Is there a reliable, supported method for redirecting  a URL to the Application Catalog website?

I'd like my users to simply enter getsoftware.domain.com in a browser and have them redirected to https://sccmsever.domain.local/cmapplicationcatalog/#

Previous to SCCM 2012 R2 SP1/U1 I simply used the HTTP Redirect function in IIS at the Default Website root and this seemed to work fine.  But since I installed R2 SP1/U1 this isn't working anymore.  The problems seems to be that that redirection setting is inherited by all parent web sites on the SCCM site server which breaks all client communication because every request is then redirected to the App Catalog website!  This was not happening before the R2 SP1 update though I don't see the relationship.

I've also tried installing the URL Rewrite module and using a simple redirect with that but it also gets inherited.  I have to modify the web.config in the Default Web Site to prevent inheritance by including:

<location path="." inheritInChildApplications="false">

</location>

This seems to stop the inheritance but I am afraid that some upgrade in the future will overwrite these changes and break things again.

• Edited by Jay Scovill - Sandvine 15 hours 25 minutes ago

I always stand-up a new site then redirect with that. 

Quick bit of backstory:  I used to redirect at the root of the default IIS site all the time, but Exchange burned me countless times as it will reset the site settings anytime you install an update and thus became a hassle.  So I moved onto the practice of doing the redirect _outside_ the default IIS site and stuck with it ever sense (I don't want to have to remember to set IIS settings every-time I patch or risk a change setting at the site root impacting a subdir.). 

So habitually I will create a new site in IIS.  As the default site will already taking port 80/443, I instead bind it to the specific friendly FQDN I want it to answer,  like "app.contoso.com" or "store.wingnuts.com", then add my redirect to THAT site.

SCCM will effectively ignore it, but it becomes a friendly URL for clients to type and functions just fine.  It also means if you ever misconfigure the redirect, you aren't touching any other SCCM services on accident (another common problem when tweaking redirects in Exchange when ActiveSync stops working ...).

• Proposed as answer by Jason SandysMVP 13 hours 40 minutes ago

Thanks for the tip Justin.  But since the default website is bound to 80/443 how do you hit the redirect website without including a port in the URL?  Or am I missing something else?