I have an ASP.NET web package deployment using Visual Studios 2012 in which I would like to copy off files before deployment and then copy them back once deployment is completed. These files happen to be under Content\upload. If I just deploy.cmd the files are deleted and so currently I need to copy them off manually and then copy them back once deployment is complete. I have tried several examples of similar situations for adding tasks to the Project file as well as extra files added to the project, such as:
Adding tasks inside targets I have created called Name="BeforePublish" Name="AfterPublish" in the Project file.
<Target Name="BeforePublish">
<Message Text="BeforePublish"/>
<Copy/>
</Target>
Adding file called ProjectName.wpp.targets and adding
<Project>
<Target Name="CopyMyFiles" BeforeTargets="BeforePublish">
<Message Text="CopyMyFiles called"/>
<Copy/>
</Target>
</Project>
Neither of these techniques seem to be called. Any other ideas? Where and how should I put these tasks?
You can actually solve this using a skip rule. Try calling your command file like this:
deploy.cmd -skip:objectName=dirPath,absolutePath=Content\\uploads$
For more information on the skip directive, see Web Deploy Operation Settings.
Related
I've build simple WebAPI project and not i'm trying to publish it using Visual Studio 2013 build in Publish mechanism (BUILD>Publish)
I've pick Web Deploy as publish method, got everything working, except transform files.
I have Web.config and Settings.config and two transforms for each.
When I do standard build on my project inside bin folder I see single Web.config and Settings.config with transform applied, but when I do publish instead of transformed Settings.config file I see one without transforms applied.
I't looks like publish mechanism inside Visual Studio is only transforming Web.config and it skips additional files.
Below is part of my csproj that is responsible for applying transforms:
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<TransformXml Condition="Exists('Settings.$(Configuration).config')" Source="Settings.config" Destination="$(OutputPath)Settings.config" Transform="Settings.$(Configuration).config" />
<TransformXml Condition="Exists('Web.$(Configuration).config')" Source="Web.config" Destination="$(OutputPath)Web.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" />
</Target>
My question is how should I setup my publish profile so instead of copying clean Settings.config it will apply correct transform and publish it.
EDIT:
I've managed to find one thing that might help solving this. If I add UseMsdeployExe to pubxml I can see in Output that my Settings.config is transformed and saved to bin folder, but then later is it overridden by original file.
my AfterBuild target is called correctly, but after it I can see in output those lines:
2> Copying all files to temporary location below for package/publish:
2>obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp.
2> Copying bin\Api.dll to obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp\bin\Api.dll.
2> Copying Settings.config to obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp\Settings.config.
Use SlowCheetah to transform the files, it will handle the deployment for you.
https://www.nuget.org/packages/SlowCheetah
I have a web project (asp.net) and I have several modules which should building in folder of the main project.
I can't find information about it.
I would like just build the main project and all modules should build too, but they not dependent with the main project.
Well, there still would be some dependency involved. You can use MsBuild task to build your projects along with main project. There are several options on how to include msbuild script to your solution, here is one of possible ways that allows to change the list of modules without reloading the MainProject and without adding dependencies to it.
Let's say we have MainProject and 2 modules: ClassLibrary1 and ClassLibrary2. Create a BuildModules.csproj file like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="BuildModules" ToolsVersion="4.0">
<ItemGroup>
<ModuleProject Include="ClassLibrary1\ClassLibrary1.csproj"></ModuleProject>
<ModuleProject Include="ClassLibrary3\ClassLibrary3.csproj"></ModuleProject>
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="BuildModules">
<MSBuild Projects="#(ModuleProject)" Properties="OutputPath=..\MainProject\Bin\Debug;Configuration=Debug;" ContinueOnError="true">
</MSBuild>
</Target>
</Project>
Now this is a concept only, so I've hardcoded the path to bin\debug folder. ContinueOnError is true so in case some error occurs, it doesn't affect on MainProject build process. Put this file in your solution root folder.
Now in MainProject properties on Build Events tab add the following Pre-build command:
call C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe $(SolutionDir)BuildModules.csproj
The path to msbuild.exe may vary.
Now each time you build, it would rebuild your assemblies and you can easily change the list of modules in your BuildModules.csproj file.
UPDATE 1:
TFS not deploying all files. I guess this is because of our hardcoded paths to msbuild and etc. Try moving Pre-build command to MainProject.csproj file, in BeforeBuild target:
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<MSBuild Projects="..\BuildModules.csproj" Properties="Configuration=Debug"/>
</Target>
I'm not sure about the path though, but should be like this. And remove Pre-build command from build.
Is it possible to remove the commented lines from a web.config on build?
xml transform is fine to remove some elements but I couldn't find any syntax to clean the comments from the file.
We are using TFS 2010 build server for our builds.
<add xdt:Transform="RemoveAll" xdt:Locator="XPath(//comment())" />
Put this node within the root node of your transform file. "XPath(//comment())" selects all XML comment nodes to delete.
UPDATE: See actual and working answer below.
It's not possible to do with xml transformation.
But you can do it with your own console app or msbuild task.
See example code here Remove XML comments using Visual Studio 2010 Web Config Transformation
I had a similar problem where I wanted to remove dev comments from the config files before I published to the web site. I wrote an app that will recursively remove comments from config files in the directory I specify on the command line. The sample below assumes YourCommentRemover will do the same.
I included the comment remover project as part of my solution and referenced it in the web app I plan to deploy. You can just add the executable as a reference if you want. Since I didn't want the comment remover to get deployed, I added a task to delete it from the bin directory where it was being staged for deploy, (ProjectDir)obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp\.
Open your project file in a text editor (You can right-click on the project file in the solution explorer and select 'Edit Project File').
Go to the very end of the project file and insert the following before </Project>:
<Target Name="BeforePublish" BeforeTargets="MSDeployPublish">
<Exec Command="$(ProjectDir)bin\YourCommentRemover $(ProjectDir)obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp" />
<Exec Command="del $(ProjectDir)obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp\bin\YourCommentRemover.*" />
</Target>
This target will run before any files are copied to the web application location on publish.
I use the following script to deploy my ASP.NET MVC app to our web server:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe MySolution.sln^
/p:Configuration=TeamCity-Test^
/p:OutputPath=bin^
/p:DeployOnBuild=True^
/p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish^
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl=https://mywebserver.com:8172/msdeploy.axd^
/p:username=MyDomain\MyUser^
/p:password=MyPassword^
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True^
/p:DeployIisAppPath=mywebsitename.com^
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC
Now I need to specify to not sync the /uploads folder. Can I specify that in this script? Thanks!
Clarification:
I have the Uploads folder in my project. I'd like for Web Deploy to create the folder. I do not want it to delete the folder/subfolders/files from my web server because it contains user-uploaded content.
Clarification #2:
I just found the SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True option. However, I don't want this to be global. I'd like to set it to a single folder.
UPDATE:
Apparently, what you really want is prevent web deploy from removing existing directory on the destination server, but still have the folder created in case it's not there. You can accomplish this as follows:
create YourWebProjectName.wpp.targets file next to you the project file with the following content:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<ItemGroup>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipELMAHFolderFiles">
<SkipAction></SkipAction>
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\NameOfYourFolder\\.*</AbsolutePath>
<Apply>Destination</Apply>
<XPath></XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipELMAHFolderChildFolders">
<SkipAction></SkipAction>
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_DestinationContentPath)\\NameOfYourFolder\\.*\\*</AbsolutePath>
<Apply>Destination</Apply>
<XPath></XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
Change NameOfYourFolder and YourWebProjectName accordingly. This assumes, you have it in the root, I believe, you can use relative path if it's not the case.
The first MsDeploySkipRules entry tells webdeploy not to remove any files in Name_OfYourFolder.
The second MsDeploySkipRules tells webdeploy not to remove any child folders in Name_OfYourFolder.
Also, to have the folder created if it's not present on the destination server, you have to do the following:
include the folder into the project
add a dummy DeployemntPlaceholder.txt file into it and include it into the project as well
DeployemntPlaceholder.txt is required to tell MSBUild to add the folder into the package: empty folders are ignored.
I've tested this approach and it works fine when you run publish in the manner you've shown. I've used this answer to get the msbuild items syntaxt right. I believe, this is a MSBuild way to customize flags, passed to webdeploy by MSBuild Deployment Pipeline.
If you ran MSDeploy directly, you could use skip arguments in the following manner:
-skip:objectname='filePath',absolutepath='logs\\.*\\someNameToExclude\.txt'
UPDATE 2
You might also want to have ACL write permissions set on your \Uploads folder - there's a complete guide to do this: Setting Folder Permissions On Web Publish
Conserning the original question "Specifying folders not to sync in Web Deploy", the easiest way to do this is as follows:
You can create a publish profile and add the following lines:
<PropertyGroup>
<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
File1.aspx;File2.aspx
</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
Folder1;Folder2
</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>
</PropertyGroup>
I've tested this approach for excluding files using publish profiles. An easy guide is here (scroll to Edit the .pubxml file to exclude robots.txt section).
You can also do this in .wpp.targets file or edit you csproj. See more information at Web Deployment FAQ for Visual Studio and ASP.NET
I'm using Visual Studio's Publish button to deploy my website, and want a different App_Data folder on the server. There's a checkbox for Leave extra files on destination (do not delete) which prevents my App_Data folder from getting deleted, but then it'll eventually accumulate a lot of vestigial files as the website changes.
Is there any way to make it exclude just App_Data when it deletes everything?
It can be done when you invoke msdeploy manually - just add the following parameter:
-skip:Directory=\\App_Data
See Web Deploy Operation Settings. The path is a regular expression, so it is quite flexible.
If you deploy using the VS-generated ProjectName.deploy.cmd script, you can also pass this parameter in the _MsDeployAdditionalFlags environment variable (when running that script).
This is the best I've come up with for our needs (we have a similar situation as you). I haven't tried integrating it with VS's Publish button, since we deploy from command line.
EDIT:
I have learned a few things about MSDeploy since I posted this answer, so I thought I'd update it now.
First of all, the above skip rule skips any operations on the matching path (App_Data). If more granular control is needed, a more verbose syntax is available. For example, to skip only deletes (to keep any extra files on target server, but add any new ones and update existing ones):
-skip:skipaction='Delete',objectname='filePath',absolutepath='\\App_Data\\.*' -skip:skipaction='Delete',objectname='dirPath',absolutepath='\\App_Data\\.*'
This skips deletes of all files and all subfolders (with all their content) in App_Data, but doesn't prevent adds and updates.
Another useful thing is that skip rules can be defined in the project file (.csproj) so that they are automatically included in the .deploy.cmd script generated along with the package. This makes it unnecessary to pass them to the script through _MsDeployAdditionalFlags.
The above skip rule will be added if the following is included in csproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<OnBeforePackageUsingManifest>AddCustomSkipRules</OnBeforePackageUsingManifest>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="AddCustomSkipRules">
<ItemGroup>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipDeleteAppData">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_Escaped_PackageTempDir)\\App_Data\\.*</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipDeleteAppData">
<SkipAction>Delete</SkipAction>
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>$(_Escaped_PackageTempDir)\\App_Data\\.*</AbsolutePath>
<XPath>
</XPath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
(the names AddCustomSkipRules and SkipDeleteAppData are completely arbitrary; $(_Escaped_PackageTempDir) is supposed to be possibly needed, but in practice I've always seen it evaluate to an empty string)
See Web Deploy: Customizing a deployment package and How to set MSDeploy settings in .csproj file for more info.
One caveat: this only adds those rules to the .deploy.cmd script, so it is useless if you want to use the graphical IIS Manager for package deployment, as it doesn't use that script (the same probably goes for deployment from VS, but I haven't checked).
From my experience, MsDeploySkipRules are only run when deploying from the command line.
If you are publishing from Visual Studio to Azure (or using another Web Deploy method), you can set the following when Publishing.
Remove additional files at destination
Exclude files from the App_Data folder
When "Remove additional files at destination" is checked, it will make a comparison between the files and folders you are deploying and the ones on the server.
Be warned, you may run into issues if you have User Generated content, e.g. Uploads. But this could be worked around by storing those folders in a different location, e.g. S3 / Azure Storage.
From Powershell, if you want to use msdeploy.exe or the myproj.deploy.cmd (Deploying Web Packages) produced when publishing with Web Deploy Package, in order to to skip deleting the App_Data folder and avoid the
All arguments must begin with "-"
error, you have to enclose the skip directive in triple quotes, e.g. :
myproj.deploy.cmd /y /u:myusername /p:mypass """-skip:Directory=\\App_Data"""
Have you looked at Package/Publish Web in the project settings, because you can tell it to exlude files in the App_Data folder.
For asp.net core web apps use MsDeploySkipRules in csproj.
<ItemGroup>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="CustomSkipFile">
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath><dir_name>\\app_data</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="CustomSkipFile">
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath><dir_name>\\app_data</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
Replace <dir_name> with your root folder
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/visual-studio-publish-profiles?view=aspnetcore-2.1#exclude-files
This isn't ideal since you may be copying a lot of files doing this (I'm not), but here's my solution for backing up a folder. Adapted to move the folder to the location from which it will be published, during the publish process. Put this in your pubxml file:
<Project>
...
<Target Name="PreserveSelectedFolder" AfterTargets="GatherAllFilesToPublish">
<ItemGroup>
<SITEDIR Include="$(publishUrl)\App_Data\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(SITEDIR)"
DestinationFolder="$(ProjectDir)\obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp\%(RecursiveDir)"></Copy>
</Target>
</Project>
And if you just want to do any number of specific known files, do one Copy block per file:
<Target Name="PreserveSelectedFiles" AfterTargets="GatherAllFilesToPublish" >
<Copy SourceFiles="$(publishUrl)\MYFILENAME.EXT"
DestinationFolder="$(ProjectDir)\obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp\"
Condition="Exists('$(publishUrl)\MYFILENAME.EXT')"></Copy>
</Target>
Put this in your pubxml file:
<ExcludeApp_Data>True</ExcludeApp_Data>