I'm currently using MSBuild to create an MSDeploy package by passing in arguments:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=Package
I'm using a parameters.xml file (placed at the root of my website). Another SO question I found tries to set up the application pool.
My parameters.xml file:
<parameters>
<parameter name="Application Pool Name" description="Application Pool for this site" tags="" defaultValue="ASP.NET v4.0">
<parameterEntry kind="DeploymentObjectAttribute"
scope="application"
match="/application/#applicationPool" />
</parameter>
...
</parameters>
but it seems that the archive.xml file inside the msdeploy package generated by the msbuild doesn't have an section with an applicationPool element
How can I get the archive.xml to be generated with this section so that I can set the application pool?
The app pool I want to set will exist already, so I'm not concerned with MSDeploy synching or creating app pools here.
Edit:
I have found this question How do I control the AppPool used for deploy through VS & MSDeploy settings which hints at using wpp.targets to generate a custom provider. I'm exploring how to use this approach to modify the archive.xml file
Assuming you have the correct IIS settings on your project and are running as Administrator, you should be able to specify IncludeIisSettings=true to have the settings included in the zip.
If you need the actual AppPool definition included (so it can be created), you should also set IncludeAppPool=true.
Related
Overview
I am building a deployable web package that can be imported into IIS that automatically prompts for settings needed by my ASP.NET Core application. I already created a package that will deploy just fine, except after deploying, I need to manually find/edit my appsettings.json file.
I know this package can include a parameters.xml file that will automatically prompt and fill in my appsettings.json when importing an app into IIS. I have already made a parameters.xml file, and manually added it to my package after building it; it worked as expected. I'd just like to have msbuild automatically add the parameters.xml file to the package for me.
A separate project of mine (ASP.NET MVC 4) already does this. For that, I simply needed to put my parameters.xml in the same folder as my .csproj. I tried doing the same here, but had no luck.
Repro Steps
I created an ASP.NET Core Web Application
Using .NET Framework on ASP.NET Core 1.1
I then went to publish my website
Selected 'Folder' (just to get a template)
I then edited the profile and changed the WebPublishMethod to Package and added the three lines below it.
<DesktopBuildPackageLocation>bin\$(Configuration)\$(MSBuildProjectName).zip</DesktopBuildPackageLocation>
<PackageAsSingleFile>true</PackageAsSingleFile>
<DeployIisAppPath>External</DeployIisAppPath>
I then published one more time. Now I get a WebDeploy package that I can deploy to IIS.
Great! but...
I'd like to customize the parameters.xml.
For previous projects, I was able to add a parameters.xml file to my project root, and VS/msbuild would automatically add it to my published package. This currently works for a different project using ASP.NET MVC 4.
So, I tried the same thing for this project. First I added a settings.json with a very simple setting:
{
"SettingName": ""
}
Then I added a parameters.xml file that I know works to my project root. (If I manually replace the parameters.xml file in Sample.zip package, it correctly prompts and replaces my setting when deploying)
<parameters>
<parameter name="IIS Web Application Name" value="External" tags="IisApp">
<parameterEntry kind="ProviderPath" scope="IisApp" match="^c:\\users\\joshs\\documents\\visual\ studio\ 2017\\Projects\\Sample\\Sample\\obj\\Release\\net461\\win7-x86\\PubTmp\\Out\\$" />
</parameter>
<parameter name="Setting Name" description="Enter a custom app setting" defaultValue="Default Setting Value">
<parameterEntry kind="TextFile" scope="obj\\Debug\\net461\\win7-x86\\PubTmp\\Out\\appsettings\.json$" match="(?<=\"SettingName\"\s*:\s*\")[^\"]*" />
</parameter>
</parameters>
Again, I right click and Publish once more. This time with the parameters.xml file.
I expect the Sample.zip to contain the parameters.xml that I added to my project root, but it does not. It is the exact same as from my original publish.
Question
During the build process when creating a web deploy package, how do you include custom settings in the parameters.xml?
I have already tried this...
I already looked at https://stackoverflow.com/a/46338042/2494785, but with no luck, though my command differed slightly from the original poster.
PS C:\Users\joshs\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Projects\Sample> & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\E
nterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe' .\Sample.sln /t:Sample /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=FolderProfile /p:
ProjectParametersXMLFile="C:\Temp\parameters.xml"
I was able to solve this from peteawood's comment from an issue posted on GitHub.
https://github.com/aspnet/websdk/issues/201#issuecomment-349990389
In ASP.NET Core 2.0+ you can add the following to your .csproj
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
.
.
<Target Name="AddMoreParameters" AfterTargets="_CreateParameterFiles">
<Copy SourceFiles="Parameters.xml" DestinationFiles="$(_MSDeployParametersFilePath)" />
</Target>
</Project>
SourceFiles should point to the location of your parameters.xml file from the perspective of the .csproj file. My parameters.xml is found in the same directory as my project file.
I believe I can just pass parameters via cmd-line as properties for msbuild.
It's not fully what you asked for I understand.
For example, in the following command I'm passing DeployIisAppPath property:
dotnet publish /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:DeployIisAppPath=mysite/myapp /p:PublishProfile=rnddev03-core-dev
and in the output folder we'll get xxx.SetParameters.xml file with:
<parameters>
<setParameter name="IIS Web Application Name" value="mysite/myapp" />
</parameters>
I am using msDeploy (3.0) to deploy my MVC applicaiton. I have a build pipeline that generates build artifacts for msdeploy and my deploy pipeline applies appropriate web.config transforms on the Web.config before deploying it to the production instances. One of the transforms includes changes to connection string. However, looking at the deployed instances, it seems like my web.config transforms are being overriden by the parameters in setParameters.xml in my build artifacts.
Ideal behavior would be that I would be to avoid adding any Connection string to the SetParameter.xml so that all my connection string overrides will be controlled by my deployment pipeline only. How do I achieve that?
Below is a sample of SetParameters.xml file
<parameters>
<setParameter name="IIS Web Application Name" value="Default/Foo"/>
<setParameter name="Foo-Web.config Connection String" value="Server=Foo,1433;Database=Bar;Integrated Security=SSPI;MultiSubnetFailover=True;App=Something;Connection Timeout=25"/>
</parameters>
Ideally it would look something like
<parameters>
<setParameter name="IIS Web Application Name" value="Default/Foo"/>
</parameters>
I have already tried passing a parameters.xml file to the msbuild step that does not contain the connectsion string parameter but that did not work
After bang my head against the wall for several hours, I finally figured out the solution. MsBuild takes in a parameter - p:AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false that prevents the connection strings from being parameterized. Unfortunately, there is little or no documentation on this parameter.
You can also set this on a per project basis adding
<AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>false</AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>
to the PropertyGroup of your build configuration.
I use MSBuild to build and deploy a web application.
MSBuild.exe MySite.csproj /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:WebPublishMethod=MSDeploy /p:MSDeployServiceURL=mysite.example.com
My site connects to a SQL Server database.
<connectionStrings>
<add name="dbconnection"
connectionString ="Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=MySite;Integrated Security=SSPI;"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
I develop against a local database, but the connection string needs to be changed when the site is deployed to test or production servers.
I have declared a deployment parameter named dbconnection in a file named parameters.xml
<parameter name="dbconnection"
defaultValue="Data Source={server};Initial Catalog={database};Integrated Security=SSPI;"
tags="DBConnectionString">
<parameterEntry type="XmlFile"
scope="\\Web.config$"
match="/configuration/connectionStrings/add[#name='dbconnection']/#connectionString"/>
</parameter>
I could easily create a parameterized web deploy package and deploy it with msdeploy.
msdeploy -verb:sync
-source:package:MySite.zip
-dest:iisApp="Site1/MySite"
-setParam:name=dbconnection,value="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=MySiteTest;Integrated Security=SSPI"
However, I'd really like to be able to do everything in MSBuild. What is the MSBuild equivalent of -setParam?
Parameterization is not used when debugging locally. So all you should have to do is set the defaultValue in your parameters.xml file to your desired connection string.
We create a SetParameters file for each environment (DEV, QA, MOCK, PROD) and call MSDeploy after MSBuild creates a WebDeploy package with the appropriate setParam file. I don't believe there is way to use a custom SetParameters file when deploying directly from MSBuild.
Here is a post that further describes parameterization:
http://dotnetcatch.com/2014/09/08/parameterizationpreview-visual-studio-extension/
UPDATE:
Steven and I worked further outside of SO to understand his use cases better. We confirmed again the MSDeployPublish target does not support setting parameter value overrides. To solve his use case I wrote some MSBuild script to provide the functionality he was looking for and wrote a blog post about it -
http://dotnetcatch.com/2016/04/27/setparameters-via-msbuild-commandline/
It basically works by passing a SetParameters file or list of key/value pairs via MSBuild Properties on the MSBuild.exe commandline. The MSBuild script parses that out and overrides the parameters by setting the MsDeployDeclareParameters ItemGroup.
msdeploy.exe ... /p:MSDeployPublishSetParametersFile=SetParameters.Test.xml
msdeploy.exe ... /p:MSDeployPublishSetParameters=testSetting='changed_fromSetParam';IIS Web Application Name='Default Web Site/app13'
I am trying to find a way to run MVC6 application on IIS but without actually doing the publish. I am not sure if that is possible, and if not will it be possible in the future?
I would like to have similar behavior like on previous versions where I could easily debug my code and make changes while the application is running under IIS.
From your original question (emphasis added):
I am trying to find a way to run MVC6 application on IIS but without actually doing the publish.
From your comment to tugberk (emphasis added):
Right now every time when I make a change I need to call that dnu publish command in order to see my changes on IIS. I would like to see them only by doing rebuild.
Answer and reasons
You'll need to publish. There are at least two reasons:
IIS needs build output and
IIS needs a web.config file.
IIS might need a few other things too, about which I'm not aware. So, you'll need to publish. This isn't a big deal: after the onetime setup, publish doesn't take much longer than rebuild does.
Why do you need to publish?
In Visual Studio 2015, if you build an ASP.NET 5 web app, there will be no build output under your solution's directory, and IIS needs build output. By default Roslyn only runs code analysis without emitting build output.
You can change that default, so that Roslyn does emit build output, but that won't produce the web.config file that IIS needs. By going to View > Project Properties > Build and checking "Produce outputs on build", Roslyn will emit output to the artifacts directory. E.g:
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/MyWebApp.1.0.0.nupkg
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/MyWebApp.1.0.0.symbols.nupkg
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/app/project.json
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnx451/MyWebApp.dll
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnx451/MyWebApp.pdb
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnx451/MyWebApp.xml
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnxcore50/MyWebApp.dll
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnxcore50/MyWebApp.pdb
artifacts/bin/MyWebApp/Debug/dnxcore50/MyWebApp.xml
If you point IIS at the artifacts directory, you'll now have the problem of having neither a wwwroot nor a web.config.
So, you need to publish (or work out some other convoluted solution) for IIS to work with ASP.NET 5. There is a onetime setup if you want to publish from Visual Studio to a local IIS website. After the onetime setup, you can make changes to your code and publish in two clicks. Here's the onetime setup:
Right click the project.
Choose Publish.
Select File System and add a profile name (e.g. inetpub).
Change the target location to C:\inetpub\MyWebApp
In Settings, select appropriate settings. E.g.
Configuration: Debug
Target DNX Version: dnx-clr-win-x64.1.0.0-beta4
Click Publish.
Once publish completes, point IIS at C:\inetpub\MyWebApp\wwwroot and you will be able to browse to the web site. Further to the point, you can now change your code, publish in two clicks, and refresh your IIS site to see the changes.
Some gotchas
If you do choose to publish to inetpub, be sure to run Visual Studio as administrator, lest you receive an insufficient permissions error.
If you accept the default publish location (instead of using inetpub as shown above) watch out for path too long errors (i.e. > 260 characters.)
Final thoughts
Why not use Visual Studio and Debug > Start without debugging during development. With Roslyn and Visual Studio 2015, you can make changes to the code and see those changes by refreshing the web browser. No rebuild is necessary. It's a much nicer workflow.
It's possible. Under the root of your project (project.json directory), run the following command:
dnu publish --runtime active --out bin/artifacts
Once the publish is done, you have some stuff under bin/artifacts folder. Point IIS application pool to bin/artifacts/wwwroot folder we have just created and it should work. Keep in mind that you at least need .NET 4.5.1.
I'm assuming this is a development on IIS question. It's doable but it requires some work. The reason IIS doesn't work out of the box without a publish is because there is no user profile setup on app pools by default. The simplest thing you can do is to enable the user profile on the app pool, that will allow IIS to find the runtime in the user profile folder. On top of that, you require a web.config to specify which version of the runtime to use (dnu publish generates this for you so if you want, you can do a publish and copy the runtime folder). After doing that, pointing IIS to the wwwroot should just work (assuming you setup the right web.config with the right runtime and the right bitness).
You also need the correct AspNet.Loader.dll in the bin folder. If you use visual studio, it'll copy it in the right place.
Based on davidfowl answer i ran ASP.NET MVC6 on IIS without publishing application. But i still can't start debug it by F5(only by attaching to w3wp.exe).
Anyway i hope it would be helpful:
In the root of the project add "packages" directory(or name it whatever you like).
In global.json file add "packages": "packages". e.g.:
{
"projects": [
"src",
"test",
"wrap"
],
"sdk": {
"version": "1.0.0-beta4"
},
"packages": "packages" // <--
}
Packages will be now stored in this directory.
Create a "runtimes" directory in the root of your project.
Copy a runtimes from %userprofile%/.dnx/runtimes to /path/to/your/project/runtimes
Create a web.config in wwwroot of you project. e.g.:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="bootstrapper-version" value="1.0.0-beta4" />
<add key="dnx-version" value="1.0.0-beta4" />
<add key="dnx-clr" value="clr" />
<add key="dnx-app-base" value=".." />
<add key="runtime-path" value="../../../runtimes" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Create web application in IIS and point it to your project wwwroot.
My project directory structure:
Projects/
vNext/
packages/
runtimes/
dnx-clr-win-x64.1.0.0-beta4/
dnx-clr-win-x86.1.0.0-beta4/
...
src/
vNext/
wwwroot/ <-- IIS web application points here
web.config
...
project.json
...
global.json
vNext.sln
...
After this you will be able to attach to w3wp.exe and debug your application running under IIS.
I've been using web.config transforms for a while now, for deployment on a few of our projects. What I'm now trying to achieve, is to have Web Deploy's 'Import Package' screen to prompt to check & update several of the variables in , adjusted for each environment.
I know I can use Parameters.xml to introduce these editable variables, but I haven't yet found how to have the defaults updated for different environment targets.
Consider the following neat, but non-overlapping example of wanting to have the user edit the 'specialServer' AppSetting, and have it present a different default when compiled for the NewEnv target:
Sample entry in Parameters.xml:
<parameter name="Special server" description="" tags="" defaultValue="server1-dev.domain">
<parameterEntry kind="XmlFile" scope="\\web.config$" match="/configuration/appSettings/add[#key='specialServer']/#value" />
</parameter>
Sample transform for Web.NewEnv.config, setting a different value for
<appSettings>
<add key="specialServer"
value="other-server.domain2"
xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(key)"/>
</appSettings>
Sample of the prompt in Web Deploy:
Any suggestions as to how to update the default value for different build targets?
Thanks.
You would have to generate and new parameters definition file and embed it in your WebDeploy package for each environment.
This would give you different deploy packages per environment and would allow you to specify different default values for those parameters. Obviously doing so undermines the point if parameter transforms and you essentially end up baking in your config, but it's the only way to achieve what you want.
I don't recommend the approach but it may fit your needs.
We use a batch script to call msdeploy. It allows for a parm to specify the Parameters.xml file. Then with multiple Parameters.xml files (one per environment), you can just call msdeploy like:
"C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe" -source:package='D:\mysite.zip' -dest:auto,computerName="testcomp1",includeAcls="False" -verb:sync -disableLink:AppPoolExtension -disableLink:ContentExtension -disableLink:CertificateExtension -setParamFile:"D:\mysite.test.SetParameters.xml"