Cannot access IIS azure emulator from another comp

Question

For testers convenience I need start emulation of azure for our web application on some virtual machine. I've started azure emulator with CSRun using iis. Now IIS looks like following:

I can successfully connect inside this virtual machine by local url: http://127.0.0.1:81 But when I'm trying to connect from other workstation the application is not available by this port (ping is passed and firewall turned off).

IIS shows that site available by IP: 127.255.0.1 - of course it is internal range. Googling around I've found very close article http://blogs.staykov.net/2013/05/windows-azure-basicscompute-emulator.html. And followed to narrow Vip addresses. But IIS uses DIP! So my first question - how to force Vip instead of Dip? I've already tried: (1) Remove DIp from DevFC.exe.config, (2) set Dip to 127.0.0.1 - 127.0.0.1

And the second - what to do to expose azure emulator to local network?

Answer 1

The easiest way I found was to install ARR (application request routing) in the local IIS, create a new web site on port xx and in it create a URL rewrite rule for a reverse proxy - every incoming request to the port is sent to the address of the emulator.

Answer 2

Doing this is not a supported operation from Microsoft, but to work around it you can follow http://blog.ehuna.org/2009/10/accessing_the_windows_azure_lo.html.

Answer 3

In my opinion, this is going down a path that is going to cause more pain than it is worth. If the goal is to provide an environment for QA staff to work with, then why not give them an environment that is the same as the final product? Could you deploy to a free Windows Azure Web Site, or a Web Role? Costs for the Web Role could be minimized by running a small instance, one instance, and/or turn off when not in use.