With an Azure Web App that is deployed to via Visual Studio Team Services.
The 'bower install' build step works perfectly, as the next build step executes tests using these files and these tests pass.
After this, I need a method to copy the bower_components folder into the Azure Web App wwwroot folder. How do I do this?
You can use FTP Deploy to copy files to your Azure Web App folder. Check this link for reference: Windows Azure Website: Uploading/Downloading files over FTP and collecting Diagnostics logs.
To use FTP in your build easily, you can install FTP Uploader extension and then add it in your build definition to copy the files into Azure Web App via FTP.
Related
I am just getting to grips with deploying my asp.net application via release pipeline in Azure Devops.
Previously, I have been deploying my web app directly from Visual Studio using publish which works fine.
But when i have set this up in a Release pipline in Azure dev ops it doesnt work, when i try and load the page i just get:
'You do not have permission to view this directory or page'
and looking at the deployed files via Server Explorer I can see the files are in a 'Drop' folder
But when looking at the deployed files when deployed directly from VS it looks like:
I know this must be down to how I have configured either my build or release pipeline but i cannot see where.
Release pipeline
I see here that i set the path to the Drop folder, but i added that as without it it was failing....i think
I have an Azure DevOps release pipeline, deploying my code using Web Deploy to Azure Web app to different environments (Dev/ SIT/ UAT/ PROD). Now, I need to include a task to copy/ rename one Configuration file (environment specific), which is inside 'Config' folder, to another file inside the same folder. Please note, the config file is not under the root folder of the web app.
Is there a way to accomplish this using 'post deployment action' or command line script task? I couldn't understand how can I refer the source folder of the web app for the copy operation. I was referring the following page but couldn't find one that will help me to achieve the task. Any help is appreciated.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/release/variables?view=azure-devops&tabs=batch
The Post deploy action script is running on azure (through Kudu API): Command
So, if the file is existing on the azure web app, you could copy it through Post deploy action script, for example, Site.css is in wwwroot\Content folder after deploying, then the script could be like this:
Copy Content\site.css Content\site1.css /a
Otherwise, you could store the necessary data in App settings or Configurations of Azure Web app.
Setting up a Release definition task to deploy a MVC web app to a test server (on prem). Typically I have done this a FileSystem publish via a Visual Studio publish profile. What task can I use in VSTS to achieve the same thing, assuming I already have a working agent setup on the test server and a successful build?
The app is actually setup as a website on the test server, not a virtual app under another website. Looking at adding the "IIS Web App Deploy" task, VSTS reports that this task is "deprecated, so what is the suggested replacement for this?
I suppose I could use the Windows file copy task, but the build artifacts are zipped. What would I need to use if I went this route?
You can use Visual Studio Build task with /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem /p:publishUrl="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\\" /p:DeployDefaultTarget=WebPublish MSBuild Arguments to publish web app to artifact folder (e.g. {agent working folder}/1/a).
You also can specify the publish profile directly /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile="{publish profile name}";publishUrl="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)"
With FileSystem publish method, the published files are in a folder, not zipped, but you can zipped the folder through Archive files task.
Also you can extract files through Extract files task, so you can copy extracted files through Window machine file copy task to the corresponding web site path.
On the other hand, you can deploy the web app through WinRM-IIS Web App Deployment task.
How can I achieve CD (Continuous Delivery) for winform applications in VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services)? Currently this is what I have in my Visual Studio Solution file
1) A winform project
2) A Windows setup and Deployment project
So every time I build a winform project, I do the following steps (and I need CI / CD for exactly these)
1) Build Setup and Deployment project, which takes Build output of Winform project and creates and EXE / MSI
2) I take this MSI file and use NSIS to embed it inside EXE
3) I run SIGNTOOL from command prompt and digital sign the EXE
4) I upload this signed EXE to my website
Now how can I use CI / CD pipeline to automate the above or is it not possible for my case? I am confused. I can't find any material for winforms, all are for web apps.
Thanks
You will obviously need some sort of desktop deployment strategy. The easiest is to be using xcopy. Other alternatives include frameworks like ClickOnce, Windows Installer or Squirrel to name a few. I have a number of corporate apps that use Clickonce that I have deployed using vsts.
Now I am unable to understand how will VSTS help me with this?
Use VSTS to build the software first and include additional tasks to package your app. In my case, I use devenv.exe to generate ClickOnce packages, but you can include custom tasks by using powershell. The artifact of the build should now be the "packaged app".
Then use the VSTS deployment to copy the "package" to some kind of hosting server from where your users can download the package. That could be either a web server or a fileserver or any location appropriate for your deployment strategy.
In this context, VSTS is an orchestration tool. It helps to trigger actions for you.
See Deploy an agent on Windows to see how to setup an on-premise agent.
To build and deploy the way as you used in VSTS, you can use below steps:
Create a repository (Git or TFVC) and push your solution in the repository.
Add build/release definitions.
With CI build, enable the Continuous Integration in Triggers Tab. With CD deploy, enable Continuous deployment trigger in Pipeline Tab. The process for CI build and CD deploy, you can refer CI/CD.
Add related tasks in your build/release definition.
Build VS Installer task: build setup project with msi file.
Nsis Build Task: embedded msi file in exe.
Command Line task: to execute the signtool command. Since Hosted agent has not signtool.exe, so you should use private agent which has the signtool.exe on the machine.
Copy files task, Copy Files Over SSH task or Windows Machine File copy task: upload the file exe to your web server.
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/