IIS URL Rewrite – Redirect multiple domain names to one

Consider this a 2nd part to IIS URL Rewrite – rewriting non-www to www.  Reader Rubens asked about redirecting multiple domain names in a single rule.  That’s a good question and worth writing a part II blog post about it.

Here’s his question:

If there any generic way to do that if we have multiple domains with 
multiple extensions?example:
mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com (already done)
mydomain.net to www.mydomain.com
www.mydomain.net to www.mydomain.com
etccc...
and maybe also
www.mydomain2.net to www.mydomain.com
etccc...
Thanks.

Regular expressions are great for handling .com / .net / .org in a single condition.  You can do this using a “Condition input” check for {HTTP_HOST} with a “Pattern” of: 
^domain.(com|net|org)$

Note that the ^ marks the beginning of the pattern and the $ marks the end when using regular expressions. 
 
Additionally, to handle the mydomain2.net, be sure to set the “Logical Grouping” to Match Any.  This allows any of the rules to cause the rule to match the condition and redirect.  After setting to Match Any, you can add as many domains as you want with a single rule with multiple conditions.
 
Let’s look at mydomain2.com and .net.  Here’s a Pattern that will catch all situations: 
^(www.)?mydomain2.(com|net)$

This catches www and non-www and .com and .net.
 
The following screenshot shows conditions that will catch the following:
  • domain.com (1st condition)
  • domain.net (1st condition)
  • www.mydomain2.com (2nd condition)
  • www.mydomain2.net (2nd condition)
  • mydomain2.com (2nd condition)
  • mydomain2.com (2nd condition)
  • www.domain.net (3rd condition)
image
 
Note that the Action will redirect all of them to the same place (www.domain.com), which was Rubens’ goal.  Just be sure that no conditions match www.domain.com or you’ll create a loop.
 
The config that results should look like this:
 
<rewrite>
    <globalRules>
        <rule name="Redirects to www.domain.com" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
            <match url=".*" />
            <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
                <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^domain.*(com|net)$" />
                <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^(www.)?mydomain2.(com|net)$" />
                <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^www.domain.net$" />
            </conditions>
            <action type="Redirect" url="http://www.domain.com/{R:0}" />
        </rule>
    </globalRules>
</rewrite>
 
You can do this using wildcards too.  It would take more conditions.  It’s also possible to do this with rewrite maps, another feature of URL Rewrite.

16 Comments

  • Thanks for the reply. The problem that I find in this second way is if you access the site with a directory it don't works.

    Example OK:
    mydomain.com -> www.mydomain.com
    www.mydomain.net -> www.mydomain.com
    mydomain.net --> www.mydomain.com

    Example KO:
    mydomain.com/directory1 -> mydomain.com/directory1
    mydomain.com/directory1/ -> mydomain.com/directory1/
    mydomain.com/directory1/index.html -> mydomain.com/directory1/index.html

  • Rubens, that rule looks like it should work. In fact, I tested by coping your rule directly and all of those combinations work for me. Are you sure you don't have another rule fighting with this rule?

  • Drinn, if I understand you correctly, what you can do is setup a vdir between the two sites. From your description, it sounds like those are 'sites'. So, from each site, create a vdir to the other site's root folder and mark it as an application.

  • Is it possible to create a rule that would affect a site that has multiple host headers without having to enter each one separately?
    Ex: mini-site-A.com and mini-site-B.com are both pointing to the same IIS7 entry, but display different content based on domain. Is there a single rule that could redirect them to www.mini-site-A.com and www.mini-site-B.com?

    Thanks!

  • Hi Corey,

    You're talking about 1 rule to rule them all. It may be possible, depending on what logic you want in the rules.

    The action can use backreferences. {R:#} is a backreference for the URL field, and {C:#} is a back reference for the last condition in the list.

    So, if the condition is {HTTP_HOST} = ^mini-site-.\.com$, you can have an action rule of "http://www.{C:0}/{R:0}".

    Or if you want it more generic, you could do something like:
    condition: {HTTP_HOST} = ^mini.*
    rule action: http://www.{C:0}/R:0}

    Or, another option is to create 2 conditions. One is *not* HTTP_HOST = "^www\." and the bottom one is HTTP_HOST = ".*"
    rule action: http://www.{C:0}/R:0}

    That will redirect all domains that don't start with a www.

  • Is this logic possible through TMG instead of IIS?

  • Hi Chuck. I haven't used TMG so I can't say. Since it's a client-side redirect, it's technically possible to cause the redirect before it even reaches the web server, but I can't say one way or the other if TMG does rewriting like that.

  • Hi Jack,

    The way to do this is to set the URL match (the top section) to something like "^sales(.*)" with a redirect value of "http://example.com/inside/sales/{R:1}". That will maintain the rest of the path in the redirect if they visit with something like http://example.com/sales/home.aspx?id=5.

    If you want to see more indepth walkthroughs, check out weeks 8-11 here: http://dotnetslackers.com/projects/LearnIIS7/.

  • Hi Mac,

    Check out my video series on this. Week 8, the intro week for URL Rewrite, covers your situation in a short video which I hope that you find helpful: http://dotnetslackers.com/projects/LearnIIS7/

  • Speed Entry, your site isn't doing that now so I assume that you found a solution. The issue occurs because ASP.NET isn't aware of the subfolder and redirects to the full path when you click on that page that requires login and thus a redirect.

    The solution is either to be more explicit in your path to the member-login page or to use outgoing rewrite rules for updating the paths. Part 2 explains the second solution. The link is at the very top of this page.

  • I'm attempting to redirect the exact match of www3.mydomain.com/ to www.mydomain.com/. *Only if www3.mydomain.com contains a url part, I'd like it to remain www3. E.g. www3.mydomain.com/foo would remain intact.

    Thoughts? Thx!

  • I am trying to redirect a different domain name to a virtual directory maintaining the different domain in the url.
    For example
    www.differentdomain.com redirects to www.originaldomian.com/virtualdirectory with the url remaining www.differentcomain.com.
    I have www.differentdomain.com host name binded to the website.
    Is this possible?

  • Hi Chris,

    Yes, that is possible. A 'rewrite' rule will leave the URL untouched. Here is a blog post that covers that exact situation, along with a part II that addresses rewriting the outbound paths if you need it.
    http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2010/01/26/iis-url-rewrite-hosting-multiple-domains-under-one-site.aspx

  • Hi Sampada,

    Are you trying to redirect so that they all using the same domain name, or point them all to the same site and keep the original domain name?

  • My Question here is, whether the same URL Rewrite can be used to define for DNN websites

  • Hi Naveen,

    Absolutely, it's a good fit for URL Rewriting for DNN. DNN has its own URL management too so you can consider each, depending on your situation.

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