I have an ASP.net MVC 5 aplication with VS2017. I would like to load some pictures from a network path (the pictures should not be included to the project folder structure).
I know how to add a virtual directory in IIS on my server where the application is finally running. But I dont know how to setup the same on my local computer.
On the server I can setup an Alias and a physical path.
But in my project in VS2017(properties/web) I can only press the button "create virtual directory" next to project url "http://localhost:51138/".
Can maybe someone explain how to setup an virtual directory on localhost for testing? Thank you so much.
You are using the Visual Studio Development Server which does not allow virtual directories. You can do what you want with a local copy of IIS, creating a website that points to your development folder, and creating the virtual directory you want in that website.
Install a local copy of IIS. This is available to you in the Professional version of Windows.
Open IIS Manager, create a new website, and set the Physical Path to your development folder.
Add a binding for this website with the Host name set to a domain name you want to use for testing. I generally use ".loc" as the TLD. For example, the production website domain of "mywebservice.com" would be "mywebservice.loc". Use port 80 in the binding.
Modify your local hosts file at
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts to include this line. Replace
"mywebservice.loc" with whatever domain you chose to use above
mywebservice.loc 127.0.0.1
In your VS project properties, set Web-->Servers to Use Custom Web Server and
set the Server Url to mywebservice.loc or whatever domain you chose above.
Now you can add a virtual directory just as you do in production.
I do this for all my website development primarily because nothing will happen in production that does not happen locally. You can even test using real SSL certificates this way.