How to serve static content in DXA 2.2 .net without a Localization?

Question

I'm running Tridion 9.6, DXA 2.2.9 .net and the GraphQL providers to CD Services. Topology Manager is installed and configured for both hostnames and contexts.

I have a Publication identified by hostname and context (/en). I do not have a Publication mapped to the root context (/).

DXA works fine for requests to the hostname/en URLs. However, I can't seem to serve any static files that are in the root of the website (e.g. /js/main.js). These are all static files on the filesystem. Instead, I get error Sdl.Web.Common.DxaUnknownLocalizationException: No matching Localization found for URL coming from the StaticContentModule:

   Sdl.Web.Mvc.Configuration.WebRequestContext.get_Localization() in C:\DXAGitHub\dxa-suite\repositories\dxa-web-application-dotnet\Sdl.Web.Mvc\Configuration\WebRequestContext.cs:28
   Sdl.Web.Mvc.Statics.StaticContentModule.OnPreRequestHandlerExecute(Object sender, EventArgs eventArgs) in C:\DXAGitHub\dxa-suite\repositories\dxa-web-application-dotnet\Sdl.Web.Mvc\Statics\StaticContentModule.cs:121
   System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +223
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStepImpl(IExecutionStep step) +220
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +94

Looking at the source code (https://github.com/RWS/dxa-web-application-dotnet/blob/5c24bcc990f53a7357362b94e2526fd05a3f710b/Sdl.Web.Mvc/Statics/StaticContentModule.cs#L123), I see it needs a Localization object.

There is no Publication that maps to the root of the website, therefore there is no Localization available.

How can one server static content in this case?

Notes:

• Adding a Publication for context / is not feasible.
• I implemented an IUnknownLocalizationHandler, but that is only used here in the StaticContentModule (link: https://github.com/RWS/dxa-web-application-dotnet/blob/5c24bcc990f53a7357362b94e2526fd05a3f710b/Sdl.Web.Mvc/Statics/StaticContentModule.cs#L62), so it doesn't help.
• I tried excluding the path from routes routes.IgnoreRoute("js/{*pathInfo}"), but still the HttpModule is called.

How can I prevent some URL patterns be handled by the StaticContentModule?

So far, all I can see is modify the open source StaticContentModule to allow it requests when there is no Localization object.

Looking forward to your thoughts and thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Interesting! Indeed, in general, DXA assumes that all HTTP requests can be mapped to a Localization/Publication.

However, there is indeed the IUnknownLocalizationHandler extension point to be able to determine what should happen if a Localization cannot be resolved in the regular way. This was introduced for a specific use case (Just-In-Time provisioning) and apparently it can't cover your scenario.

Alternatively, you could look into creating your own ILocalizationResolver implementation (based on the default one).

Or you could create your own HttpModule (which runs before the StaticContentModule) which sets a dummy WebRequestContext.Localization for these "localizationless" URLs)