I have a task on a Visual Studio Team Services configured as follows:
The solution contains an ASP.NET Web Forms application. The task compiles the solution but unfortunately compilation errors on .aspx files are ignored. Is there any way to check for errors on .aspx pages on build?
TL;DR Just set the MSBuild property PrecompileBeforePublish to 'true'
Long version:
The preferred option is to create a web package (a .zip file), that you could then feed to VSTS Build/Release tasks that would deploy it on Azure App Service or IIS.
In order to create a web package trigger the Web Publishing Pipeline during build by passing these additional arguments to MSBuild (on the Visual Studio Build task):
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package
/p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true
/p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\\"
/p:PrecompileBeforePublish=true
This would either precompile the .aspx file as well as copying the .zip file locally on the artifact staging directory on the agent machine. Use the $(build.artifactstagingdirectory) variable to refer to this directory in subsequent tasks in order to publish this artifact.
As already mentioned by Luca, PrecompileBeforePublish does the trick.
I decided to post another answer because the MSBuild arguments he gave as an example did not work for me. I used the following arguments:
/t:Package
/p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\website.zip"
/p:OutputPath=.\bin
/p:Configuration=$(BuildConfiguration)
/p:PrecompileBeforePublish=true
Build is now detecting errors in the .aspx pages such as missing resources:
Related
I've a legacy project, which is a ASP.net Website project(not having .csproj file). It holding .aspx files and packages.config for nuget and other dependencies. Now I want to deploy it to Azure app service by automation with CI/CD in Azure Dev Ops pipeline.
I can't find anything which is suitable for all tasks I need for CI.
Here I don't have .csproj, so I build it using packages.config
Task I tried
Update .sln to .config, because I have more than one website in single solution.
Update Nuget Restore task with install, it doesn't work with restore
And while queue, this pipeline got failed on Build task
Error it thrown
Visual Studio Build task cannot build packages.config file, this task uses MSBuild to build. In Solution argument, only .sln file or .*proj file can be specified.
Solution: Required) If you want to build a single solution, click the
... button and select the solution.
If you want to build multiple solutions, specify search criteria. You
can use a single-folder wildcard (*) and recursive wildcards (**).
For example, **.sln searches for all .sln files in all
subdirectories.
You can also build MSBuild project (.*proj) files. If you are building
a customized MSBuild project file, we recommend you use the MSBuild
task instead of the Visual Studio Build task.
Default value: ***.sln
I have a aps.net 3.5 solution stored in TFS. Usally I choose "publish" in VS2015 to get only the needed files into a target directory. That I use to create a package for deployment to a webserver.
Now I want to use the buildserver to create that package. My problem is, I can build the solution with a "Visual Studio Build"-Step, but I can't tell which files to copy by a "Copy Files"-Step.
I thought to call msbuild.exe using powershell but had no success setting a target directory for an existing profile. With /p:OutDir it copied the wrong files.
A "IIS Deployment"-Step does no simple filesystem copies, as far as I can see.
So how can I do what VS2015 does by "publish" with target filesystem on the Build-Server using dynamic output directories.
Refer to these steps:
Click new to create a new build definition
Select ASP.NET build template
Select Visual Studio Build task and choose corresponding version of VS in Visual Studio Version input box
(optional) Remove Visual Studio Test and Publish symbols path tasks.
With ASP.NET build template, you can find that, there is the MSBuild Arguments like this, which is used to create web deployment package and put it to artifact directory:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\\"
My team uses Visual Studio Team Services to manage our source code in a TFS repository. The solution contains multiple web apps. I am trying to configure Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment for this solution such that each web application is deployed to the correct Azure web app after a successful build. I've configured the BuildDefinition to build $/MyProduct/MAIN/MySolution.sln. I've defined the following parameters to MSBuild based on some MSDN articles I found on this subject:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true
/p:WebPublishMethod=Package
/p:PackageAsSingleFile=true
/p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true
/p:PackageLocation="$(build.stagingDirectory)"
The build steps include a Visual Studio Build step, a Visual Studio Test step (currently disabled to minimize complexity), an Index Sources and Publish Symbols step (which I don't think I really need), and finally, a Copy and Publish Build Artifacts step.
I am able to build this solution using this configuration. I can see the build results, the build log, build details, etc. When I look at the artifacts that are created, I see two artifacts: "drop" and "build.sourceLabel" If I explore the drop file using the Artifacts Explorer, I find all of my projects in this drop file, and for the web app projects, I can navigate into the webapp1\obj\QA\Package\PackageTemp\bin folder and see all the DLL's etc. for the web app.
What I don't see is one zip file per web app, which is what the Release feature of Visual Studio Team Services is expecting.
I would like to know how to modify my current configuration so that I can generate the correct artifacts from the Build step so that I can create the correct Release Wep App Deployment tasks to deploy each web app to the correct web app in my environment.
This is all being done with Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio Online (Team Services).
To test your situation I used Visual Studio 2015 and created 3 new web projects in the same solution and checked into VSTS. I then created a new build using the Azure Website deployment template. Many people miss that we have Build and Deployment templates on the Create New Build Definition dialog. The reason I use the Azure Website template is because I can never remember the msbuild arguments to pass in. You can simply delete the Azure Web App Deployment task if you are going to use RM.
One change I always make to the msbuild arguments is the PackageLocation. I always change mine to $(BuildConfiguration). That way I can build both Debug and Release at the same time should I desire.
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(BuildConfiguration)"
Finally I change my Copy and Publish Build Artifacts task to search for just “**\*.zip”. Leave the Copy Root empty and run your build.
When your build completes you will have one zip per project under the [ProjectName]/[Configuration]/projectName.zip when you explore your artifacts.
If you have further questions you can ping me on Twitter #DonovanBrown
I have a website project and some other projects that are tied up via a solution file. When I build the solution using visual studio, it does not create precompiled version of website but using msbuild to build the solution creates precompiled version.
We don't use precompiled code to deploy on servers so this version is not required in our process.
And this takes a lot of time to get created.
So how can I avoid creation of pre compiled version? Is there any switch or task that I can use in msbuild scripts to build the solution.
I need msbuild to simply build the solution.
currently the command that I am using is:
msbuild "ABC.sln"
MSBuild on the command line features a /t switch, which allows you to define build targets. You would use this switch to target all the other subfolders in the solution, leaving the website untouched.
MSBuild Command Line arguments on MSDN
I normally do a file system publish on my asp web applications before deploying in them on the web root of my web server myself and visual studio packages my aspx pages seperately along with my apis and libraries into DLLs nicely.
I was wondering how to achieve the same effects with Team Build. As of now, I'm able to run build definitions with the default template and the output I'd gotten are just the binaries DLLs without any aspx pages being generated at all
http://postimg.org/image/occoo03zh/
However I'm getting just the DLLs without web pages in Team Build
http://postimg.org/image/mat7co6vp/
I had tried passing various MSBuild Arguments in hopes that it would have changed the output, but no luck thus far. Anyone knows the exact reasons and ways that I can resolve this? Is this output from TFS build normal?
It hasn't been resolved yet, any insights is very much appreciated.
Asp pages are not compiled, your compiled dll's will be outputted to the binaries directory, but your asp pages will be left in the sources directory. you will need to add a post build activity to copy your asp structure into the drop folder.
Can you confirm this by looking in the build workspace (on build server) and seeing if the structure is correct in the sources directory and that the dll's were created in the bin folder. if so you can then copy that whole structure.
You need to pass MSbuild some arguments to get it to generate the published website as you would see it with a file system publish. See here for something similar done with Visual Studio Online.
/p:OutDir=$(build.stagingDirectory) /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true