How to use URL Rewriting Middleware in ASP.NET Core

URL rewriting is the process of altering request URLs based on one or more pre-defined rules. You can take advantage of the URL Rewriting Middleware in ASP.NET Core to work with URL redirection as well as URL rewriting. This article presents a discussion of how we can implement URL rewriting in ASP.NET Core.

To work with the code examples illustrated in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2019 installed in your system. If you don’t already have a copy, you can download Visual Studio 2019 here.

Create an ASP.NET Core API project

First off, let’s create an ASP.NET Core project in Visual Studio. Assuming Visual Studio 2019 is installed in your system, follow the steps outlined below to create a new ASP.NET Core project in Visual Studio.

1. Launch the Visual Studio IDE.
2. Click on “Create new project.”
3. In the “Create new project” window, select “ASP.NET Core Web Application” from the list of templates displayed.
4. Click Next.
5. In the “Configure your new project” window, specify the name and location for the new project.
6. Click Create.
7. In the “Create New ASP.NET Core Web Application” window shown next, select .NET Core as the runtime and ASP.NET Core 2.2 (or later) from the drop-down list at the top. I’ll be using ASP.NET Core 3.0 here.
8. Select “API” as the project template to create a new ASP.NET Core API application.
9. Ensure that the check boxes “Enable Docker Support” and “Configure for HTTPS” are unchecked as we won’t be using those features here.
10. Ensure that Authentication is set as “No Authentication” as we won’t be using authentication either.
11. Click Create.