MVC 5, Web API And Owin

Question

Am I correct when I say, Web API can run on OWIN and MVC 5 cannot?

So in my project i still need my Global.asax with public class WebApiApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication

At the moment I have my owin Startup.cs which looks like this:

public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
{
    var httpConfig = new HttpConfiguration
    {

    };


    WebApiConfig.Register(httpConfig);

    app.UseWebApi(httpConfig);
    app.UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll);

    RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);//MVC Routing
    BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
}

Is RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes) nough?

Whenever I browse to any MVC route I get a 404.

Answer 1

Yes, you're right, MVC 5 (based in ASP.NET 4) requires IIS, it can't self-host. MVC 6 (based in ASP.NET 5, now called ASP.NET Core 1) doesn't have this limitation. If you need self-hosting, start playing with ASP.NET Core 1 (it is incredibly awesome) or if you need RTM right now, use WebAPI.

Answer 2

Am I correct when I say, Web API can run on OWIN and MVC 5 cannot?

Not clear what you're asking but OWIN is not server but it's a middleware which help injecting pipelines in order to pre-process requests in stages and it doesn't depend on WebAPI or MVC version but it depends if hosting server have OWIN specifications implemented.

Is RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes) enough?

yes this will work for Asp.net MVC but for web api you need to register the routes in separate configuration class. Usually the WebAPI configuration may look like as specified in default Asp.net WebAPI template(> vs2013)

public static class WebApiConfig
{
    public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
    {
        // Web API routes
        config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes();

        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );
    }
}

Make sure the Url you're requesting matches either the MVC or WebAPI route templates.