Several websites running on IIS

Question

At work, we have several branches that we can work on at any time. Our solution was to create several websites, but you can only run one website at a time. This makes switching between branches more pain, which should be.

I just want to go to the url displayed in my hosts file for this branch and it just works.

Our client machines are XP machines with IIS 5.1. Is there a way to get IIS 5.1 to run more than one website at a time?

Answer 1

Yes, this is a limitation, and on this site there can be only 10 simultaneous connections.

Buy Windows 2003 or 2008 Small Business Edition, which is quite cost-effective in this scenario.

Answer 2

Are virtual directories for you? I am launching several versions of the same website this way.

Answer 3

I believe this is an IIS limitation that you can run more than one website on server versions of Windows.

Answer 4

Oddly enough, this is what I remember when Jeff worked on centuries ago, but I think this is still relevant if you are on IIS 5.1:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000329.html

Answer 5

One way to solve this problem without reinstalling the computer is to create each branch in a virtual subdirectory under your current web root. Then, on the top-level website, create default.asp (x) that reads Request.ServerVariables["SERVER-NAME"] (must be underlined) and redirects the browser to any virtual directory / application that you want to access. This way you can create all the “virtual” domains in the hosts file.

Answer 6

On Windows XP and IIS 5.1, you cannot run moultiple websites.

However, you can run multiple ASP.NET hosts. You may have to write to the host yourself.

Something like this should start:

  string FileLoction = "..Path to the branch ..";
 HttpListenerWrapper lw = (HttpListenerWrapper) ApplicationHost.CreateApplicationHost (
                typeof (HttpListenerWrapper), "/", FileLocation);

 string [] prefixes = new string [] 
 {
    "http: // localhost: 8081 /",
    "http://127.0.0.1:8081/"
 };

 lw.Configure (prefixes, "/", FileLocation);
 lw.Start ();

Answer 7

Choosing answers for Biri, instead of choosing SBS, there is a specific version of Windows Server Web Edition, which is the cheapest, only about 399 US dollars and does not require CALs.

Otherwise, if it is only for Vista Ultimate Developer Machines, you can host multiple IIS sites at the same time.