Moving <httpredirect> out of web.config in separate config file

Question

We have many (more than 100) redirects in our web.config like

<configuration>
   <system.webServer>
      <httpRedirect enabled="true" exactDestination="true" httpResponseStatus="Found">
         <add wildcard="/a" destination="/a/dfdf/default.htm" />
         <add wildcard="/sad" destination="/aasd/dfdf/defsadault.htm" />
         <add wildcard="/asdsaa" destination="/aasdas/dfasddf/default.htm" />
         <add wildcard="/aasdsa" destination="/asdsaa/dfdf/defsdault.htm" />
         <add wildcard="/aasd" destination="/adsa/dfdf/default.htm" />
..... more than 100
      </httpRedirect>
   </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Is there way we can have this section managed in separate web.config or any other best solution?

Answer 1

You can move some config elements into their own config file to reduce clutter in the web.config.

<configuration>
   <system.webServer>
      <httpRedirect configSource="httpRedirects.config" />
   </system.webServer>
</configuration>

This is achieved by adding the configSource attribute as shown above.

And in your seperate httpRedirects.config

<httpRedirect enabled="true" exactDestination="true" httpResponseStatus="Found">
     <add wildcard="/a" destination="/a/dfdf/default.htm" />
     <add wildcard="/sad" destination="/aasd/dfdf/defsadault.htm" />
     <add wildcard="/asdsaa" destination="/aasdas/dfasddf/default.htm" />
     <add wildcard="/aasdsa" destination="/asdsaa/dfdf/defsdault.htm" />
     <add wildcard="/aasd" destination="/adsa/dfdf/default.htm" />
</httpRedirect>

Note I have only tried this with other config elements.

Answer 2

You can store that in Separate Config file as shown here: SectionInformation.ConfigSource Property

In order to avoid cluttering the configuration file - web.config - it can be defined in a separate configuration file. That file can then be referenced from the web.config file as below:

<httpRedirect configSource="httpRedirects.config" />

The configSource attribute tells IIS configuration that the <httpRedirect> section is defined in a separate file httpRedirects.config .

EDIT:

Please make sure you have httpRedirect attribute set to enabled=true as the default value is false.

<httpRedirect enabled="true" configSource="httpRedirects.config" />