URL Reservation Syntax (Reporting Services)

This topic describes the parts of the URL string for the Report Server Web service and Report Manager. The URL string that is stored internally has a different structure from a URL that you type in the Address bar of a browser window. The URL reservation string appears in the Results window of the Reporting Services Configuration tool when you configure a URL and in the RSReportServer.config file. Knowing how the URL string is defined can be useful if you are troubleshooting URL reservation problems or querying HTTP.SYS to view the internal URL reservations that are defined on your server.

URL Syntax

A report server URL is stored in the UrlString element and the VirtualDirectory element. The reason for separating UrlString and VirtualDirectory into separate elements is that you can have multiple URL strings, but only one virtual directory name for each Reporting Services application.

In HTTP.SYS, the URL reservation includes both the UrlString and VirtualDirectory. The syntax for a URL reservation has the following parts:

<scheme>://<hostname>:<port>/<virtualdirectory>

The following table describes each property and which values are valid for each one.

Property

Valid values

Description

Scheme

http or https

Prefixes for non-SSL and SSL connections.

Hostname

(+) Strong wildcard, equates to (All Assigned) value for the IP address.

(*) Weak wildcard, equates to an IP address of (All Unassigned).

Fully qualified domain name

Machine name

IP address (IPV4)

IP address (IPV6)

Identifies the server on the network.

(+) Strong wildcard is the default. HTTP.SYS will accept all requests on all network adaptors for a given port and virtual directory combination. The report server will accept any request on the port.

(*) Weak wildcard. HTTP.SYS accepts all requests not handled by other URL reservations on all network adaptors for a given port and virtual directory combination.

Machine name is the NETBIOS name of the computer on the network.

Fully qualified domain name includes domain address and server name, as registered with a domain controller or public domain name server.

IP address (IPV4) is the IP address of a network adaptor on the computer in IPV4 format: nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn.

IP address (IPV6) is the IP address of a network adaptor on the computer in IPV6 format: <header>:<header>:nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn.

Port

80

443

<custom>

Port 80 is the standard port for HTTP requests to and from a server.

Port 443 is the standard report for SSL connections.

You can use any port that is not already reserved by another application.

Virtualdirectory

ReportServer[_InstanceName]

Reports[_InstanceName]

<custom>

Specifies the name of the application. This value is a string. By default, Reporting Services uses ReportServer and Reports as the application names for the Report Server Web service and Report Manager applications. You can use different names if you prefer.

This value is required. It identifies the application.

Specify only one virtual directory for each application instance. To create multiple URLs for the same application in the same instance, create multiple versions of the UrlString. To create unique virtual directory names for multiple application instances, consider including the instance name in the virtual directory name, using the underscore character (_) to append the instance name. InstanceName is optional, but recommended if you have multiple instances on the same computer. For more information about how to set URL reservations for named instances, see URL Reservations for Multi-Instance Report Server Deployments.

The value for virtual directory is not case-sensitive. You can use any string as long as it does not include URL separator characters or URL encoding.