Build, run and debug classic ASP.NET (.NET Framework Web Forms / Web API) projects under IIS Express from VS Code, when VS Code is connected to a Windows machine over Remote-SSH (for example, a Mac editing a Windows VM). Launch profiles come from Visual Studio's .slnLaunch files.
The extension runs on the Windows side (extensionKind: workspace), so install it in the Remote-SSH window.
Requirements (on the Windows host)
- Visual Studio 2022 or Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022 (MSBuild, found via
vswhere)
- IIS Express
- The C# extension (
ms-dotnettools.csharp), which provides the clr debugger. It's installed automatically as a dependency.
Usage
The status bar shows the selected profile plus Debug / Run buttons (or Stop while sites run).
- Select Launch Profile: lists every profile in
*.slnLaunch / *.slnLaunch.user (the .user file wins, as in Visual Studio), plus each IIS Express web project on its own. The choice is remembered per workspace.
- For a solution (
.sln / .slnx) without a .slnLaunch, the list offers Create <Solution>.slnLaunch. It writes one profile per web project that has an <IISUrl>, plus an "All web projects" profile, next to the solution, where Visual Studio also reads it. Edit the file to combine projects into your own profiles.
- Debug Profile: builds the profile's projects, starts IIS Express for each web project, and attaches the debugger to each
Action: "Start" project's process by PID.
- Run Profile: the same without attaching.
- Build Profile: builds only; errors appear in the Problems panel.
- Build Solution (status bar wrench button): builds the whole solution behind the selected profile (or asks which one when that's ambiguous), restoring NuGet packages first. Use it after pulling changes to referenced projects, since the profile builds skip project references by default.
- Stop IIS Express: stops only the IIS Express processes this extension started.
- Open Site in Browser: opens a running site on the client machine, forwarding the port through Remote-SSH.
How it works
- Projects: C# (
.csproj) and VB.NET (.vbproj) web application projects.
- Ports come from each project's
<IISUrl> (the .user file first, then the project file).
- Config: a standalone
applicationhost.config is generated in the extension's workspace storage from IIS Express's own template, so Visual Studio's .vs\...\applicationhost.config is never touched.
- Bindings use a blank hostname (
*:<port>:) so a site answers on the Windows machine's IP or hostname, not only localhost. Without this, requests to the IP get 503. When VS Code isn't elevated, the extension adds the needed URL reservation (netsh http add urlacl), or logs the command to run once elevated.
- HTTPS works for ports that already have a certificate bound. IIS Express pre-binds its development certificate to ports 44300–44399.
- One IIS Express process per site, each in its own terminal. IIS Express serves a single site per process.
- Non-web projects in a profile (e.g.
WinExe tools) are built but not started, with a note in the output.
- Build clears
NoDefaultCurrentDirectoryInExePath so pre/post-build events that call batch files by bare name don't fail with MSB3073 / exit 9009. By default it builds with BuildProjectReferences=false, so a broken, unrelated project elsewhere in the solution can't block a debug session.
Settings
All settings are under remoteSshWebForm.*: configuration, platform, solutionPlatform, restoreBeforeSolutionBuild, debugType (default portable, required by the clr debugger), buildProjectReferences, buildBeforeRun, additionalMsbuildArgs, msbuildPath, iisExpressPath, applicationPool, bindAllHostnames, justMyCode, stopSitesWhenDebuggingStops, startupTimeoutSeconds.
Development
npm install
npm run compile
npm run package # produces remote-ssh-webform-<version>.vsix
Press F5 in this folder to launch an Extension Development Host.
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