — adem caglin
I had that before, but there's no web.config in the project? — Ted Nyberg
The web.config file appeared when I added the IIS integration NuGet package. :) You got me in the right direction, issue has been resolved! Thanks @ademcaglin! — Ted Nyberg

Ted Nyberg Ted Nyberg · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-30T09:14:23

The problem came from insufficient IIS integration/configuration.

I had to add the following to project.json:

"tools": {
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration.Tools": "1.0.0-preview2-final"
  }

I also added a postPublish script for IIS publishing:

"scripts": {
    "postpublish": [ "dotnet publish-iis --publish-folder %publish:OutputPath% --framework %publish:FullTargetFramework%" ]
  }

I also added the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration NuGet package:

"dependencies": {
  "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.IISIntegration": "1.0.0"
}

This created a web.config file, which I had to modify as:

<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <handlers>
      <add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="*" modules="AspNetCoreModule" resourceType="Unspecified" />
    </handlers>
    <aspNetCore processPath=".\My.Web.App.dll" arguments="" forwardWindowsAuthToken="false" stdoutLogEnabled="true" stdoutLogFile="\\?\%home%\LogFiles\stdout" />
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Finally I added UseIISIntegration to my WebHostBuilder:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
   new WebHostBuilder()
      .UseKestrel()
      .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
      .UseStartup<Startup>()
      .UseIISIntegration() // This was missing
      .Build()
      .Run();
   }

A standard Publish (Web Deploy) from Visual Studio and the website started just fine on Azure (although in my case I also had to add a prepublish script for some Gulp tasks).

ASP.NET Core app not working after publish to Azure

1 Answers