When creating a new release definition in VSTS using the Azure Website Deployment template you get two tasks added automatically.
One of those tasks is the "Deploy Website to Azure". In that task there is a setting called "Additional Arguments". What is this setting for? And what does the defaults do?
-connectionString #{"$(ConnectionStringName)"="Server=tcp:$(ServerName).database.windows.net,1433;Database=$(DatabaseName);User ID=$(AdministratorLogin)#$(ServerName);Password=$(AdministratorLoginPassword);Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True;"}
I have checked the docs at https://www.visualstudio.com/docs/overview but I can't find a single paragraph where someone talks about this feature. Google hasn't been of any help either unfortunately. I would appreciate it if someone could explain.
The Azure Web App Deployment task uses Publish-AzureWebsiteProject command to publish the web deployment package just as starain mentioned. With this command, you can specify the "-ConnectionString" argument to configure the connection strings in the deployment. The setting in the task is used to do this.
As soon as you create a release definition with "Azure Website Deployment", you will see this setting, and you will also see the related variables created if you select "Configure variables...":
You can then update the connection strings by update the value of these variables.
Based on this article: https://github.com/Microsoft/vsts-tasks/blob/master/Tasks/AzureWebPowerShellDeployment/Publish-AzureWebDeployment.ps1, it uses Publish-AzureWebsiteProject command. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn722468.aspx
The Additional Arguments is used for extra arguments that not included, for example, the -connectionstring argument, which is to use for the deployment.
You may want to consider utilizing the Deploy Azure RM Web App task instead as it provides more capabilities and leverages the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) APIs instead of the legacy Azure Service Management infrastructure. Both use Web Deploy for actual deployment of the application. Please note that to use the ARM-based tasks, you need to configure a Azure Resource Manager Service endpoint (link is in the documentation referenced)
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I need to deploy an azure function app via Azure DevOps.
If I deploy via visual studio, it asks me to create a publish profile, where storage is specified.
I'm unsure how this works however with DevOps.
I have a build pipeline that builds the (.net core) function app, but on the release, I'm unsure how to proceed.
The Microsoft documentation is quite poor in my opinion, so would appreciate any expertise.
Thanks!
You have to create the underlying infrastructure prior to deploying the Azure Function to it.
There are steps you could user here and have an inline script job/stage within your pipeline:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/create-first-function-cli-csharp?tabs=azure-cli%2Cin-process#create-supporting-azure-resources-for-your-function
Alternatively you could use an ARM template or terraform to provision the app service and storage account as required.
I've got a sample github actions deployment of a function which uses the inline script method here:
https://github.com/brettmillerb/testfunctionapp/blob/master/.github/workflows/main.yml
I need help to understand better how to create complete CI/CD with Azure Devops for APim. Ok I already has explored the tools and read docs:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-api-management-devops-resource-kit
But I still have questions, my scenario:
APim dev instance with APi and operations created and others settings, as well APim prod instance created but empty.
I ran the extract tool and got the templates (not all), still need the Master (linked templates), and on this point seat my doubt, I already have 2 repos too(dev and prod).
How can I create the Master template, and how my changes from dev environment will be automatically applied to prod?
I didn't used the policyXMLBaseUrl parameters not sure what Path insert there, although seems #miaojiang inserted a folder from azure storage.
After some search and tries I deployed API's and Operations from an environment to another, but we still don't have a full automated scenario, where I make a change in a instance and that is automatically available.Is necessary to edit policies and definitions directly on the repositories or run the extract tool again.
I'm creating a test environment in Azure. I want to have an accurate script of what of the configuration so it's easy to replicate for other test, pre-prod and prod environments later on. The environment has an existing subscription, and I want the entire hierarchy of resources from Resource Groups through to Web Apps to be created by script.
I'm currently rolling my own script in PowerShell utilising AzureRm. This is working well, but I can't help feel I'm reinventing the wheel. What is the existing method for creating an entire Azure environment by script?
Yes, that way is called Azure Resource Manager Templates. Quote:
With Resource Manager, you can create a template (in JSON format) that defines the infrastructure and configuration of your Azure solution. By using a template, you can repeatedly deploy your solution throughout its lifecycle and have confidence your resources are deployed in a consistent state. When you create a solution from the portal, the solution automatically includes a deployment template. You do not have to create your template from scratch because you can start with the template for your solution and customize it to meet your specific needs. You can retrieve a template for an existing resource group by either exporting the current state of the resource group, or viewing the template used for a particular deployment. Viewing the exported template is a helpful way to learn about the template syntax.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-overview#template-deployment
Edit: you can use powershell, azure cli, azure cli2, azure sdk to deploy those templates (or simply Azure portal, search for "Template Deployment")
I am using VSTS Release management to deploy artifacts to IIS websites. I have several Web applications and web services to be deployed. So, i am trying to figure out what sort of tasks that best fits my situation.
I have created a build definition with Visual Studio Build Task for projects as this one:
which works fine but i need to add a task for copying the artifacts Under IIS Website Directory.
The other approach is to use IIS web deployment as a task in Release definition, so I created the build definition as:
However, it expects a Publish Profile (the build fails because it can't find it). I don't need to create a publish profile for each project in the application because this would be too much work.
Is there is a workaround for that or what is preferred approach for this?
You can update your build definition to generate a web deployment package and upload it to artifacts. And then in Release Management, add a task to run "projectname.deploy.cmd" in the deployment package to deploy it to your IIS server. Refer to this link for details: How to: Install a Deployment Package Using the deploy.cmd File Created by Visual Studio.
And you can also enable FTP Publishing on your IIS server and add a task in your release to publish the artifacts via FTP. You may need this task:
FTP Uploader.
My Continuous Delivery with TFS / VSTS – Server Configuration and Application Deployment with Release Management blog post (with reference to some previous posts) has all the details you need for deploying your artefacts to target nodes using Windows Machine File Copy tasks then use PowerShell on Target Machines tasks to get them in to correct locations and to do token replacement and anything else that's required.
I would recommend using PowerShell DSC so that IIS is properly configured before deployment but that's not required. Where possible for web apps I favour keeping things very simple by creating artefacts that contain all the web files that are needed for a particular folder and then just using plain xcopy for the deployment.
If you need more control you can also use my MSDeploy VSTS extension to deploy a MSDeploy package
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rschiefer.MSDeployAllTheThings
https://dotnetcatch.com/2016/04/20/msdeployallthethings-vststfs-extension-is-public/
I have a project that uses Entity Framework 6.x, ASP .NET WebApi 5.x. Data Access is in a secondary project inside the solution. I want to use VSTS (aka Visual Studio Online) to build and release it as a website to environments for integration/dev, qa, stage, and production. There are some great videos on Channel 9 that deal with the generic high-level description. (for example https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/DevOps-Release-Management and https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/DevOps-Fundamentals/Infrastructure-as-Code) There are all kinds of articles and videos about how to do migrations from inside Visual Studio including generating scripts.
Searching around the web I don't even find any older resources or concrete examples of continuous deployment with code first migrations. There must be examples and best practices for methods other than auto-migrations or SQL scripts.
I have configured a Web Deployment Package publish profile. I use it via the PublishProfile msbuild.exe directive. The package is added to the artifacts and then deployed by the Azure Web App Deployment task in each Release environment. However once this package is built, I don't know of a way of changing the connection string in the build package for each time it is released to an environment.
There is probably something I am overlooking, but how should environment specific migrations be done with via VSTS Release?
For Code First Migration, you can "Write App_Start code to run Migrations" or "Write Web.config transforms to configure the MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion initializer to run", refer to this article for details: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2014/04/09/ef-code-first-migrations-deployment-to-an-azure-cloud-service.aspx
For the connection string transformation with profile, you need to add a web.config file for the publish profile and then enter the connection string in this web.config. Refer to this link for details: http://awaitwisdom.com/publish-profile-config-transform/
I hate to answer my own questions here but, ultimately my research took me to the conclusion I am posting at length here. In sort, Web.config and Parameters.xml require some custom scripting that will require you to maintain your own deployment automation. These routes will still require you to additionally create your resource groups or manage them manually.
To avoid these complications and cobbling tools and scripts together, the whole operation can be achieved with two JSON files. These JSON deployment templates allow you to create or update your resource group when your deployment runs. They also allow you to automate setting appsettings and connectionstrings that overwrite your Web.config values in the same manner as you can through the Azure Portal.
the steps: (1) Add the two JSON files to the project setting the name of you connection string on line 88 (2) Add a Azure Resource Group Deployment task to the Release environment. (3) Set Template (WebSite.json) and Template Parameters (WebSite.parameters.json) paths in the task. (4) Set Override Template parameters to -hostingPlanName "myHostingPlan" -webSiteName "myWebsiteName" -connectionString "the-actual-connection-string" (5) make sure you are using the same website name in your Azure App Deployment task.
This does depend on having your code first migrations run via App_Start or something similar. I took the first part of #Eddie's suggestion since App_Start is easy to deal with and doesn't seem to run too often.
As a bonus you can add environment variables for any of this configuration so you can clone the environment and then just change the variables. This ultimately makes your application or api connection string a Release variable.