Currently I package my changes using the publish wizard in Visual Studio and take those files to the server and run the deploy batch file in command line.
What is the best strategy to use if I have issues in the deployment and I want to revert back my website/service to the last working state?
Since your deployment is a manual process, it would probably be best to create a backup zip or copy of the webroot - this could be added as a command in your batch file before the other commands.
Alternatively, you could create a label in your source control system each time you deploy which would give you the ability to re-deploy a previous version. I would only advise this approach though if you have some sort of CI process in place to guarantee that the label is done prior to each deployment/release, otherwise your process is dependent on the person deploying remembering to create that label - if they forget, then you can't restore that previous version.
Related
I have 3 stages (dev / staging / production). I've successfully set up publishing for each, so that the code will be deployed, using msbuild, to the correct location, with the correct web configs transformed - all within Jenkins.
The problem I'm having is that I don't know to deploy the code to staging from what was built on dev (and staging to production). I'm currently using SVN as the source control, so I think I would need to somehow save the latest revision number dev has built and somehow tell Jenkins to build/deploy staging based on that number?
Is there a way to do this, or a better alternative?
Any help would be appreciated.
Edit: Decided to use the save the revision number method, which parses a file containing the revision number to the next job -- to do this, I followed this answer:
How to promote a specific build number from another job in Jenkins?
It explains how to copy an artifact from one job to another using the promotion plugin. For the artifact itself, I added a "Execute Windows batch command" build step after the main build with:
echo DEV_ENVIRONMENT_CORE_REVISION:%SVN_REVISION%>env.properties
Then in the staging job, using that above guide, copied that file, and then using a plugin EnvInject, to read from that file and set an environment variable, which can then be used as a parameter to the SVN Repository URL.
You should be able to identify the changeset number that was built in DEV and manually pass that changeset to the Jenkins build to pull that same changeset from SVN. Obviously that makes your deployment more manual. Maybe you can setup Jenkins to publish the changeset number to a file and then have the later env build to read that file for the changeset number.
We used to use this model as well and it was always complex. Eventually we moved to a build once and deploy many times model using WebDeploy. This has made the process much more simple. Check it out - http://www.dotnetcatch.com/2016/04/16/msbuild-once-msdeploy-many-times/
Is there any way in ASP.NET website project, that allow to publish it from command prompt and I can continue working on project, or if it is not easy to use , at least speed up my publish task?
I know about the auto publishing tools like TFS or CruiseControl, so please don't tell me these ways.
I am thinking to create a .bat file , that I'll run everytime I have to publish. but it should not take changes made by me during its running process.
asp.net single file publish
I really like the Answer given by Ludwo, providing more information on that would be very helpful.
You can use MsBuild to publish your websites in parallel. Start with this article. It is about publishing one website using MsBuild. Define your projects inside ItemGroup and use MSBuild task this way:
<MSBuild Projects="#(YourProjectsToBuildInParallel)" BuildInParallel="true" ...
The final step is to enable parallel processing for MSBuild task.
Open another Visual Studio to continue :P. Publishing mechanism can detect updated and can send only changes. So dont upload full site everytime, if its really disturbs you.
Use source control and a build server mechanism. The build server should be able to pull from source control when you commit a change, build the project, do any unit tests you may/should have, and then deploy to a test site.
Depending on which build server platform you use you may or may have to do varying amounts of work. In the past I have used Bamboo by Atlassian. Fantastic product but you have to configure the deployment using MSBuild - it's fine but it can take some time to get it perfect. I am sure there are some good examples out there for it.
How it will work for you:
When you are finished working on a file/issue you can commit your changes. The build server will then detect these changes and wait a varying amount of time (waiting for you to commit more) e.g. 3 minutes, check out your changes, and deploy. You can set up notifications when the deployment is done to goto your testing team - with a link in the email saying where the site is, and what the change that occurred (based on your SVN commit log).
So your net effort is to check a file in with a correct comment - and you are finished.
I’m looking for a good deployment strategy for deploying a ASP.NET MVC3 application. What I imagine is that each deployment would be some kind of commit to a Source Management System in the sense that a deployment tool could automatically do the following:
1) Upon generating a deployment package (a commit) the tool would
remember the state of my Web.Config file, the state of a folder of
auto-generated scripts containing new database changed, the state of
a folder of batch files that contain new tasks to be run on the
server, the state of files specifying ISS settings changes, etc.
2) When I build a package the next time, the tool would know to only
package the new script files, web.config changes, new batch files,
new ISS settings since my last package
3) Apply the package unto my web application
I started looking into MS Deploy but it only seems to do number 3. I’ve been searching around for either an application that that does what I imagine or a strategy to combine some SMS and MS Deploy. I'm hoping that someone has already solved the problem I feel I have here. My last resort of course is to build the tool but again, that would be my last resort.
Are you using Team Foundation Server? If so, TFS comes with tools to automate builds (including labeling code, running unit tests, deploying, et cetera.) Take a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181710(v=vs.80).aspx
TFS is not exactly easy to configure and get going but it's free if you are already using TFS.
If you are not using TFS, look for continuous integration tools like NAnt or TeamCity.
Have you used Web Deploy and the "Publish" feature under Build in Visual Studio?
You can set options for things like leaving the previous files on the server.
Your web.config file, do you mean the main one or one that already exists elsewhere on the server? Your web.config file should copy from your project to the server, or are there settings that are different when running locally vs server? If so, look at using transforms to modify web.config.
This is only a partial answer to #1 for you, but we looked for a long time on a migration tool that we liked... We ultimately found Migrator.Net: http://code.google.com/p/migratordotnet/
Doing this, you can turn db migrations into a batch command
How can I automate the web-application build process, that includes following steps:
Change connection string.
Recreate database by scripts.
Deploy web-site by ftp.
Copy some files to server in addition to application.
And may be perform some initialize operations.
Should I write any script/programm, use Visual Studio or any another program?
Personally I use a Continuous Integration tool to do this kind of work.
The one I mainly use is Team City by JetBrains.
This kind of software can look at your Source Control repo for new checking, perform builds, publish builds to servers as well as running pre/post build events.
You've to start learning MSBuild. It is VERY simple and straightforward, so just start and you'll see ;)
In adddition to built in features it has Community Pack with many tasty things so you will be able to:
Replace connection string in config file using regex or replace whole config with predefined connection string (FileUpdate or Copy task)
Execute database scripts (MSBuild.Community.Tasks.SqlServer.ExecuteDDL)
Deploy site using Copy task
And many other...
You can run pre and post events in Visual Studio. To do this, simply right click on the project and in the project properties navigate to the 'Build Events' options. Here you can specify the pre and post build events (you can also specify when the event runs - on successful build or otherwise).
Once the project has been successfully built, the post build event can be set up to perform the tasks specified. You can detail the steps either in a separate file or in Visual Studio project's build events itself.
More information
Pre/Post Build event command line arguments
How to: Specify Build Events (C#)
Much along the continuous integration concept Jamie mentions, we use BuildMaster internally for all of our applications since we develop it :)
Now that we have a version offered for free, I'll share some thoughts on each of your bullet points:
Change connection string
This is something that is handled uniquely by the tool. Each environment would get its own "instance" of a configuration file and in a deployment plan you can use the "deploy configuration files" action to put them in any environment. This means there are no transforms to worry about since the config file is stored and versioned within the tool.
Recreate database by scripts
This is another major feature we have. Object code (stored procs, views, etc.) can be run every time with a DROP/CREATE combo, but adding indexes, dropping columns, can only be done once (you can't bring a column's data back without a restore!)
BuildMaster handles these types of change scripts differently - they can only be run at most once against an environment's instance of your database. This makes it super easy to bring any new or existing initialized database schema up-to-date.
Deploy web-site by FTP
Just add an action to your deployment plan, and you click Create Build or Promote Build, it will do that.
Copy some files to server in addition to application
If the process is repeatable you can do this easily, if need be by using a manual action that will remind you to do it.
And may be perform some initialize operations
This sounds like a "change control" to me, a one-time change when you release. We support these as well but not in the free version unfortunately.
I am trying to create a setup procedure which installs my entire web application. I am using Visual Studio's Setup and Deployment Project. So far I've gotten it to deploy my website to the Inetpub folder, and I've also added some custom actions which allow it to run some SQL and setup my database.
The last thing I have to integrate into the setup process is my two SSIS packages. Not only do these need to be installed, they also need to be scheduled to run nightly.
The packages are simple, and don't reference anything unusual. They are just 2 .dtsx files.
So far, I've seen that I can use something called dtutil in order to create a dtsinstall.exe file which can be run to install the SSIS packages to either the file system or the database.
First of all, is this the easiest way to do it? And secondly, how would I go about scheduling the packages to be run nightly?
One caveat is that I need this to install silently, without prompting the user for any input.
First, create a new job in SQL Agent. In the steps panel, click New, give it a name, and for the job type, select SQL Server Integration Services Package. For the Package source, select File system, and point it to where you want the file to live.
Then you can select Schedules from the left panel, and configure how often you want it to run.
After that, you should be able to handle deployment of the SSIS package by copying the .dtsx file to the location you specified when you created the job.