Application Initialization Module for IIS 7.5 issue

Question

As a part of Proof of Concept utilizing the Application Initialization Module for IIS 7.5 to increase the speed of web apps initialization, I have created a simple web application hosted on IIS 7.5 (Windows Server 2008 R2) with SSL enabled. Please see global and local settings below.

If I understand correctly the way the Application Initialization Module works, I am expecting IIS to issue a request to appinit.aspx (https://localhost/alwaysrunning/appinit.aspx) to initialize the web application. This is however never happening.

Any ideas?

What is the purpose of the attribute initializationPage?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: When I disable SSL the Application Initialization Module issues a request to appinit.aspx as expected. I need to get this to work with SSL enabled though.

Zen

Global settings in the applicationHost.config file:

<add name="appinit" autoStart="true" startMode="AlwaysRunning">
    <recycling logEventOnRecycle="Time, Requests, Schedule, Memory, IsapiUnhealthy, OnDemand, ConfigChange, PrivateMemory">
        <periodicRestart requests="0" time="00:05:00">
            <schedule>
                <clear />
            </schedule>
        </periodicRestart>
    </recycling>
    <processModel identityType="NetworkService" idleTimeout="00:00:00" />
</add>

<application path="/alwaysrunning" preloadEnabled="true" applicationPool="appinit">
    <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\alwaysrunnig" />
</application>

Local settings in application's web.config file:

<applicationInitialization remapManagedRequestsTo="splashscreen.htm" skipManagedModules="true" >
    <add initializationPage="/appinit.aspx" />
</applicationInitialization> 

Answer 1

(I know, stale question, but it's unanswered & came up in my own Google search on the subject.)

Refer to the following article from Microsoft Support: Application Initialization module fails when web site requires SSL (KB2843964). Quote:

Cause

This behavior is by design.

Resolution

To workaround this limitation, you may consider enabling HTTP (uncheck the "Require SSL" setting in IIS Manager/SSL Settings) and use a URL Rewrite rule to redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS with the exception of the request coming from the warmup module :

 <rewrite>
   <rules>
     <rule name="No redirect on warmup request (request from localhost with warmup user agent)" stopProcessing="true">
       <match url=".*" />
       <conditions>
         <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="localhost" /> 
         <add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="Initialization" /> 
       </conditions> 
       <action type="Rewrite" url="{URL}" /> 
     </rule> 
     <rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect for all requests" stopProcessing="true"> 
       <match url="(.*)" /> 
       <conditions> 
         <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" /> 
       </conditions> 
       <action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" /> 
     </rule> 
   </rules> 
 </rewrite>

Gotta love "This behavior is by design." Sigh. Sadly, the top search results I found about this Application Initialization feature fail to mention this limitation — unless one interprets "HTTP request" as strictly meaning non-secure requests.