I am a newbie to BizTalk development, having only been using it properly for 6-7 weeks, so forgive my naivety.
I have a basic BizTalk 2013 application in development and am ready to deploy to a test environment.
I am using business rules to define the Outbound Transport Location, after all transform have been done, this sends the data to a stored procedure in SQL Server, which inserts/updates the record:
mssql://.//db1?
When we deploy to our test/live environments, we will not be able to set the Outbound Transport Location to the local machine as the databases will be stored on separate servers to the application. For example:
mssql://dbserver//db1?
I have looked through the BizTalk Deployment Framework to see if business rules can be modified depending on environment, but couldn't find anything.
So my question is, what is the best (lowest maintenance) way to manage environment based settings for business rules? Using the BizTalk Deployment Framework would be preferable.
I'll post the solution I used for future reference and to help anyone who comes across this in the future.
In the BizTalk Deployment Framework, it is possible to add additional XML files to the build, and pre-process them in the same way binding files are pre-processed depending on environment.
Below are some snippets from the deployment.btdfproj file. Don't forget that with the BizTalk Deployment Framework, order is essential:
<!-- Add the policy file as an additional item to the build -->
<ItemGroup>
<AdditionalFiles Include="my_policy_file.xml">
<LocationPath>..\$(ProjectName)\location_to_policy</LocationPath>
</AdditionalFiles>
</ItemGroup>
<!-- Processes the additional XML policy files added to the MSI main build folder. -->
<ItemGroup>
<FilesToXmlPreprocess Include="my_policy_file.xml">
<LocationPath>..\</LocationPath>
</FilesToXmlPreprocess>
</ItemGroup>
<!-- You still have to add the business rule to the build. It is overwritten later. -->
<ItemGroup>
<RulePolicies Include="my_policy_file.xml">
<LocationPath>..\$(ProjectName)\location_to_property</LocationPath>
</RulePolicies>
</ItemGroup>
<!-- Towards the end of the file the pre-processed file overwrites the originally included policy file. -->
<Target Name="CopyXMLPreprocessedPoliciesToBRE" AfterTargets="PreprocessFiles">
<copy sourceFiles="..\my_policy_file.xml" DestinationFolder="..\BRE\Policies"/>
</Target>
For more information, check out this thread on the BizTalk Deployment Framework site: https://biztalkdeployment.codeplex.com/discussions/392801
Related
I'm creating a .NetCore C# desktop app using gRPC.
I'm attempting to use the Orchestrator pattern (microservices).
The basic design is:
Client (requester) <--> Orchestrator <--> multiple different request handlers
Each RequestHandler will have it's own set of messages.
Is it possible to have "Client" GrpcServices within the same project file,
or do I need to include all my proto message definitions within a single file?
With the setup listed below, my projects fail to load.
Here is the related snippet from my .csproj file:
<ItemGroup>
<Protobuf Include="../Protos/linuxservice.proto" GrpcServices="Client" ProtoRoot="../Protos/">
<Link>Protos/linuxservice.proto</Link>
</Protobuf>
<Protobuf Include="../Protos/orchestrator.proto" GrpcServices="Server" ProtoRoot="../Protos/">
<Link>Protos/orchestrator.proto</Link>
</Protobuf>
<Protobuf Include="../Protos/service.proto" GrpcServices="Client" ProtoRoot="../Protos/">
<Link>Protos/service.proto</Link>
</Protobuf>
Protobuf Include="../Protos/windowsservice.proto" GrpcServices="Client" ProtoRoot="../Protos/">
<Link>Protos/windowsservice.proto</Link>
</Protobuf>
</ItemGroup>
Well after so much trial and error I managed to create several props and that each one of them is consumed by its respective service.
Create your proto file
Check the properties of the file.
Build Action => Protobuf, compiler grpc subclasses => server only,
Compile protobuf => yes
Recompile the project and this automatically generates the Base class
add your service in app.MapGrpcService
I put the link where he gave me a guide, I hope it helps you.
https://medium.com/#lukastosic/part-1-grpc-its-fairly-simple-c-example-d4b266c4c72e
Blessings
Currently I create a new war file for each change but the changes are taking place in only a few classes and the Spring applicationContext.xml.
I would like to just update a jar file that contains these classes and not continually re-deploy hundreds of files that have not changed. I can create the jar easily enough but where do I put it and do I have to tell Spring to look in a specific jar for its' config files?
It is quite impossible to hot-redeploy code in Tomcat without using extra tools like JRebel or custom JVM agents.
But it is possible to modularize you application by:
1: Putting JARs to $TOMCAT_HOME/lib. Never do this, this solution is good only for simple cases.
2: Tune context.xml, putting Loader in it, like below:
<Context antiJARLocking="true" path="/">
<Loader className="org.apache.catalina.loader.VirtualWebappLoader" virtualClasspath="${catalina.base}/my-app-plugins/*.jar"/>
</Context>
This will enable you putting JAR file in $TOMCAT_HOME/my-app-plugins and thet will be added to the classpath of you app. You should put context.xml to the src/main/webapp/META-INF folder (Maven layout). However, restart is still needed.
3: Use OSGi. May be an overkill.
EDIT: I think I should clarify my intent...
I'm trying to simplify the development iteration cycle of write-code >> build WAR >> deploy >> refresh >> repeat. I'd like to be relatively independent of IDE (i.e., I don't want Eclipse or IntelliJ plug-ins doing the work). I want to be able to edit code/static files and build as needed into my WAR source directory, and just have run/debug setup as a command line call to a centralized Jetty installation.
Later I'd like to be able to perform the actual deployment using generally the same setup but with a packaged up WAR. I don't want to have my app code specific to my IDE or Jetty.
So perhaps a better way to ask this question is What have you found is the cleanest way to use Jetty as your dev/debug app server?
Say I want to have a minimal Jetty 7 installation. I want as minimal of XML configuration as possible, I just need the raw Servlet API, no JSP, no filtering, etc. I just want to be able to have some custom servlets and have static files served up if they exist. This will be the only WAR and it will sit as the root for a given port.
Ideally, for ease of deployment I'd like to have the Jetty directory just be the standard download, and my WAR / XML config be separate from these standard Jetty files. In my invocation of Jetty I'd like to pass in this minimal XML and go.
I'm finding that the documentation is all over the place and much of it is for Jetty 6 or specific to various other packages (Spring, etc.). I figure if I have this minimal configuration down then adding additional abstractions on top will be a lot cleaner. Also it will allow me to more cleanly deal with embedded-Jetty scenarios.
This SO question is an example scenario where this XML would be useful Jetty Run War Using only command line
What would be the minimal XML needed for specifying this one WAR location and the hosts/port to serve it?
Thanks in advance for any snippets or links.
Jetty has migrated to Eclipse. There is very subtle info on this. This also led in change in package name, which is another level of nuance. They did publish a util to convert Jetty6 setting to Jetty 7 setting, but again -- not very popular. I am dissapointed from Eclipse Jetty forum. Here is where you should look for documentation on Jetty 7 onwards http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Starting
I think this is the minimal jetty.xml taken from http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Reference/jetty.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC "-//Jetty//Configure//EN" "http://www.eclipse.org/jetty/configure.dtd">\
<Configure id="Server" class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server">
</Configure>
But, I would rather like to start from a copy of $JETTY_HOME/etc/jetty.xml and would modify from there.
If you are Okay with $JETTY_HOME/webapps directory, you can set up the port by modifying this part
<Configure id="Server" class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server">
...
<Call name="addConnector">
<Arg>
<New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.nio.SelectChannelConnector">
<Set name="host"><Property name="jetty.host" /></Set>
<Set name="port"><Property name="jetty.port" default="7777"/></Set>
<Set name="maxIdleTime">300000</Set>
<Set name="Acceptors">2</Set>
<Set name="statsOn">false</Set>
<Set name="confidentialPort">8443</Set>
<Set name="lowResourcesConnections">20000</Set>
<Set name="lowResourcesMaxIdleTime">5000</Set>
</New>
</Arg>
</Call>
....
</Configure>
Else, I will modify context.xml the way explained here (for Jetty 7) How to serve webbapp A from portA and webapp B from portB
Also refer these pages:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Reference/jetty.xml
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Reference/jetty.xml_syntax
http://communitymapbuilder.org/display/JETTY/JNDI
....
Edit#1: sorry for wrong URL for webapp per connector. I have updated the link to How to serve webbapp A from portA and webapp B from portB to point to the doc that is meant for Jetty 7.
Update on 'how you deal with Jetty on various environments?'
Dev
We use Maven, so embeded Jetty works for us. We just run mvn clean install run:jetty and the port is configured in Maven's config file, namely pom.xml. This is not IDE dependent plus Jetty can easily be embedded using ANT, but I never tried.
Test
We have stand-alone Jetty running. I've configured port and tuned parameters, removed default apps (e.g. root.war etc) and created a context.xml with app specific ports and deployment directory. (Unfortunately, I have asked this question on Eclipse Jetty's mailing list and no one bothered to answer). This is one time setting.
For test builds/deployments, we have a build script that builds the WAR as per test env specs and then uploads it to test environment. After, that we invoke a shell script that (1)stops Jetty, (2) copies war file to myApp's webapp direactory and (3) restarts Jetty.
However, easier way to do this is by using Maven's Cargo plugin. The bad luck was that I was using Jetty 7.1.6 which was incompatible with Cargo. Later they fixed it, but I had got my job done by custom script.
Prod
Prod has almost same procedure as test, except. The tunings are done for higher security and load-balancing. But from deployment POV, there is nothing different from Test case to Prod.
Notice that I have not bothered about what XML files are and how many must be there. I have just used the ones that are my concerns -- jetty.xml and context.xml. Plus, I found it's much cleaner to use jetty.conf and jetty.sh for passing JVM params, custom XMLs and for starting and stopping.
Hope this helps.
On hot deployment:
Now, if you use Maven and use embedded Jetty. It just knows when the code is changed -- like "gunshot sniffer". In dev envt, you run Jetty, make changes, refresh page, and see your changes -- hot deployment. Find more here http://docs.codehaus.org/display/JETTY/Maven+Jetty+Plugin look for scanIntervalSeconds
This doesn't fully answer your question, but in case it helps, here's some pretty minimal code using embedded Jetty 7 to fire up a server with one root servlet:
HandlerCollection handlers = new HandlerCollection();
ServletContextHandler root = new ServletContextHandler(handlers, "/", ServletContextHandler.NO_SESSIONS|ServletContextHandler.NO_SECURITY);
root.addServlet(new ServletHolder(new MyServlet()), "/*");
Server server = new Server(8080);
server.setHandler(handlers);
server.start();
See of course http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Tutorial/Embedding_Jetty.
If you are building with maven (which is IDE independent) then you should debug with the maven jetty plugin. Basically you run the app as "mvn jetty:run" on the commandline it all just works without having to do any redeployment. Most good IDEs how have maven support built in and lets you run/debug the app as a maven; meaning that maven is run which starts the jetty plugin which starts the app and you can debug it. Since everything is running out of the IDE source and bin folders you don't even need a jetty server install.
Here is a demo project which runs that way https://github.com/simbo1905/ZkToDo2/blob/master/commandline.build.and.run.txt and here is how to run it under eclipse https://github.com/simbo1905/ZkToDo2/blob/master/eclipse.indigo.build.and.debug.txt but any IDE which understands maven should work. Take a look at the pom.xml where it sets up the maven jetty plugin.
I would use Gradle and scan the build output folder every few seconds for changes in the build.
In a build.gradle file:
apply plugin: 'jetty'
...
jettyRun.doFirst {
// set system properties, etc here for bootstrapping
}
jettyRun {
httpPort = 8989
reload = 'automatic'
scanIntervalSeconds = 3
daemon = false
}
That's it. You can choose to have the IDE auto-build for you, and point at that directory. But you can also choose not to. This solution is not tied at all to an IDE.
I thought I'd update with what I now do. I've written a tiny command line app / Maven archetype which works like how I thought this all should have in the first place. The bootstrap app lets you launch your servlet container of choice (Jetty, Tomcat, GlassFish) by just passing it the path to the WAR and your port.
Using Maven, you can create and package your own instance of this simple app:
mvn archetype:generate \
-DarchetypeGroupId=org.duelengine \
-DarchetypeArtifactId=war-bootstrap-archetype \
-DarchetypeVersion=0.2.1
Then you launch it like this:
java -jar bootstrap.jar -war myapp.war -p 8080 --jetty
Here's the source for the utility and the archetype: https://bitbucket.org/mckamey/war-bootstrap
I'm struggling to get web.config transformations working with automated builds.
We have a reasonably large solution, containing one ASP.NET web application and eight class libraries. We have three developers working on the project and, up to now, each has "published" the solution to a local folder then used file copy to deploy to a test server. I'm trying to put an automated build/deploy solution in place using TFS 2010.
I created a build definition and added a call to msdeploy.exe in the build process template, to get the application deployed to the test server. So far, so good!
I then tried to implement web.config transforms and I just can't get them to work. If I build and publish locally on my PC, the "publish" folder has the correct, transformed web.config file.
Using team build, the transformation just does not happen, and I just have the base web.config file.
I tried adding a post-build step in the web application's project file, as others have suggested, similar to:
<target name="AfterBuild">
<TransformXml Source="Web.generic.config"
Transform="$(ProjectConfigTransformFileName)"
Destination="Web.Config" />
</target>
but this fails beacuse the source web.config file has an "applicationSettings" section. I get the error
Could not find schema information for the element 'applicationSettings'.
I've seen suggstions around adding arguments to the MSBuild task in the build definition like
/t:TransformWebConfig /p:Configuration=Debug
But this falls over when the class library projects are built, presumably because they don't have a web.config file.
Any ideas? Like others, I thought this would "just work", but apparently not. This is the last part I need to get working and it's driving me mad. I'm not an msbuild expert, so plain and simple please!
Thanks in advance.
Doug
I just went through this. Our build was a bit more complicated in that we have 8 class libraries and 9 web applications in one solution. But the flow is the same.
First off get rid of your after build target. You won't need that.
You need to use the MSDeployPublish service. This will require that it be installed and configured properly on the destination server. Check the following links for info on this part:
Note that the server in question MUST be configured properly with the correct user rights. The following sites helped me get that properly set up.
http://william.jerla.me/post/2010/03/20/Configuring-MSDeploy-in-IIS-7.aspx
http://vishaljoshi.blogspot.com/2010/11/team-build-web-deployment-web-deploy-vs.html
How can I get TFS2010 to run MSDEPLOY for me through MSBUILD?
The next part requires that your build definition have the correct MSBuild parameters set up to do the publish. Those parameters are entered in the Process > 3.Advanced > MS Build Arguments line of the build definition. Here's a hint:
(don't change the following for any reason)
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=False
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC
/p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True
(These control where it's going)
/p:MSDeployServiceUrl="https://testserver.domain:8172/msdeploy.axd"
/p:UserName=testserver\buildaccount
/p:Password=buildacctpassword
/p:DeployIisAppPath="MyApp - TESTING"
Obviously the user will have to be configured in IIS on the target server to be allowed access to that axd (see previous links). And the IisAppPath is the name of the website on the target server.
You won't have to do anything special for the config transformations as the build itself will take care of that for you. Just have the correct setting in the line at Process > 1. Required > Items to Build > Configurations To Build.
Instead of trying to do the deploy by adding tasks myself into the build process template, I followed advice in Vishal Joshi's blog post here.
Now the entire project is built and deployed and the web.config transformations work also. Brilliant!
I now have another problem to solve! The web application references web services and the build process results in an XmlSerializers dll. However, although this is built OK, it does not get deployed to the web host. I think this needs a new post!
Doug
After seeing the Hanselman "You are doing it wrong" video I start to use the Web Publish feature of VS2010.
What I'm really missing is that the websites sometimes gives errors while the site is publishing because the feature does not copy the app_offline.htm file to the server.
I do not want to start using MSDeploy scripts, because I have several sites and want to keep it simple.
Maybe there is a simple tweak to tell the wizard to copy and then delete the file.
app_offline.htm is only pushed when you select Delete all files prior to publish. It will not push the app_offline.htm when running a replace publish.
This question is a duplicate of App_Offline in MSBuild Remote Web Deploy, but I've pasted the answer below. MSDeploy v3 has support for app_offline directly but you need MSDeploy v3 on both sides. We have not updated the VS Web Publish experience to be able to leverage this yet, but we will in an update at some point.
I just recently blogged about this at http://sedodream.com/2012/01/08/HowToTakeYourWebAppOfflineDuringPublishing.aspx. It's more difficult than it should be and I'm working on simplifying that for a later version. In any case I've pasted all the content here for you.
I received a customer email asking how they can take their web application/site offline for the entire duration that a publish is happening from Visual Studio. An easy way to take your site offline is to drop an app_offline.htm file in the sites root directory. For more info on that you can read ScottGu’s post, link in below in resources section. Unfortunately Web Deploy itself doesn’t support this . If you want Web Deploy (aka MSDeploy) to natively support this feature please vote on it at http://aspnet.uservoice.com/forums/41199-general/suggestions/2499911-take-my-site-app-offline-during-publishing.
Since Web Deploy doesn’t support this it’s going to be a bit more difficult and it requires us to perform the following steps:
Publish app_offline.htm
Publish the app, and ensure that app_offline.htm is contained inside the payload being published
Delete app_offline.htm
1 will take the app offline before the publish process begins.
2 will ensure that when we publish that app_offline.htm is not deleted (and therefore keep the app offline)
3 will delete the app_offline.htm and bring the site back online
Now that we know what needs to be done let’s look at the implementation. First for the easy part. Create a file in your Web Application Project (WAP) named app_offline-template.htm. This will be the file which will end up being the app_offline.htm file on your target server. If you leave it blank your users will get a generic message stating that the app is offline, but it would be better for you to place static HTML (no ASP.NET markup) inside of that file letting users know that the site will come back up and whatever other info you think is relevant to your users. When you add this file you should change the Build Action to None in the Properties grid. This will make sure that this file itself is not published/packaged. Since the file ends in .htm it will by default be published. See the image below.
Now for the hard part. For Web Application Projects we have a hook into the publish/package process which we refer to as “wpp.targets”. If you want to extend your publish/package process you can create a file named {ProjectName}.wpp.targets in the same folder as the project file itself. Here is the file which I created you can copy and paste the content into your wpp.targets file. I will explain the significant parts but wanted to post the entire file for your convince. Note: you can grab my latest version of this file from my github repo, the link is in the resource section below.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Target Name="InitalizeAppOffline">
<!--
This property needs to be declared inside of target because this is imported before
the MSDeployPath property is defined as well as others -->
<PropertyGroup>
<MSDeployExe Condition=" '$(MSDeployExe)'=='' ">$(MSDeployPath)msdeploy.exe</MSDeployExe>
</PropertyGroup>
</Target>
<PropertyGroup>
<PublishAppOfflineToDest>
InitalizeAppOffline;
</PublishAppOfflineToDest>
</PropertyGroup>
<!--
%msdeploy%
-verb:sync
-source:contentPath="C:\path\to\app_offline-template.htm"
-dest:contentPath="Default Web Site/AppOfflineDemo/app_offline.htm"
-->
<!--***********************************************************************
Make sure app_offline-template.htm gets published as app_offline.htm
***************************************************************************-->
<Target Name="PublishAppOfflineToDest"
BeforeTargets="MSDeployPublish"
DependsOnTargets="$(PublishAppOfflineToDest)">
<ItemGroup>
<_AoPubAppOfflineSourceProviderSetting Include="contentPath">
<Path>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\app_offline-template.htm</Path>
<EncryptPassword>$(DeployEncryptKey)</EncryptPassword>
<WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>$(_MSDeploySourceWebServerAppHostConfigDirectory)</WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>
<WebServerManifest>$(_MSDeploySourceWebServerManifest)</WebServerManifest>
<WebServerDirectory>$(_MSDeploySourceWebServerDirectory)</WebServerDirectory>
</_AoPubAppOfflineSourceProviderSetting>
<_AoPubAppOfflineDestProviderSetting Include="contentPath">
<Path>"$(DeployIisAppPath)/app_offline.htm"</Path>
<ComputerName>$(_PublishMsDeployServiceUrl)</ComputerName>
<UserName>$(UserName)</UserName>
<Password>$(Password)</Password>
<EncryptPassword>$(DeployEncryptKey)</EncryptPassword>
<IncludeAcls>False</IncludeAcls>
<AuthType>$(AuthType)</AuthType>
<WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerAppHostConfigDirectory)</WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>
<WebServerManifest>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerManifest)</WebServerManifest>
<WebServerDirectory>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerDirectory)</WebServerDirectory>
</_AoPubAppOfflineDestProviderSetting>
</ItemGroup>
<MSdeploy
MSDeployVersionsToTry="$(_MSDeployVersionsToTry)"
Verb="sync"
Source="#(_AoPubAppOfflineSourceProviderSetting)"
Destination="#(_AoPubAppOfflineDestProviderSetting)"
EnableRule="DoNotDeleteRule"
AllowUntrusted="$(AllowUntrustedCertificate)"
RetryAttempts="$(RetryAttemptsForDeployment)"
SimpleSetParameterItems="#(_AoArchivePublishSetParam)"
ExePath="$(MSDeployPath)" />
</Target>
<!--***********************************************************************
Make sure app_offline-template.htm gets published as app_offline.htm
***************************************************************************-->
<!-- We need to create a replace rule for app_offline-template.htm->app_offline.htm for when the app get's published -->
<ItemGroup>
<!-- Make sure not to include this file if a package is being created, so condition this on publishing -->
<FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="app_offline-template.htm" Condition=" '$(DeployTarget)'=='MSDeployPublish' ">
<DestinationRelativePath>app_offline.htm</DestinationRelativePath>
</FilesForPackagingFromProject>
<!-- This will prevent app_offline-template.htm from being published -->
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipAppOfflineTemplate">
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>app_offline-template.htm</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
<!--***********************************************************************
When publish is completed we need to delete the app_offline.htm
***************************************************************************-->
<Target Name="DeleteAppOffline" AfterTargets="MSDeployPublish">
<!--
%msdeploy%
-verb:delete
-dest:contentPath="{IIS-Path}/app_offline.htm",computerName="...",username="...",password="..."
-->
<Message Text="************************************************************************" />
<Message Text="Calling MSDeploy to delete the app_offline.htm file" Importance="high" />
<Message Text="************************************************************************" />
<ItemGroup>
<_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting Include="contentPath">
<Path>$(DeployIisAppPath)/app_offline.htm</Path>
<ComputerName>$(_PublishMsDeployServiceUrl)</ComputerName>
<UserName>$(UserName)</UserName>
<Password>$(Password)</Password>
<EncryptPassword>$(DeployEncryptKey)</EncryptPassword>
<AuthType>$(AuthType)</AuthType>
<WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerAppHostConfigDirectory)</WebServerAppHostConfigDirectory>
<WebServerManifest>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerManifest)</WebServerManifest>
<WebServerDirectory>$(_MSDeployDestinationWebServerDirectory)</WebServerDirectory>
</_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting>
</ItemGroup>
<!--
We cannot use the MSDeploy/VSMSDeploy tasks for delete so we have to call msdeploy.exe directly.
When they support delete we can just pass in #(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting) as the dest
-->
<PropertyGroup>
<_Cmd>"$(MSDeployExe)" -verb:delete -dest:contentPath="%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.Path)"</_Cmd>
<_Cmd Condition=" '%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.ComputerName)' != '' ">$(_Cmd),computerName="%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.ComputerName)"</_Cmd>
<_Cmd Condition=" '%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.UserName)' != '' ">$(_Cmd),username="%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.UserName)"</_Cmd>
<_Cmd Condition=" '%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.Password)' != ''">$(_Cmd),password=$(Password)</_Cmd>
<_Cmd Condition=" '%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.AuthType)' != ''">$(_Cmd),authType="%(_AoDeleteAppOfflineDestProviderSetting.AuthType)"</_Cmd>
</PropertyGroup>
<Exec Command="$(_Cmd)"/>
</Target>
</Project>
1 Publish app_offline.htm
The implementation for #1 is contained inside the target PublishAppOfflineToDest. The msdeploy.exe command that we need to get executed is.
msdeploy.exe
-source:contentPath='C:\Data\Personal\My Repo\sayed-samples\AppOfflineDemo01\AppOfflineDemo01\app_offline-template.htm'
-dest:contentPath='"Default Web Site/AppOfflineDemo/app_offline.htm"',UserName='sayedha',Password='password-here',ComputerName='computername-here',IncludeAcls='False',AuthType='NTLM' -verb:sync -enableRule:DoNotDeleteRule
In order to do this I will leverage the MSDeploy task. Inside of the PublishAppOfflineToDest target you can see how this is accomplished by creating an item for both the source and destination.
2 Publish the app, and ensure that app_offline.htm is contained inside the payload being published
This part is accomplished by the fragment
<!--***********************************************************************
Make sure app_offline-template.htm gets published as app_offline.htm
***************************************************************************-->
<!-- We need to create a replace rule for app_offline-template.htm->app_offline.htm for when the app get's published -->
<ItemGroup>
<!-- Make sure not to include this file if a package is being created, so condition this on publishing -->
<FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="app_offline-template.htm" Condition=" '$(DeployTarget)'=='MSDeployPublish' ">
<DestinationRelativePath>app_offline.htm</DestinationRelativePath>
</FilesForPackagingFromProject>
<!-- This will prevent app_offline-template.htm from being published -->
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipAppOfflineTemplate">
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>app_offline-template.htm</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
The item value for FilesForPackagingFromProject here will convert your app_offline-template.htm to app_offline.htm in the folder from where the publish will be processed. Also there is a condition on it so that it only happens during publish and not packaging. We do not want app_offline-template.htm to be in the package (but it’s not the end of the world if it does either).
The element for MsDeploySkiprules will make sure that app_offline-template.htm itself doesn’t get published. This may not be required but it shouldn’t hurt.
3 Delete app_offline.htm
Now that our app is published we need to delete the app_offline.htm file from the dest web app. The msdeploy.exe command would be:
%msdeploy%
-verb:delete
-dest:contentPath="{IIS-Path}/app_offline.htm",computerName="...",username="...",password="..."
This is implemented inside of the DeleteAppOffline target. This target will automatically get executed after the publish because I have included the attribute AfterTargets=”MSDeployPublish”. In that target you can see that I am building up the msdeploy.exe command directly, it looks like the MSDeploy task doesn’t support the delete verb.
If you do try this out please let me know if you run into any issues. I am thinking to create a Nuget package from this so that you can just install that package. That would take a bit of work so please let me know if you are interested in that.
Resources
The latest version of my AppOffline wpp.targets file
ScottGu’s blog on app_offline.htm
Web Deploy (MSDeploy) v3 supports adding an app_offline.htm file during deployment, but it has two limitations for your purpose:
It uses it's own app_offline.htm template (it supports a custom template, but it does not work)
The Web Publishing Pipeline (the MSBuild stack on top of web deploy) doesn't support passing in custom rules to MSDeploy, which rules out using WPP.