if i decide to use the 'publish' option for my ASP.NET website, instead of a Web Deployment Project, can i do custom msbuild things? Or do i need to stick with WDP's if i want to do custom msbuild stuff during compile/deployment.
I think of the publish option as a part of the VS.NET toolset for developers to use to publish web sites on dev machines. It isn't really built to be a real deployment.
If you need custom actions, a Web Deployment Project would be more suited to a real deployment that multiple people other than the developer run regularly and that you want created with each build.
I would also look at three other options:
PowerShell: A good way to script against IIS, set up websites, etc. You can even build cmdlets from OO code (like C#) that your script can call. Many professional IT firms use it to deploy big web sites.
MSDeploy: A new deployment tool for websites that can replicate a vroot over several servers. Very good for having your golden image and then blasting it out to various places.
C# application: If you are a more advanced developer, you can always write your own application that xcopies files (via Process) and uses WMI to configure IIS. Harder, but you have complete control.
You can use custom MSBuild options. In fact, you can execute MSBuild on a sln file configured to publish as a website, and then copy the precompiled website files to a webserver. We do that internally using Cruise Control.net from Thoughtworks.
The sln file contains info about where the precompiled website will be located:
Release.AspNetCompiler.VirtualPath = "/PrecompiledWeb"
Release.AspNetCompiler.PhysicalPath = "..\Web\"
Release.AspNetCompiler.TargetPath = "..\..\PrecompiledWeb\"
Release.AspNetCompiler.Updateable = "true"
Release.AspNetCompiler.ForceOverwrite = "true"
Release.AspNetCompiler.FixedNames = "true"
Release.AspNetCompiler.Debug = "False"
We don't use publish to deploy our web projects, but we used to use Web Deployment Projects. When we switched to Visual Studio 2008, we ran into a bunch of problems with them, so we got rid of them.
What I can tell you is that we were able to replace the WDP functionality we were using with aspnet_merge.exe. We use a combination of msbuild and aspnet_merge.exe in a script to get our deployments done.
It looks like you can customize the Publish task through the _CopyWebApplication MSBuild target. Or you can at least create a batch file that will call that target, which you can customize.
More details here and here.
Related
ASP.NET Web Forms apps have a large startup cost on the first request as they need to compile the views code (.ascx, .aspx, etc). We have to deploy these projects to several servers, which requires priming each of them so that the first users to hit certain areas of the site don't have a bad response time. Today this is a manual process, and we're making it automated by running aspnet_compiler.
Is is possible to run aspnet_compiler on the build server and deploy its output so that we do not have to run it on each web server we're deploying to?
Bonus Question: When we specify a target directory with the targetdir option in aspnet_compiler, how does IIS know where to look for the compiled files? i.e. Where is that information stored?
The project in question is a Web Application project (not a Web Site project).
There is an option in Visual Studio's Publish dialogue which may be what you want.
I've not used it to see if it actually has the effect you want, but there's several options in Configure for it. You may be able to do what you want with that.
(P.S.: This is an ASP.NET Web Forms Project as well, in VB.NET. Though the language is irrelevant.)
Also, according to this MSDN article you can add the -u and -v switches to the aspnet_compiler to get it to precompile the views for updating.
You may also want to look at this MSDN article as well, as it describes a scenario similar to yours. Especially the Compiling an Application for Deployment section, which states:
You compile an application for deployment (compilation to a target location) by specifying the targetDir parameter. The targetDir can be the final location for the Web application, or the compiled application can be further deployed.
Essentially, you might be able to run this command on your build server, and then distribute your binaries as needed.
I am creating a javascript webApp and i deploy it using GruntJS. this web app will be deployed in an ASP.NET MVC Web Service. I want to add the dist folder (and any files created by grunt inside the folder) programmatically inside the visual studio project, so when I build and deploy the web service I can navigate to this folder. Hope I was clear!
Yes you can. Grunt is completely independent of IDEs and texteditors and is a really helpful tool for all kinds of web development in any editor.
Grunt is described as “a node based javascript task runner with which you can automate tasks like minification, compilation, unit testing, linting and more”. You can use it for example when you do not like to be dependent on an asp.net web server doing minification and bundling for you, or you simply like to be able to use tools that are not (yet) supported by the asp.net/Visual Studio ecosystem.
Here is all you need: http://joeriks.com/2013/08/06/can-i-benefit-from-grunt-for-my-visual-studio-based-web-development/
Hope this helps!
Try to tweak WebDeploy settings in your MSBuild file (*.csproj?) so it would include files from the dist folder into your web application during publishing.
The following tutorial should be a good starting point how to do it:
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/deployment/visual-studio-web-deployment/deploying-extra-files
Also check ASP.NET Solution Template on Visual Studio Gallery
I've been doing some reading http://vishaljoshi.blogspot.com/2010/11/team-build-web-deployment-web-deploy-vs.html and https://michaelbaylon.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/managing-sql-scripts-and-continuous-integration/ ... etc on automated deployment and continuous integration etc but non of it seems to talk about automated deployment in a classic asp environment and you can't really do proper CI unless you get into automated deployment.
Can MSDeploy deploy a classic asp website? If not ... is it best to just write a build script that copies all the files over to the correct folder and then start up IIS? I've done this using msbuild and the robocopy msbuild extension task. But then how do you handle the different environments (QA, dev, staging, production) there's no web config to put the different connection strings etc ... supposedly msbuild is configuration aware ... but how does that work when there is no web config?
So with all these questions I'm struggling to really move forward with creating a deployment script / module / exe for our classic asp website. Does anyone have any answers / resources / further questions that they can point me in the direction of?
Web Deploy (http://www.iis.net/download/WebDeploy) is the way to go. You just have to customize the deployment script for different environments.
You might find this links helpful:- http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241740.aspx- "Build" Classic ASP with TFS 2010
MSDEPLOY can deploy anything that can live in IIS. You can create a package from the existing web site, and examine it to see what got packaged. You should be able to use that to determine how to package up your site from sources.
You should even be able to create a Visual Studio project from your sources so that you can use the Web Publishing Pipeline directly. The fact that there is nothing there to compile shouldn't stop you from specifying that your .ASP files are content files.
Checkout using cruisecontrol.net, we use that for our automated deploys along with msbuild and it works great. We are a .Net shop but it's basically the same thing. Cruise Control can run scripts and does handle the web.config / global.asa transformations pretty good. As long as you can script it cruise control could handle it.
Depending on your development environment you might be able to hook it into cruisecontrol. We use TFS and it integrates nicely so when we check items into our different branches (Dev, Main, Stage) it auto deploys the site to the appropriate location.
Deploying to our production environment we use MSbuild to move the code. Since it's in another network location we needed something that could go outside and do any server updates necessary.
http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/
What are the types of deployment we have in asp.net?
Till now what I am doing?
I use to publish my website in any folder than copy paste the compiled file to the inetpub folder [where my website is configured with the IIS]. I am not sure what kind of deployment this is, is it XCOPY? But I am not using any command line tool.
So you have the following options
xcopy deployment
Compile your asp.net application and copy all the files to your server. You can do this by using FTP or shared directories. (Or anything else to transfer files.)
WebDeploy
You have the possibility to deploy your asp.net webpage directly form your Visual Studio. If you go to "Build" and you choose "Publish Web". To be able to to do this you have to configure your server before. But this works automatically after you have set up everything. It's very handy since your deployment becomes easy to rebuild.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/09/13/automating-deployment-with-microsoft-web-deploy.aspx
Web Setup - Installer
Visual Studio provide also the option to build an installer. This works like installing usual software on your windows computer with the installer wizard. (See the link)
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/06/15/tip-trick-creating-packaged-asp-net-setup-programs-with-vs-2005.aspx
Manage multiple server
There is also a way of managing the deployment of multiple servers. It seems to be a bit more complicated but could be interesting for professionals. (Check out on Google Microsoft Web Farm Framework 2.0
To answer your question: yes, what you are using is called xcopy deployment. Even though you do not type xcopy . ... it is still a 'plain copy' and therefore called xcopy deployment.
When I build my ASP.NET web application I get a .dll file with the code for the website in it (which is great) but the website also needs all the .aspx files and friends, and these need to be placed in the correct directory structure. How can I get this all in one directory as the result of each build? Trying to pick the right files out of the source directory is a pain.
The end result should be xcopy deployable.
Update: I don't want to have to manually use the Publish command which I'm aware of. I want the full set of files required by the application to be the build output - this means I also get the full set of files in one place from running MSBuild.
One solution appears to be Web Deployment Projects (WDPs), an add-on for Visual Studio (and msbuild) available that builds a web project to a directory and can optionally merge assemblies and alter the web.config file. The output of building a WDP is all the files necessary to deploy the site in one directory.
More information about Web Deployment Projects:
Announcement on webdevtools MSDN blog for WDP 2008
ScottGu introduction to WDP 2005
The only disadvantage to this solution is the requirement on an add-on which must be available on the build machine. Still, it's good enough for now!
ASP.NET doesn't have real xcopy deployment for new sites. It depends on having a virtual directory/Application in IIS. However, once that virtual directory is created you can use xcopy for updates.
You can Publish Web site..If you want to automate your deployment, you need to use some script.
Have you tried using the aspnet_compiler.exe in your .net framework directory? I'm pretty sure you can create a "deploy ready" version of a web application or web site.
The _CopyWebApplication target on MSBuild will do exactly what you need. The catch is that only the main assembly will be copied to the bin folder and that's why a copy task is needed to also copy any other file on the bin folder.
I was trying to post the sample script as part of this post but wasn't able to.
Please take a look at this article on my blog that describes how to create a MSBuild script similar to the one you need.
Have you tried right clicking the website in Solution Explorer and clicking 'Publish Website'?
Build --> Publish
A dialog box will appear that will guide you through the process.
For the automated building you describe in the update, I would recommend you look into MSBuild and CruiseControl.NET
It depends on how complicated solution you need, you could just use a script and jenkins for example. You can use MSBUild with Jenkins for just deploying to an IIS. And if you got Jenkins other tools is pretty easy to connect into it later on. But if you just want to build, use a script that jenins execute every build that uses MSDeploy and it will work great.
This is how i do it, just to give you a feeling:
Sonarqube uses Gallio, Gendarme, FXcop, Stylecop, NDepths and PartCover to get your metrics and all this is pretty straight forward since SonarQube do this automatically without much configuration.
Here is Jenkins witch builds and get Sonar metrics and a another job for deploying automatically to IIS. I use a simple script one line that calls my MSBuild and wich URL, pass and user.
And Sonarqube, all metrics for my project. This is a simple MVC4 app, but it works great!:
If you want more information can i provide you with a good guide.
This whole setup uses MSBuild, too build and deploy the apps.