Post deployment parameters in DacPac - msbuild

I'm creating a DacPac in TeamCity by building a sql project. The resulting DacPac has a post deployment script that I would like to update either on deployment or before it is created with a version number. Is it possible to set this parameter either in TeamCity or on deployment of the DacPac?
The sqlpackage.exe command line looks like
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\DAC\bin\SqlPackage.exe" /Action:Publish /Sourcefile:#{SourceFolder} /TargetDatabaseName:DBName /TargetServerName:#{SqlServer}
Where "#{}" is a parameter on octopus deploy server. The post deployment script in the SQL Project looks like :
declare #version varchar(10)
set #version = 'z'
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM tVersion)
UPDATE VersionTable SET Version = #version
ELSE
INSERT INTO VersionTable VALUES (#version)
The way I have been doing it is by using file content replacer on teamcity to replace 'z' with a version number but this method is not ideal. This could lead to errors in the future if another dev were to check in the the file with a different parameter that didn't fit the regular expression used in the file content replacer build feature.

You have a couple of different approaches you can take, the first one is the easiest in that you define a SqlCmd variable in your .sqlproj (properties of the project, SQLCMD variables tab) and reference that it your post deploy script. When you deploy you can override the variable by using /v:variable_name= (If you aren't using sqlpackage.exe to deploy, what are you using? Octopus deploy?).
The second way is harder but is pretty straight forward, the dacpac can be read from and written to using the .net packaging api, there is a stream (file) called postdeploy.sql (open it as a zip file and it is obvious which one is the post deploy file), you can read it, change your specific value and then write it back again.
For more manual editing of a dacpac see:
https://github.com/GoEddie/Dacpac-References
Ed

Related

Do not delete a certain folder from server when Publishing using msbuild with SkipExtraFilesOnServer set to false

I deploy an application to the server using Msbuild with /p:WebPublishMethod=MSDeploy and a switch to delete extra files on server /p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=false.
But there is an additional folder that I do not want to be deleted and/or altered in any way during publishing.
In one of my other projects I use msdeploy with the following switch
-skip:Directory=\\dir and it does exactly what I need.
I could not figure out how to pass the skip:directory parameter from msbuild to msdeploy. I tried different versions of /p: parameter but did not manage to get the right one.
Any thougts?

VSTS build doesn't pickup the dacpac file (hosted agent in cloud)

I'm trying to use VSTS to deploy into my database, the problem is in one of the steps I need to pick up the dacpac file and deploy it to the Azure SQL server but it fails:
in that step, I'm using "Execute Azure SQL: DacpacTask" which is provided by Microsoft in VSTS.
there is a filed to do it which is called "DACPAC File" and the documentation said to use it like this:
$(agent.releaseDirectory)\AdventureWorksLT.dacpac
but it gave me the below error:
No files were found to deploy with search pattern
d:\a\1\s\$(agent.releaseDirectory)\AdventureWorksLT.dacpac
so I did a cheating and put the below value in it:
d:\a\1\s\AdventureWorksLT.dacpac
it does work but obviously, it won't work forever as I need to use an environment variable, something like :
$(agent.releaseDirectory)\AdventureWorksLT.dacpac
any suggestion?
I've had this same problem. I wasn't able to find detailed documentation, but from experimenting, this is what I found.
I'm assuming that your DACPAC is created as part of a Build Solution task. After the build completes and the DACPAC is created, it exists in a sub-folder of the $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory) directory.
Apparently, the Azure SQL Database Deployment task cannot access the $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory) folder. So the file must be copied somewhere where it can be accessed. So here's what I did:
The Visual Studio Build task builds the solution, including the DACPAC. The resulting DACPAC is placed in a $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory) sub-folder.
Add a Copy Files task as your next step. The Source Folder property should be "$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)". The Contents property should be "**/YourDacPacFilename.dacpac". The Target folder should be $(build.artifactstagingdirectory). The "**/" tells VSTS to search all subfolders for matching file(s).
Add an Azure SQL Database Deployment task to deploy the actual DACPAC. The DACPAC file will be in the $(build.artifactstagingdirectory).
I had the same problem and I solved it by removing the old artifact from the release and adding it again to take the correct alias of the new artifact.
That's why the Azure SQL Database Deployment task says it doesn't have access to the $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory) folder, the artifact has changed and you must make sure you're using the new one that is saved in the azure pipeline.

SpecFlow error on build server

I am getting a strange error on the build server, this does NOT happen locally.
Error during file generation. The target file 'C:...\AcceptanceTest\Features\HelloWorld.feature.cs'
is read-only, but different from the transformation result. This
problem can be a sign of an inconsistent source code package. Compile
and check-in the current version of the file from the development
environment or remove the read-only flag from the generation result.
To compile a solution that contains messaging project on a build
server, you can also exclude the messaging project from the
build-server solution or set the msbuild
project parameter to 'true' in the messaging project file.
I'm not sure what to do to fix this, I don't have a "messaging" project (or know what is being referred too). And the code is the latest
This is the full message (some folder names have been obfuscated):
13>C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\packages\SpecRun.Excel.1.1.0\tools\TechTalk.SpecFlow-buildfix.targets(47,5):
error : Error during file generation. The target file
'C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\PService\Test\PService.AcceptanceTest\Features\HelloWorld.feature.cs'
is read-only, but different from the transformation result. This
problem can be a sign of an inconsistent source code package. Compile
and check-in the current version of the file from the development
environment or remove the read-only flag from the generation result.
To compile a solution that contains messaging project on a build
server, you can also exclude the messaging project from the
build-server solution or set the msbuild
project parameter to 'true' in the messaging project file.
[C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\PService\Test\PService.AcceptanceTest\PService.AcceptanceTest.csproj]
13>C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\packages\SpecRun.Excel.1.1.0\tools\TechTalk.SpecFlow-buildfix.targets(47,5):
error : Could not find file
'C:\Users\tfsbuild\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpPWithData.feature.xlsx.cs'.
[C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\PService\Test\PService.AcceptanceTest\PService.AcceptanceTest.csproj]
13>C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\PService\Test\PService.AcceptanceTest\Features\PWithData.feature.xlsx
: error : Generation error: Could not find file
'C:\Users\tfsbuild\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpPWithData.feature.xlsx.cs'.
[C:\Builds\2\Services\PService\src\PService\Test\PService.AcceptanceTest\PService.AcceptanceTest.csproj]
Delete HelloWorld.feature.cs from source control.
TFS will checkout files as read-only during a build and so SpecFlow fails to re-generate the file because it already exists and SpecFlow doesn't overwrite read-only files.
I created a new request for SpecFlow to not automatically add the file to source control here: https://github.com/techtalk/SpecFlow/issues/592
I'm not sure what the messaging project refers to, that's something I haven't seen before.
However the error reads as if the problem is due to an issue with the generation of the *.feature.cs from the *.feature file, but I am confused as to why this should be happening on the build server. Normally the generation of *.feature.cs occurs in the IDE when you save the *.feature file. This gets checked in and with some version control systems (VCS) you may end up with a read-only file status.
Your error reads as the build server is trying to re-generate the *.feature.cs file and cannot overwrite it.
Some things to check;
What VCS are you running? Does it leave checked-in files as read-only?
How are you building the files on the build server? Is there a custom step involved, or is it just a simple compile?
Can you replicate this error on your machine by setting the *.feature.cs to read-only and running the same build script on your local machine?
Good luck.

How can I pass MSDeploy-style parameters to MSBuild via the commandline?

I am setting up TeamCity to deploy our Website Project application (using a *.wdproj) and Web Deploy application to IIS.
I have a build configuration that uses MSBuild.exe with the MSDeployPublish to build and then deploy the application.
We now want to get the application to deploy to multiple target environments, therefore need a way to supply different settings based on the target environment.
I have added a parameters.xml file to the Web Deployment Project, and have verified that the parameters set in here are making all the way through the target IIS server and being correctly applied - great!
Now what I want to do is have different parameter settings per environment. I was hoping I could use something like the MSDeploy.exe -setParam argument to specify different values for each environment, however I can find no way to get my parameter values into MSBuild via the commandline.
I suspect I might need to do one of the following:
Split MSBuild and MSDeploy into separate build steps.
Configure a task somewhere in the pipeline to take 1 of n versions of parameters.something.xml and move it into parameters.xml so it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline.
I'm looking for the simplest way to move ahead at this point, any suggestions welcome.
For reference, here is the command I'm experimenting with now:
msbuild /target:MSDeployPublish MySite_deploy.wdproj /P:Configuration=Debug
/P:DeployOnBuild=True /P:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/P:MsDeployServiceUrl=www.myserver.com:8172/MsDeploy.axd
/P:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /P:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc
/P:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /P:UserName=MyUser /p:Password=MyPassword
/P:DeployIisAppPath=www.myserver.com/MySite
/P:ServerURL=http://www.tryingtoforcethis.com
It's working beautifully except the value for ServerURL, which is a parameter I've defined in my parameters.xml, is not making its way into the target site. The default I specified in parameters.xml, however, is. So I know that the parameters are working, I just can't figure out how to add them to the msbuild commandline.
Well, I think the short answer is that with MSBuild 4.0 and VS2010, you can't just pass arbitrary parameters into MSDeployPublish from the call to MSBuild.
I found these posts helpful:
http://forums.iis.net/t/1167657.aspx/1 - Ming Chen's comments
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TinyHappyFeatures3PublishingImprovementsChainedConfigTransformsAndDeployingASPNETAppsFromTheCommandLine.aspx - the comments from Richard Szalay at the bottom
After reading these, and sifting through the Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets file for some time trying to find a "way in", I finally settled on having multiple copies of Parameters.xml in my project folder in source control, labelled according to their environment eg:
Parameters.Test.xml
Parameters.Staging.xml
Parameters.Live.xml
Then, prior to the package and deploy, I just copy one of these files into Parameters.xml and it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline - done!
BTW I had a temporary problem getting the parameters.xml copy and subsequent cleanup to work within a single MSBuild.exe call due to what seems to be some sort of file access issue, I've detailed it here:
MSBuild.exe Copy task not working properly unless a version of the file already appears in target
To answer your question, the parameterization of your command line is not a concern of MSBuild. Instead, you should utilize external tools. For example, if you run your msbuild command from a batch file you could pass the parameters to the batch file and run it for each environment with different parameters. Another approach is to use a build system like TeamCity or VSTS and utilize their parameterization mechanism. Adapted for the VSTS or TFS, your command could look like this:
msbuild MySite_deploy.wdproj /target:MSDeployPublish /p:Configuration=Debug
/p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=$(IIsHostNameIp)
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /p:UserName=$(IIsUserName) /p:Password=$(IIsPassword)
/p:DeployIisAppPath=$(IIsSite)
In addition, I would suggest some clean up for your origianl command line:
Using both /p:target and /p:DeployTarget is redundant. Any one of them is enough. Also it could be replaced with /p:WebPublishMethod.
For /p:MSDeployServiceUrl it is enough to only provide a DNS name or IP. the port and the Url is automatically derived from the /p:MSDeployPublishingMethod=WMSVC.
The custom parameter /p:ServerURL is unknown and won't be mapped anywhere.
msbuild.exe {build-script.proj} /property:{someParameter=someValue}
In your build script you can use $(someParameter) as a variable

Making SSDT just generate a SQL script (and not deploy a database)

Having recently upgraded to SSDT 2012 I seem to be missing the option to just generate a T-SQL script instead of deploying the database to a server somewhere.
To be more accurate the predecessor to SSDT used to set the Deploy action to 'Generate script', but I cannot locate that option anywhere in the new version.
Is it possible?
To generate a script from an offline data project in SSDT rather than deploy to a target database, configure the project settings as shown below
You may want to look at the SQLPackage command line. You can set the options there to use an action of "script" and specify an outputfile name to generate scripts instead of publishing the database. You can also do that through a batch file so it will generate a script every time. You still need to provide a source project and target database, though. The reference for SQLPackage can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh550080%28v=VS.103%29.aspx
Yes, it is possible.
Is you select Build > Publish ProjectName... from the menu bar, a dialog window pops-up with publishing options – there's a Generate Script button at the bottom of the dialog window.
I also had a problem where the SSDT project would attempt to deploy changes when the project was run.
In the project properties, choose the "Debug" tab. Change the Start Action to "None". That will prevent it from trying to deploy at that time.