IIS 7: launch unique site instance per host name
- by OlduwanSteve
Is it possible to configure IIS 7 so that a single site with multiple bindings (or wildcard bindings) will launch a unique instance for each unique host name?
To explain why this is desirable, we have an application that retrieves its configuration from a remote system. The behaviour of the application is governed by this configuration and not by the 'web.config'. The application uses its host name as a key to retrieve the configuration. Currently it is a manual process to create an identical IIS site for each instance of the application, differing only by the bindings.
My thought, if it were possible, is that it would be nice to have one IIS site that effectively works as a template for an arbitrary number of dynamic sites. Whenever it is accessed by a unique host name a new instance of the site would be launched, and all further requests to that host name would go to that instance just as though I had created the site by hand.
I use IIS regularly, but only for fairly straightforward site hosting. I'd like to know if this could be configured with vanilla IIS 7, but would also welcome answers that require a plugin or 3rd party product.
Programming/architectural suggestions about changes to the app wouldn't really be appropriate for serverfault.
