Url Rewrites

URL Rewrites in IIS

A URL Rewrite enables a webserver to redirect content to the browser without signaling the user that this is happening. This is useful if you want to serve up special content to users of a particular browser or device. The user asks to go to SomePage.html, and you change the content of that page depending on the device, browser or some other criteria. For instance, you might serve up SomePageBig.html for users on a desktop, and SomePageSmall.html for users on a phone. The user does not have to know this is happening, the address bar will only show SomePage.html.

On IIS, URL Rewrites are a feature requiring a separate install. Before trying to install Url Rewrites, you should install the Web Platform Installer, since it gives you access to various tools that you may or may not find useful. Now you are ready to install the URL Rewrite Module. On the download page, look at top right for the link. It is hidden in plain sight.

Download Page: hhttp://www.iis.net/download/urlrewrite
Web Platform Installer: http://www.iis.net/webpi

After the install, you have a new icon in the InetMgr.

Writing a Rule

Our goal is to write a rule that ensures the following:

When we ask for index.html we are served bar.html
The URL in the address bar still says index.html
But we are really getting bar.html
This should happen only in Chrome
All other browsers behave normally

To get Started, follow these steps:

Click Add Rule
Choose Blank Rule
Name: MyRule
Pattern: index.html (Test it, make sure it is green)

In the Conditions section choose:

Add
Condition Input: {HTTP_USER_AGENT}
Pattern: Chrome --- Is it Googles Browser?
To test it, get a user-agent string from the log
- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.202 Safari/535.1

The final step is to say the name of the new rule:

Rewrite URL: Bar.html
Click the Apply button

Now it is time to test it:

Go to your Chrome browser
go to index.html
The browser should say it is loading index.html
But it really load Bar.html

The rule gets written out as XML to your web.config file, which is found in a directory for your site:

<rewrite>
  <rules>
    <rule name="MyRule">
      <match url="page8.html" />
      <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="Chrome" />
      </conditions>
      <action type="Rewrite" url="bar.html" />
    </rule>
  </rules>
</rewrite>

Url Rewrites

TOC

URL Rewrites in IIS

Writing a Rule