Hosting XbyK admin site separately in IIS

2025/09/19 12:08 AM

The presentation site does not have kentico.xperience.admin nuget, and is hosted locally in IIS with dev.local domain.

The admin site does not have any of the presentation site DLLs, and is hosted separately in IIS with cms.dev.local domain.

However, both the solution has similar appSettings.json values for connection string.

I have a landing page where the preview feature in admin site is not displaying the landing page.

However, the when I preview the landing page in presentation site's admin interface after adding kentico.xperience.admin nuget, it works fine displaying the page.

Looks like I am missing some config setup.

Environment

  • Xperience by Kentico version: [30.8.0]

  • .NET version: [8]

  • Execution environment: [Windows machine, Locally hosted in IIS]

Tags:
Community members Xperience Administration v30.8.0 Software development

Answers

2025/09/19 12:50 AM

You're thinking about it backwards 😅. The administration UI and functionality is optional but the presentation code is not.

The admin application must have the presentation code compiled and deployed with it.

However, I'd like to know why you are separating the admin from the website channel code?

  1. It was required in K12 MVC and KX13 because of two separate technology stacks, but this is no longer the case for Xperience by Kentico.
  2. Separating the administration UI and website channel code is possible by following the Dancing Goat pattern of excluding the administration NuGet package using MS Build properties, but this adds a lot of complexity to your project deployments and type references. Is it worth it?
  3. Can't you just limit access to URLs prefixed with /admin through a firewall?
  4. It's possible that in the future we let you disable the administration ASP.NET Core middleware pipeline (and therefore all the admin features) using an application setting, simplifying the deployment story for those that want to disable the admin without managing separating projects and package references.
  5. Many CMS and DXP products don't offer the kinds of admin separation features that K12 MVC and KX13 required, and Kentico Portal Engine users from years ago didn't have this capability either. Is it really that important for your project?

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