How do you use MSDeploy to sync a whole solution over http? - msbuild

Question

I'm able to use MSDeploy to deploy one project at a time with the Visual Studio 2010 SP1 "Publish" wizard. I deploy over http.
My visual studio solution contains many projects and some depends on shared DLL. Is it possible to sync a whole solution?
My goal would be to fully automate deployment.
Carl

Answer 1

Why don't you use WDeploy directly from the command line? You can specify a manifest file, where you'd put all necessary components for deployment and then sync against manifest msdeploy provider:
Source manifest (Source.xml)
<MyDeployment>
<appHostConfig path="MyLocalSiteName" />
<!--
You can also use iisApp depending on what permissions you have on the remote server.
If you have permissions execute appHostConfig that will create a site if the site does not exist.
-->
<iisApp path="MyLocalSiteName\MyApp" />
<dirPath path="C:\Solution\Project1" />
<dirPath path="C:\Solution\Project2" />
<gacAssembly path="My.GACed.Assembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1111111111'" />
</MyDeployment>
Destination manifest (Destination.xml)
<MyDeployment>
<appHostConfig path="MyRemoteSiteName" />
<iisApp path="MyRemoteSiteName\MyApp" />
<dirPath path="\\RemoteServerShare\Solution\Project1" />
<dirPath path="\\RemoteServerShare\Solution\Project2" />
<gacAssembly path="My.GACed.Assembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1111111111'" />
</MyDeployment>
And the command line would be:
msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:manifest=Source.xml -dest:manifest=Destination.xml,computername=MyServer
... to go against MSDeploy agent, or
msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:manifest=Source.xml -dest:manifest=Destination.xml,wmsvc=MyServer,username=User2,password=4321,authtype=basic
... to against WMSvc.
This blog post can get you started on the manifest provider and this TechNet article can explain some useful provider settings.