What is the use of HTTP Handlers in IIS?

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Answered by: machud

View all answers by machud

Member Since Apr-2011 | Answered On : Apr 10th, 2011

HTTP Handlers can be used to process custom requests that may not be in the standard supported format like .htm, .aspx, .asmx etc. One example will be RSS feed processing . One can write .rss  handler which can be configured in the IIS to accept and delegate the processing to the custom handler written to produce customized output. There are 3 basic steps that need to be performed to make a HTTP handler work properly .
a. Create Handler calss which implements IHttpHandler interface or IHttpAsyncHandler for Asynchrounous handler. IsReusable property and the ProcessRequest method is must be implememented in the Handler class
b. Register the handler class in the web.config file of the application or machine.config
c. Specify the mapping in IIS (Website->Properties->configuration->mappings) add new extension with executable as "C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727aspnet_isapi.dll" ( assumes default installation)