Best way to prevent a .NET web app from going to sleep?

[StageLeft]

Evidently, if a .net web app isn't used for 20 minutes or something like that, IIS will shut 'er down and then revisiting it requires a lengthy spool-up. I've looked around IIS and played with various settings that seem they should stop this, but they don't. Is there a way in IIS to make damned sure that an app will not take a break? Or is the better way to create a service that regularly pings the site's URL so that IIS doesn't let go of it?

Thanks!

 

[MrChad]

Have you tried adjusting the idleTimeout setting described here?

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: MrChad
Have you tried adjusting the idleTimeout setting described here?

Thanks, I did, the one on the performance tab looks like the ticket, so I changed it from 20 min to 4720 or something like that and after 70 min came back and the app had to spend all its time spooling up. I don't know if I need to restart IIS or not...

 

[Markbnj]

The issue is assemblies getting unloaded and then having to be recompiled. Most of the solutions I've seen for IIS6 involve "keep-alive" code that pings the server from time to time. I believe IIS7 has a server-side setting for this.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
The issue is assemblies getting unloaded and then having to be recompiled. Most of the solutions I've seen for IIS6 involve "keep-alive" code that pings the server from time to time. I believe IIS7 has a server-side setting for this.

OK, I found some posts from 06 on IIS7, back then there was speak of it being unavailable for Server 2003, which houses these apps. I suppose that's still the case? Thanks!