ASP.NET Kernel: Launch URL and Application URLs

Question

What is the difference between App URL and Launch URL from ASP.NET Core ?

With these settings, I can access my application both on HTTP on port 4099, and on HTTPS on port 44363 , but first it runs on HTTPS . I am using VS 2017, and if I use the same URL for the application and the launch I get:

An error occurred while trying to determine the process ID of dotnet.exe where your application is located. One or more errors have occurred.

If I delete the Launch URL and save the App URL using HTTPS , I get the same error.

What is the difference between them and how to redirect every HTTP to HTTPS ? Microsoft doesn't help right now: link to Microsoft docs

Answer 1

As far as I can tell:

• Launch Url is the URL where you host your main dotnet application and which port the kestrel server is listening on.
• Websettings, AppUrl is the address that IIS is listening on. IIS (which is basically a reverse proxy here) forwards the entire HTTP request sent from AppUrl to the launch URL.

If you remove the launch URL, kestrel does not have a port to listen to and it will throw an error at startup or fall back to port 5000.