Another beginner question for ASP.NET:
I'm starting an ASP.NET project in Visual Studio 2008, and would like to link it to a folder on a remote server (as in it builds/publishes to this folder). It may be my phrasing, but I cannot seem to figure out how to do this (even with Google at my side!).
I naively tried to just upload the code files to the server, but running my code produces errors related to the fact that the pages are not set up as an application.
Any help would be appreciated (or a link to a resource where i could learn more about this basic asp.net/vs08 stuff I keep running into).
On your web server the folder you copied your files into needs to be set up as an application or a virtual directory. This is done through the Internet Information Service panel found in the "Administrative Tools" off the Control Panel.
Depending what flavor of IIS you are using the procedure may differ.
Visual Studio 2008 has a publish feature. If you right-click on the web project there is a "Publish" option. You can then select where you want to Publish your files.
2 fast answers:
You can use the Publish option in Visual Studio and create a folder inside wwwroot to publish
Alternatively, you can create a simple setup program. Just add a new "web setup project" to the solution and add the results of the web site to the setup project.
And of course, have you tried googling asp.net deployment to get some help?
Good luck! :)
You will love Visual Studio 2010, which should be out in early 2010, if it follows previous versions. This would also mean an MSDN release a few months earlier. Why? Better deploy story.
As for where we are today, you can publish and have a directory created. You will have to publish to IIS instead of a directory to accomplish this. This means you have to have permissions to add a web app and publish to it.
For a directory, you will have to create the app in the IIS Manager. If you do not have access, try the IIS admin. If you cannot get them to do it, you are back to publish.
Related
I am just learning asp.net and have created a simple webform on visual studio. How I can run this on the localhost(xampp). Like HTML you simply put files to the server folder and it works. But when I copy all asp files it simply shows me source code?
It is stupid question but I really need answer...
ASP (ActiveX Server Pages) is a deprecated technology (superseded by ASP.NET). Thus support is not included as standard in IIS. But it can be added by using Server Manager under Roles | Web Server (IIS) and scrolling down to Role Services.
If you however mean ASP.NET then, initially, look at the Web tab of the project properties and start in VS for debug and test. Once that is working you'll need to read up on deploying ASP.NET on MSDN.
To host a ASP.Net page you usually use IIS. You are supposed to run IIS on your server and host the ASP.NET website on the IIS Management
This Article on MSDN should help you with that.
Also, you usually use visual studio to 'Publish' to the server folder, rather then copy and paste the files. In case you didn't do this: this is done by right-clicking the project in visual studio and selecting 'Publish'. Then there are a few options, you can publish to a folder (File System) and then move the published project to your server, or publish it straight to your server.
I have a folder MyWebSite. I open it in Visual Studio 2010 and browse using the local webserver. It runs fine.
Now when I create a copy of the folder, open the website in Visual Studio and try to run it from there, it says:
This page can't be displayed. Make sure the web address http://localhost:21926 is correct.
What seems to be the problem?
Create a separate application pool and virtual directory for each. Your original site name is tied to a particular port because you are using the built-in server. Better to develop against IIS.
Please make sure you close Visual Studio and the instance of the ASP.Net Development server before you re-launch visual studio with the other folder.
In case you are trying to run both instances together, you might get such as error.
You could also try clearing the ASP.Net temporary folders and see if that solves the problem.
The web application that a company I'm doing consulting for has all the web files (.aspx, .vb, .ascx, web.config, etc.) but no .sln files or anything of that sort to open in Visual Studio and deploy the site and whatnot.
What's the best way to go about using Visual Studio to redeploy changes I make to this type of system?
As the comments have stated, it's likely a web site project (likely I say) and you can use the Open Website option within Visual Studio.
Either that, or you could just use the command line and publish it locally before deploying it somewhere...from the msdn documentation, it might be something like this:
Aspnet_compiler -p "C:\Projects\SomeWebProject\" "C:\Temp\LocalPublishFolder" -errorstack
I have an ASP.Net website that I built in a computer science class. I built it in Visual Studio and the solution is on my local drive. How would I deploy this to a real website?
You will need to do a few things.
You will need to get a hosting account that supports ASP.NET
From there you can use the "Publish" option from within Visual Studio under the "Build" menu option to push out a copy of the site.
When publishing you should publish in release mode.
Get hosting that supports the version of .NET and ASP.NET you have used and copy the files over.
Assuming that already you have an IIS application and web folder set up on a web server somewhere, the simplest method goes like this:
In Visual Studio, right-click on the web application project, and click Publish.
Select File System as the publish method.
Select a target location. This is where the publishable files will be placed. Use c:\pub or something similar.
Hit Publish
Once the publish operation is done, copy everything in c:\pub (or whatever target folder you used in step 3) to your web folder on the web server. Depending on your server accessibility, you may need to do this via FTP.
You might also investigate ClickOnce Deployment if your server supports it.
If you don't already have server space, you'll need to find a good hosting provider that supports ASP.NET. Google has many suggestions.
When I use Build->Publish Web Site in Visual Studio 2008, most of the time it compiles the site, and then simply asks me "All files in the target folder will be deleted. Continue?" (or something to that effect). On occasion, however, when publishing a project in Visual Studio, I would get a dialog box that would give me the choice of replacing the folder's contents completely, or simply replacing changed files with newer version.
I much prefer to publish without completely obliterating the folder, because the deployed application creates user files and cache files as it's been used that I don't want to take extra steps to preserve. However, I'm not sure why Visual Studio doesn't always give me this option. Is this a setting somewhere I can change? Is it tied to the version of .NET I'm using?
Any insight is appreciated!
Edit - Followup on 2009-01-20
I still haven't figured this out, but here's some more information.
Here's what the publish function looks like for one ASP.NET project on my Win XP desktop:
And here's what it looks like for a different project on my Vista laptop:
Notice the radio buttons in the second screenshot that allow me to choose to either delete the contents of the folder prior to publishing, or merely to overwrite matching files. I'd like to have these options for every project.
Both computers are running Visual Studio 2008 Professional (version 9.0.30729.1 SP, according to Help->About). The exact same version. And I doubt the OS difference is causing this functionality change. It's got to be a setting somewhere, right? Does anyone know?
John is right, the only difference is one of your projects is a Web Site Project and the other is a Web Application project. You will not see the "convert to web application" option unless you are in a Web Application project. I know... it is very misleading. The reason behind this stems from the the way you convert to a web application project. If you plan on converting it(which can be a real pain in arse, depending on how it is set up) then you need to be aware of a few differences:
In a Web Application project everything is pre-compiled all the codebehind pages will be compiled into a .dll ---- In a Web Site Project nothing in the project is pre-compiled, the compiler will compile everything to ensure it is valid but none of the compiled pages are uploaded. When a user first attempts to access the site each page is compiled into its own dll. This means in a Web Site Project you are able to upload a single codebehind file.
Namespaces - In a Web Application project namespaces are created by default in a Web Site Project they are not. So you may have to spend some time adding them if you plan on converting them.
Project files - you will notice that A Website Project does not have a "cproj" file a Web Application project does.
I have converted a few of these project I find they go fairly smooth as long as there is not a lot of code in the "app_code" folder. You can give it a try and see how easy it is, if it looks like it is going to be a pain, I would suggest FileZilla just FTP it and save yourself some headache.
Good Luck
That dialog is different for Web site projects and Web application projects. In my MVC projects (Web application projects), I see the additional options. In my regular ol' web site projects, I see the first dialog posted.
Not sure if this option will be suitable for you but you could use the copy website function from the solution explorer. Click on the "Copy Website" icon at the top of the solution explorer.
I think the real answer to your question is that you should put your user files and cache files somewhere else.
When publishing a web site Visual Studio is designed to make sure that the target folder contains your web site files, and absolutely nothing else.
Apparently this feature is coming in VS2010 - that's what Vishal Joshi announced at TechEd EMEA in session "PDC307: Microsoft Visual Studio 10: Web Development Futures"
The site has been updated from the site in the updated layer.