This checkbox always makes me nervous. Is there anyway to completely remove the checkbox? I know its unchecked by default, but i would feel better if i knew that anyone cant check it.
You can't remove the checkbox and this really comes down to automating what you do and not giving people permissions to do something by mistake :)
1 - Automate Deployments
If you are deploying to databases other than developer specific instances then stop, developers in visual studio should only be able to "break" their own machines and private databases which is fine as they can fix them themselves.
To deploy to other environments (test, qa, prod etc) then you shouldn't be using visual studio as it is too easy to make mistakes, instead take the dacpac that is the output from ssdt and have a script call sqlpackage.exe with the correct argumments to deploy it - ideally this would be done on a build server as part of a build.
If you do this then no one can accidentally click that box, which I agree sounds scary :)
2 - Permissions
Secondly you need to make sure that developers (or anyone) doesn't have permission to accidentally deploy to the wrong server by restricting permissions. If you do not do this you are asking for trouble (most likely accidental but trouble nonetheless).
Hope it helps :)
ed
Related
I have a question regarding the nunit3-console. When running tests through it I am observing a generation of log files like internal-trace and nunit-agent text files.
I was able to disable the generation of the internal-trace with the --trace=off option but for each run having the test .dll specified I am noticing a nunit-agentNumber.txt file generated.
My question is, is this a problem? More specifically for CI/CD and is there an option to disable this? Or clean it at least after each run.
Version 3.15 of the engine introduced a new internal feature, allowing code to change the level of debugging dynamically. (Not yet exposed to users, but intended to be eventually)
As a side effect, it looks as if empty log files are being created. For the moment, the only way to avoid this is to go back to the previous release.
A fix was created in the development code for version 4.0, but has not been ported back to the version 3 code. A bug report might help with that. :-)
I'm using Visual Studio Online's build tools to deploy web applications from a single solution. I've occasionally been running into file locking issues.
Error: Web Deploy cannot modify the file 'Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.dll' on the destination because it is locked by an external process.
After some Googling, I believe the "fix" is to stop the web applications before deployment on Azure and start it back up after. Sounds legit.
However, there does not seem to be a straight forward way to do this directly on VSO's build definitions. I've created an "Azure Powershell" build task, but it wants a PS1 file from the repository. It doesn't seem to let me just run Azure Powershell commands (e.g. Stop-AzureWebsite) from here. My team has created a work-around where we have a "run.ps1" that just executes the command you pass as a parameter, but none of us are satisfied by that.
What are we missing? There has got to be an easier way to do this without having a PS1 script checked into source control.
I solved this by installing Azure App Services - Start and Stop extension from Visual Studio Marketplace.
When installed, it will allow you to wrap the Deploy Website to Azure task in your Release definition with Azure AppServices Stop and Azure AppServices Start tasks, effectively eliminating the lock issues.
Check if you are using "/" on the "Web Deploy Package" path for folder separators instead of "\".
i.e. change
$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/My Project/drop/MyFolder/MyFile.zip
for
$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)\My Project\drop\MyFolder\MyFile.zip
I noticed that was the only difference between the one I was getting the error and the others (the Restart step I added was not helping). Once I modified the path, I got it working.
Sounds crappy, but fixed my issue.
Did you use the Build Deployment Template that sets the correct msbuild parameters for you for your package? You can see how here. I would create a build using that template and see if you have the same issues. If so ping me on Twitter #DonovanBrown and I will see if I can figure what is going on.
As a rule it is good practice to have any scripts or commands required to deploy your software to be checked into source control as part of your build. They can then be easily run repeatedly with little configuration at the build level. This provides consistency and transparency.
Even better is to have deployment scripts output as part of the build and use a Release Management tool to control the actual deployment.
Regardless having configuration as code is a mantra that all Dev and Ops teams should live by.
There's plenty of information/blogs/msdn articles around on NOT using GACUtil in your Deployment/Release scenarios and that MSI or another windows installer technology is a far better option.
However is it still appropriate to use GACUtil in your Development work flow.
We have a number of DLLs that are strong named & referenced from the GAC. In order to keep the development team in sync, once a new version of the GAC-able DLL is generated it's automatically added to all other developers GAC's as part of their daily trunk checkout. Workflow goes something like:
A Developers makes a change to one of our GAC-able assemblies, tests it locally, and once signed off, compiles a release version of the DLL
Release version is copied from \Project_DIR\bin\Release*.dll -> \COMPANY_GAC\Current*.dll
Other devs run our Source Control check out batch scripts which:
Check out newest versions of COMPANY_GAC\Current*.dll
Run GacUtil.exe on each DLL
This has worked for us up until now, but it's getting a little more complex with:
- Larger Team, more stringent management of GAC Changes.
- CLR2.0 & CLR4.0 compiled Company_Gac assemblies requiring different versions of GACUtil.exe
- Managing assemblies on Build/Integration Servers which have multiple feature branches (and hence having to hot-swap different GAC Dlls)
Should we be looking at something more robust that GACUtil & Scripts to manage this?
One consideration was to roll something ourselves in powershell to check the Assembly type and add the assemblies to the correct GAC. Has anyone done this?
Any other suggestions on how developers manage their GAC workflow would be welcome.
Not using gacutil.exe during deployment is an easy one: it isn't available on the target machine since it is a Windows SDK utility and it is not a re-distributable component.
Using it during development certainly isn't popular. Most typically you'd use a solution with the dependent projects included so that you'll automatically get the latest build with local deployment and no need for the GAC. That goes well up to a point, build times can require starting distributing swords when the solution gets too massive.
No magic solutions past that point, the GAC certainly helps to get build times down again. In general, churn in the foundation assemblies should start with minus 1000 points, they can cause a lot of pain. Save them up for only, say, weekly release updates. Off hand, there's also the core need to get all this stuff properly installed on the client machines. If nobody has focused on that yet, maybe now is a good time to get that solid. Which automatically gets debugged when everybody uses it to get the assemblies they need on their machine.
I have a ClickOnce deployment that has different web service endpoints and strings that need to be changed in Settings.Settings. Right now I am only having to deal with on localized development version being done in house and one version that i push out to the customer for their UAT. Now i need 4 versions of this application. in house dev and testing, customer testing and production. I also need these 4 deployments to be able to be installed along side each other. I have discovered that i can change the name (i.e. APP -- INTERNAL -- TEST, APP -- INTERNAL -- DEV, APP -- CUST -- TEST, APP -- CUST -- PROD) and that will allow them all to be installed alongside each other. But, having to remember every place a string needs changed in the various settings.setting of each build, swapping the end points, changing the application names, changing the certificate, changing the deploy addreess and the url for each different build is time consuming and cumbersome. Is there a way to just say "Publish internal test build" and have it do the right thing? I was going to just write various mage scripts but I dont thing that gets me around having to mess with the settings.settings stuff. i didnt write this application nor maintain it but I suppose i could go in and use some sort of conditional logic, but the connections strings for instance are wired to reports and table adapter etc... P.S. I hate ClickOnce
Ok, for a useful answer and not a critique of my writing style. mage.exe is severly lacking in options on what it can an cannot do, it is also poorly documented and does not work as advertised. In order to accomplish what I wanted, I had to download sed for windows and write .bat files to manually rename files to .deploy. I used sed to edit the manifest files and flip options on and off and keep track of the different deployments. So in short write a batch file using mage.exe and sed and have a very good understanding of the contents of a manifest file. Feel free to contact me and I can send scripts that will automate multiple ClickOnce deployments, add the .deploy extension, require a specific version number before start up etc... none of these are possible using the tools MSFT provides.
I've been trying to figure this out and so far haven't found a simple solution. Is it really that hard to deploy a database project (and a web site) using TFS 2010 as part of the build process?
I've found one example that involved lots of complicated checks and editing the workflow (which is a giant workflow btw).
I've even purchased the book "professional application lifecycle management with VS 2010", but apparently professionals don't deploy their applications since it isn't even mentioned in the book.
I know I'm retarded when it comes to TFS, but it seems like there should be any easy way to do this. Is there?
I can't speak for the database portion, but I just went through this on the web portion, the magic part is not very well documented component, namely the MSBuild Parameters.
In your build definition:
Process on the Left
Required > Items to Build > Configurations to Build
Edit, add a new one, for this example
Configuration: Dev (I cover how to create a configuration below)
Platform: Any CPU
Advanced > MSBuild Process
Use the following arguments (at least for me, your publish method may vary).
MsBuild Params:
/p:MSDeployServiceURL="http://myserver"
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True
/p:username=aduser
/p:password=adpassword
Requirements:
You need to install the MS Deploy Remote Agent Service on the destination web server, MSDeploy needs to be on the Build/Deployer server as well, but this should be the case by default.
The account you use in the params above needs admin access, at least to IIS...I'm not sure what the minimum permission requirements are.
You configure which WebSite/Virtual Directory the site goes to in the Web project you're deploying. Personally I have a build configuration for each environment, this makes the builds very easy to handle and organize. For example we have Release, Debug and Dev (there are more but for this example that's it). Only the Web project has a Dev configuration.
To do this, right click the solution, Configuration Manager..., On the web project click the configuration drop down, click New.... Give it a name, "Dev" for this example, copy settings from debug or release, whatever matches closest to what your deployment server environment should be. Make sure "Create new solution configurations" is checked, it is by default. After creating this, change the configuration dropdown on the solution to the new Dev one, and Any CPU...make sure your projects are all correct, I had some flipping to x86 and x64 randomly, not sure of the exact cause of that).
In your web project, right click, properties. On the left, click Package/Publish Web (you'll also want to mess with the other Package/Publish SQL tab, but I can't speak to that). In the options on the right click Create deployment package as a zip file. The default location is fine, the next textbox I didn't find documented anywhere. The format is this: WebSite/Virtual Directory, so if you have a site called "BuildSite" in IIS with no virtual directory (app == site root), you would have BuildSite only in this box. If it was in a virtual directory, you might have Default Web Site/BuildVirtualDirectory.
After you set all that, make sure to check-in the solution and web project so the build server has the configuration changes you made, then kick off a build :)
If you have more questions, I recommend you watch this video by Vishal Joshi, specifically around 22 and 59 minutes in, he covers the database portion as well...but I have no actual experience trying it since we're on top of a non MSSQL database.