Overview

• Static files, such as HTML, CSS, images, and JavaScript, are assets that are served directly to the clients.
• Some configuration is required to enable to serving of these files.
• Static files are stored within your project's web root directory.
• The default directory is <content_root>/wwwroot, but it can be changed via the UseWebRoot method.
• The app's web host must be made aware of the content root directory.
• The WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder method sets the content root to the current directory:

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        BuildWebHost(args).Run();
    }

    public static IWebHost BuildWebHost(string[] args) =>
        WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
            .UseStartup<Startup>()
            .Build();
}

• Static files are accessible via a path relative to the web root.
• The URI format to access a file in the images subfolder is http://<server_address>/images/<image_file_name>.
  • For example, *http://localhost:9189/images/banner3.svg*.
• The parameterless UseStaticFiles method overload marks the files in web root as servable.

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
    app.UseStaticFiles();
}

<img src="~/images/banner1.svg" alt="ASP.NET" class="img-responsive" />

Serve Files Outside of Web Root

• Consider a directory hierarchy in which the static files to be served reside outside of the web root:

- **wwwroot**
    - **css**
    - **images**
    - **js**
- **MyStaticFiles**
    - **images**
        - *banner1.svg*

• A request can access the banner1.svg file by configuring the static file middleware as follows:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
    app.UseStaticFiles(); // For the wwwroot folder

    app.UseStaticFiles(new StaticFileOptions
    {
        FileProvider = new PhysicalFileProvider(
            Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), "MyStaticFiles")),
        RequestPath = "/StaticFiles"    });
}

<img src="~/StaticFiles/images/banner1.svg" alt="ASP.NET" class="img-responsive" />

Set HTTP Response Headers