Is it possible to make a self-hosted project of a ServiceStack+MVC3 like SocialBootstrapApi?

Question

I am learning how ServiceStack works with the help of self-hosting projects. Self-hosting projects are much easier to debug and understand, since no magic happens inside IIS.

I followed these steps, read http://www.servicestack.net/mythz_blog/?p=785 and applied them backwards.

It worked fine for Docs, but not for the SocialBootstrapApi. The code in Application_Start() from Global.asax is the problem I think

Steps for ServiceStack Docs

• Download the ServiceStack Docs sample project

• Create a new console project (.Net 3.5 since Docs is still 3.5)

• Copy all files from old web project except web.config. (I first used drag and drop, but that only moved the file, it didn't update the .csproj file, so I had to use an editor to copy some ItemGroup sections.)

• Move AppHost into a separate class file, changed to inherit from AppHostHttpListenerBase

• Copie the Programs.cs file from the RazorRockstars project

• Change the baseUrl: var baseUrl = "http://localhost:2001/"; // ConfigUtils.GetAppSetting("WebHostUrl");

• Copy the app.config file from RazorRockstars project (but this wasn't needed)

• Change output path for console project to .\ because otherwise PageManager.Init got the wrong path and most files were not found

• When you done this, download the complete ServiceStack source code and recompile in Debug mode, replace all ServiceStack references in the Docs project by the newly compiled things. Now, you can easily step through all ServiceStack-code, set breakpoints etc, and understand what is happening and when. Console projects also have some other advantages, they start faster, Edit-and-Continue works more often.

For SocialBootstrapApi I did the same except/and

• Renamed web.config to app.config

• Commented away // [assembly: WebActivator.PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(SocialBootstrapApi.AppHost), "Start")]

• Now, the normal ServiceStack part of the project works, although the url is without the initial /api/

• Tried moving Application_Start() from Global.asax to AppHost.Configure ==>> Refuses to start

Answer 1

ASP.NET MVC can't be hosted in a self-hosted HttpListener (since it's coupled to ASP.NET), but ServiceStack does support hosting it's Razor and Markdown view engines inside a self-hosted HttpListener app.

The Razor Rockstars website is a show case website of ServiceStack's Razor and Markdown view engine support. razor-console.servicestack.net is the same website hosted in a HttpListener self-host. The source code of RazorRockstars is on GitHub with the RazorRockstars.SelfHost example contains the source code for razor-console. The one thing you have to remember with self-hosted websites is that the Razor view pages Build Action in VS.NET needs to be set to Copy if Newer so the views are copied in the /bin directory so they can be found by ServiceStack at runtime.