I am trying to automate build process (not Continuous Integration):
Get the code from TFS.
Compile and create build package.
Push the code to a desired shared location.
Should I consider using PowerShell or will msbuild through Command Prompt suffice?
Either will work. We use TFS build definitions to execute MSBuild and MSDeploy.exe commands for our deployments. You can build via the commandline with:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe
Then use MSDeploy to package the deployment and deploy:
msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dirPath="C:\source\myProject\bin\Release" -dest:package=c:\package.zip
msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:package=C:\package.zip -dest:iisApp="Site1/App1" -enableRule:DoNotDeleteRule
Related
The image above shows my Hello World project structure. I am trying to build the Setup-HelloWorld-x86.vdproj in Azure Pipeline in Self-Hosted Windows Agent (which is nothing but my local machine) by using the command line script task like shown in below image.
But I get the following error.
Kindly help me to build this Setup-HelloWorld-x86.vdproj
If you want to run the project via cmd devenv, you can refer to this doc.
As a workaround, you can install the extension Build VS Installer and use the task DutchWorkz - Build VS Installer(s) to build Visual Studio Installer Project in Azure Pipelines.
You can specify to build .sln or .vdproj to generate .msi file(s) in Task-mode option.
Update1
Thanks Tharunavignesh J for sharing.
The solution was to run the azure agent under proper account. Earlier my azure agent was running under some Network Service account, then I change it to the local account, then this cmd worked properly.
This other stack overflow link helped me get my visual studio installer project compiled with Azure DevOps pipelines. It is using yaml configuration instead of classic, but same steps / commands apply to both:
YAML Script for building Visual Studio Installer Projects using Azure DevOps
Basically the steps are:
Setup your variables to point to the tools
Download Nuget packages for your solution
Disable Out Of Process Builds command executed
Script task with the command line arguments to build your solution
Background
As part of our deployment pipeline we are creating our deployment artifact, by running several .xdt transforms on our build artifact as well as adding several additional files.
As the last step before publishing, we would like to invoke msdeploy.exe to build a "custom" webdeploy package from a folder containing the wwwroot-content - (msdeploy command for creating custom package found in this question Web Deploy - How to create a package with selected items)
We are using hosted agents (win 2017).
We wish to deploy to an Azure AppService.
Question
Is there a task in Azure DevOps, that allows you to invoke MsDeploy.exe manually, such that we can create a custom webdeploy package, before we deploy?
Is there a task in Azure DevOps, that allows you to invoke MsDeploy.exe manually, such that we can create a custom webdeploy package, before we deploy?
I am afraid there is no such task to invoke MsDeploy.exe manually. We need invoke it by command line task, just like Daniel comment.
As we know, the default installation will place msdeploy.exe in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe
To verify the msdeploy path on the hosted agents, I use a copy task with content **\msdeploy.exe:
Then use the Publish build artifacts to output the msdeploy.exe, I could get the result on the hosted agent vs2017-win2016 and windows-2019:
So, the the msdeploy path on the hosted agents vs2017-win2016 and windows-2019 is C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe. We could use command line task to invoke it.
Hope this helps.
Here is the exact CommandLine task that worked for me (without parameters though):
I need to iteratively run an npm command and want to do it from a PowerShell task in a VSTS build step. I cannot use "npm <command>" in PowerShell and have also tried to run commands using "C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.cmd" "<command>" and Invoke-Expression "C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.cmd" "<command>" in the PowerShell on the VSTS hosted build agent. How can I run npm commands from a PowerShell build step?
Additionally, the <command> is a custom script from my package.json file. It does not need to be custom. I only put it there to call in a custom npm VSTS build step.
You can call npm command directly through PowerShell task with Hosted agent.
Make sure the Working folder (package.json folder path) of PowerShell task is right.
Regarding custom script in package.json, you need to call it like npm run [script key].
You can call the npm command with the Start-Process and supplying the arguments through -ArgumentList switch seperated by commas
example Start-Process npm -ArgumentList "run","build" -wait
the -wait switch will wait for the task to be completed
I was using publish to folder option through Visual Studio by right-clicking on the project -> publish -> publish to folder. Result was always ready-to-copy project with applied transformations.
I wanted to automate this process using VSTS and have setup build on VSTS.
I used next steps:
- NuGet restore
- Build solution
- Publish Build Artifacts to $(build.artifactstagingdirectory)
- Windows machine file copy from $(build.artifactstagingdirectory) to remote machine using admin login and password
And finally I'm getting zip package on remote machine with complicated folder structure without applied transformations inside at all.
What is wrong? How I can setup same "publish to folder" as in Visual Studio but using VSTS?
Add below Target to your .csproj to enable transforming config files
<Target Name="TransformConfigFiles" AfterTargets="AfterBuild" Condition="'$(TransformConfigFiles)'=='true'">
<ItemGroup>
<DeleteAfterBuild Include="$(WebProjectOutputDir)\Web.*.config" />
</ItemGroup>
<TransformXml Source="Web.config" Transform="$(ProjectConfigTransformFileName)" Destination="$(WebProjectOutputDir)\Web.config" />
<Delete Files="#(DeleteAfterBuild)" /></Target>
In your build solution step add the following build arguments "/p:TransformConfigFiles=true" will make the config transformation using the above added target to .csproj
/p:TransformConfigFiles=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:OutDir="$(build.stagingDirectory)"
Then you can use a publish step to publish your $(build.stagingDirectory) contents. You can use $(build.stagingDirectory)_PublishedWebsites as path to publish if you only need the website output.
This will allow you to get the ms deploy package as well as xcopy deploy published website files.
You can use copy files task before the publish task to copy any additional files if you have any to $(build.stagingDirectory) and get them published as build artifacts.
Use VSTS release management with deployment groups to deploy your application to target server. You can use IIS deploy task to deploy to IIS using ms deploy package. If you are using web deploy package you can use a parameters.xml in your web app to get the web config parameters assigned to .setparameters.xml so that you can change values in the deployment time using IIS deployment task.
You are publishing web application through File System method, it is based on the specified configuration (e.g. Debug, Release) to transform web.config. So you need to check which configuration you specified in build solution task (e.g. Visual Studio Build task)
Simple tasks:
NuGet Tool Installer task
NuGet restore task
Visual Studio Build task (MSBuild Arguments: /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem /p:publishUrl="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\\" /p:DeployDefaultTarget=WebPublish; Platform: $(BuildPlatform); Configuration: $(BuildConfiguration)) Note: BuildPlatform and BuildConfiguration are build variables. It will publish web app to artifacts directory ([agent working folder]/1/a)
Publish Build Artifacts (Path to publish: $(build.artifactstagingdirectory))
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.