Is there anyway to customise TFS2012 interface to run MSDeploy commands via TFS intranet access, instead of running command prompts?
Unfortunately, there is not such an extension endpoint in TF Web Access 2012. The only way to extend Web Access is work item types today (which only works for on-premise version).
Do you mean as part of your build or using the ms deploy ui on your machine, or if you mean from web access then you can use tfs deployer?
Related
A little background (before I get downvoted to oblivion!)
I'm working on an intranet-hosted ASP.NET web application in a highly secure environment. At the moment it's deployed by building a package in Visual Studio, the zip file is copied onto the server and installed in IIS using WebDeploy (right-click -> Deploy -> Import Application).
What I'd like to do is deploy a sanitised version of this application to an Azure Web Site for demonstration purposes, however most of the standard Azure deployment methods do not apply to me because:
I work on a secure network so Visual Studio is blocked from connecting to Azure (rendering 95% of documentation irrelevant!)
installable software is strictly controlled on this network so I cannot install the Azure SDK needed to create Service Definitions, Configurations and Packages
The only machine I have access to which can connect to Azure is woefully underpowered and can only run puTTY, PowerShell and basic text editors.
At the moment, I have a Windows VM in Azure just running IIS and WebDeploy - this works but seems like overkill (and a good way to burn through my credit) when Web Apps in theory do everything I need.
What can I do?
Another option may be to checkin the WebDeploy package to a free subscription of Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS = TFS in the cloud) and then create a deployment pipeline in VSTS using the new Release Management features.
https://www.visualstudio.com/features/release-management-vs.aspx
in that case:
1) FTP from your machine using your own FTP client or i would recommend to use PSFTP from Putty package.
2) Still WebDeploy, but use that to generate the needed files, then you can use PowerShell like that.
You can also use https://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/ to connect to azure websites. It works with HTTP, only problem could be a corporate proxy.
What are the options for deploying a web-application that is built daily using Visual Studio Online (and hosted controller) and its new build definitions to an on-premises IIS behind a firewall?
If opening up the firewall, would it be possible to add some kind of WebDeploy-build step to the Visual Studio Online build? Haven't seen any WebDeploy build steps for now though...
...or could we write a PowerShell script running daily on the IIS-server that fetches the output of the daily build from Visual Studio Online? If that's possible, how can those files be accessed?
...or could something like OctopusDeploy help out here?
would like to refrain from having to set up an on-premises build controller.
VSO Agents are lightweight and easy to setup if you have a server available. Octopus Deploy integrates nicely most on premise scenarios.
That said, if you still want to keep hosted builds, Octopus would still work.
Create a VSO build definition and include OctoPack.
Pick a hosted Nuget Server, presumably with a private repo subscription. A couple of options are MyGet and Artifactory.
In "MSBuild Arguements" include the parameters.
/p:RunOctoPack=true
/p:OctoPackPublishPackageToHttp=http://nugetrepoofyourchoice.com/nuget/packages
/p:OctoPackPublishApiKey=$(NugetAPI)
/p:OctoPackPackageVersion=$(Build.BuildNumber)
"NugetAPI" is actually a user defined variable (name of your choice) that references a Secret build variable. You will get this API Key from your Nuget Repo vendor.
On premise, in your Octopus installation, you would define your hosted Nuget feed as an external feed.
In your deployment project, it would pull the Nuget package from your hosted repo.
VSO pushes to hosted Nuget feed and Octopus pulls from the hosted Nuget feed.
Octopus deploy would work for this in a couple of ways.
1) Install a tentacle on the IIS server (either polling or listening will work depending on where you install octopus manager)
or
2) Install the main octopus deploy on a machine that has WebDeploy access to your IIS server, and use the custom library MS Deploy script
Getting the package to the main octopus deploy machine could be a bit tricky. Easiest way would be setting up a MyGet server and have the octopus server check it periodically, that way you don't need to open up firewalls to the public.
These feature are coming for VSO and were announced at Build. You will be able to deploy on-premises without needing to open a firewall port using agents.
While this is still in the works you can use Release Management for Visual Studio 2015 to pull the bits from VSO and deploy locally.
Is there a way I can deploy my entire website/webapp to an Azure WebRole without the need of Visual Studio?
Context: We have a test environment where there's an IIS hosted web app where our testers test (of course). The thing is, we want to grab that exact tested web app folder and deploy it "as is" to a WebRole.
Please avoid commenting on our procedure, we have been looking at it and we will eventually change it if we have to, I just need a 'simple' yes(how)/no answer.
IIS Web Deploy can be used to package/migrate/restore IIS applications. It can be enabled while deploying a web role as described in this article and allows to update the web role with the application as deployed in your test environment.
Be aware that only single instance cloud services are supported and that in case of a maintenance operation by the fabric controller, your service will be rolled back to the state created by the initial azure package deployment. (There once was a tool for syncing between multi-instance web deployments but sadly that did not work out too well and is no longer supported. Do not attempt to use or rebuild it.)
Installing and Configuring Web Deploy shows the steps to get web deploy for your local testing IIS while articles on using web deploy like this one show examples for calling the tool.
Another option to evaluate are azure websites and git deployment. This could provide you with a documented and reproducible form of deployment that is not prone to unwanted rollbacks while allowing the service to scale to multiple instances. This option might not work out if the application it too tied to the web roles infrastructure or contains code not suitable for the more restricted web sites environment.
A third option to look at is using CSPack as presented in this article. You basically create a service definition and package up the webapp manually without building it in Visual Studio or TFS.
Yes - make sure you have enabled Remote Access on your webrole. Then copy your web app from your local IIS folder to F:\sitesroot\0 (NOTE - may be E:\sitesroot\0 on same web roles).
Yes, you can write a programmatic interface against Web Deploy from your C# code. If you're deploying to Azure Web Sites, you could also use the Windows Azure Management Libraries to spin up new web sites or clouand deploy them.
I've created an Azure server instance. I've deployed a simple application to it. As part of the deployment process I enabled Remote Desktop Connections.
I have some standard ASP.net applications that run on Windows, is there something to stop me deploying these applications manually to IIS using Remote Desktop. I've read so much about having to migrate standard ASP.net apps to Azure. I don't want to this as we will have customers who will still use Windows Server 2003/2008 so I don't want to have to maintain 2 versions.
Well, as I understand it, in theory you could deploy stuff using remote desktop. But when the instance shuts down/restarts you'll lose it all (unless you've built it into your startup scripts) and have to re-load everything each time. The main reason they suggest you have at least two instances is so that when one shuts down for updates etc there is always at least one other running.
The "Windows Azure Accelerator for Web Roles" project allows you to create an Azure web role which then enables you to use web deploy for all your other web sites - I'm guessing that will be a whole lot better approach and is definitely worth a look. Also, I believe smarx.com is a good place to browse for info and ideas.
Using a startup task and the Azure Bootstrapper you can download, unzip, install almost any kind of 3rd party software that supports either xcopy deployment (just copy the files) or an unattended(silent) install.
Assuming you aren't using Azure storage or anything like that, there shouldn't be any difference with the IIS application. If you are using anything specific to Azure, you can use the RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable to test if you are running inside Azure or not. That will return true for the emulator as well. If you want to use Azure storage from both, you can add the settings in the web.config to use if not running in Azure.
Which is the best method to deploy a web application. Currently i am publishing the application and placing that folder in the server and creating virtual directory and providing windows authentication.
I just want to know this is a better metod to deploy or i need to use any other deployment technique?
Plese suggest
It really depends on the situation. For some situations, using Visual Studio's publish feature (right click project) works great. However in some situations, particular larger organizations or environments where the infrastructure group and development team are a little more isolated, you need to use a Web Application Installer or an MSI package. I've also had instances where the easiest thing to do was create a simple .bat file and create an external command in Visual Studio.
Use a web application installer, easy to create with Visual Studio.
If you need a third person to deploy your application in production servers, I would suggest you to deploy using a MSI, it would also help you to version your release.
MSI can be created using various ways including but not limited to
Deployment projects in VS studio
WixGen
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