HOW TO: Redirect IIS 5.0 Subfolders to a Web Root Folder in Windows 2000

This step-by-step article describes how to redirect Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0 subfolders to a Web root folder.

You can use IIS 5.0 to redirect requests to a folder to another site or location. This feature is particularly helpful when you are publishing Web sites by using Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000.

With ISA Server, you can create destination sets that include path statements you can use to publish particular folders within a Web site. After the Web folder is published by using a path, the external users type the URL that contains the path, and are redirected to a server on the internal network that contains the Web subfolder.

Administrators may want to use path statements to redirect to the root folder of a particular Web site, rather than to a subfolder that is contained on a particular Web site. Although this configuration cannot be completed on the ISA Server, it can be accomplished by redirecting requests to a subfolder to the root folder of the Web site.

Redirect a Web Subfolder to the Web Root Folder

1. Start Internet Services Manager.
2. Expand the Web site that contains the subfolder that you want to redirect. Right-click the folder to be redirected, and then click Properties.
3. In the subfolder name Properties dialog box, click the Directory tab.
4. On the Directory tab, click the A redirection to a URL option.
5. In the Redirect to box, type the URL to the root of the Web.
6. Click to select the The exact URL entered above check box. You should also click to select the A permanent redirection for this resource check box if you plan to make this a permanent change.
7. Click Apply, and then click OK.

Note that for the redirection to work in publishing the root folder by using a subfolder, the root Web location must be reachable by using the URL that is included in the Redirect to box. To make this URL available, you must publish the root Web by using a Web publishing rule, and the destination set that is used for this Web publishing rule must match the FQDN that is used in the Redirect to box.

For example, you have a Web server on the internal network that is named webserver1. You want users that type the http://www.domain.com/webserver1 path to be redirected to the root of the default Web sites on webserver1. You should create two destination sets:

1. A destination set for www.domain.com with a webserver1 path.
2. A destination set for www.domain.com without a path.

You would then create two Web publishing rules, one publishing rule for each destination set. When a user types in the www.domain.com/webserver1 URL, the browser is redirected to www.domain.com, and accesses the content on the default Web site.