Here is my situation, I have a web app that contains:
An .exe (which is a .net project along with assembly files and so on)
ZIPped xml files
Folders containing js&css files
Now when executing the .exe it parses the xml inside the ZIPs to create html files( the end result is a complete html that imports some of the js libraries and css files).
Considering that I have basic experience in MS Azure, I am looking for a way to have my application run on azure? My guess is that the ZIPped xmls could be stored most probably using blob storage along with the js and css files. What I am not sure of is how to get the executable running there(Possibly deploying the .exe with its corresponding resources,assemblies,dlls etc...) and have it execute from there.
If you really want to use a home grown build process (your exe) then you need to use cloud services (your own VM) where you can run this and expose your website over whatever ports you want. However it sounds like you are new to .Net, I'd suggest reading up on ASP.Net MVC Web Projects. That way you can leverage Visual Studio for building the website and deploy to a Azure Website, which is designed to host websites.
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I am creating foxx services, right now I am doing it in VS Code and uploading the zip file in the services section with a mount point in DEVELOPMENT mode. Now I want to quick edit the foxx service in web interface itself. I was reading this possible but for some reason I do not get an option to edit it using web interface. Am I missing some configuration/setting or something.
One way to do rapid development with Foxx is to use an IDE that automatically uploads modified files to a local 'deployment' location.
For example, if you use WebStorm IDE, and edit the files in a directory that is integrated with GIT, then you can checkout and check in your code.
WebStorm (or other IDE's as well) have a feature where they monitor edited files, and then automatically copy those files to a destination location.
You can set it up so that it notices when you save a file, then rather than zip it and deploy it via the web UI, it just copies the files to the directory that Foxx is using as the source of your web service.
If you have the Foxx service running in 'Development' mode, then it recompiles every invocation, so it will pick up the newly edited changes that just got copied in.
You need to find the target directory that you have your Foxx Service running out of, when you enable Development mode it will tell you the path in the Web UI.
Not sure if you can do that with VSCode, but if you can then that's the easiest way to do it.
I have a web job that uses an exe that is best called when it is sitting in a directory and can be located. The problem is that I don't know how to get this exe to be published with the web job. I tried using a resources folder in the webjob project and copying them to output directory but that didn't upload them and so the only other option I can think of is uploading the files to a non temporary directory on the web site but that is leaking the encapsulation of the web job.
Any thoughts?
When you use visual studio to publish a webjob, it publishes all its dependencies as well. ie VS pushes all the dependencies available under the bin folder. So, add a reference to the dependent project and VS will take care of publishing this dependency as well.
For a project I am currently working on, I need to create a setup application for an existing desktop application. The setup application will be downloaded from a website, and will download required files to the correct locations. When the application is started, it will look for newer versions of these files, download them if any exist, then start the application.
I am using Visual Studio Online with TFVC, linked to Azure. I have a test application set up so that when I trigger a build, Release Management finds the build directory, and moves the files to Azure Blob Storage, but prepends a GUID to the file names being transferred. So what I have in my storage container is:
{Some GUID}/2390/Test.exe
{Some GUID}/2389/Test.exe
{Some GUID}/2387/Test.exe
...
What I want in my container is the latest version of Test.exe, so I can connect to the container, and determine whether I want to download or not.
I have put together a NullSoft installer that checks a website, and downloads files. I have also written a NullSoft "launcher" that will compare local file versions with versions on the website (using a version xml file on the website), and download if newer, then launch the application. What I need to figure out is how to get the newer files to the website after a build, with automation being one of the goals.
I am an intern, and new to deployment in general, and I don't even know if I'm going about this the right way.
Questions:
Does what I am doing make sense for what I am trying to accomplish?
We are trying to emulate ClickOnce functionality, but can't use ClickOnce due to the fact that the application dynamically loads a number of DLLs. Is there a way to configure ClickOnce to include non-referenced DLLs?
Is there a best practice for doing what I'm describing?
I appreciate any advice, links to references, or real-world examples.
You are mentioning ClickOnce, which you investigated but can't use. Have you already tried an alternative: Squirrel? With Squirrel you can specify which files should be part of the installation, allowing you to explicitly specify which files to include even if you load them dynamically.
Link: https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows
Squirrel is a full framework for creating an auto-update application and can work with Azure Blob Storage hosting (and also CDN if you need to scale up)
I have an app that synchronises content with a web server so that the app ends up with an offline and cut down version of the server based web pages. All text and html is stored in a SQLite database but what is the best approach for handling file assets? In my case this is a mix of image and audio files.
The synchronisation is all set up in the core project and my Touch project has a Content directory set up for storing the assets and my intention had been to have a similar setup for Droid. I could pass the list of files needed to the UI projects and download them from there but that seems wrong.
Thanks.
For that I would create a Service in Mvx which the ViewModels you create use for getting the external assets. Take for instance the Daily Dilbert Tutorial. You could consider the daily comics as being very similar to your external assets, where the DilbertService is used to get all the comics and presents them in a List. However your list could be a list of files located on the SDcard or where you decide to store your files.
I have a Ruby on Rails application that needs to find a home in an Azure Worker Role.
I currently automate the deployment of the application with a batch file - a file that takes the apache and ruby installers, runs them, and then drops the RoR app in the appropriate directory. After the batch script finishes, Apache is serving to and from the application via port 80.
I'm new to Azure and trying to figure out how to do this.
From my understanding, I have two options here: OnStart with the installation files in Blob Storage, or a startup script. I'm not sure how to do the latter, but I have located the onStart method within the WorkerRole.vb file in the new Azure project I just created.
My question: Is it recommended to use OnStart to deploy the application (using the batch script)? If so, how would I go about integrating the script into the project? And - how do I get started with storing and referencing the files in blob storage?
I know these are super high-level questions. Any input or suggested reading would be super helpful. I have tried to google / search for relevant resources but haven't been able to find much. Thank you for your time!
When you are inside OnStart() function it is better to do role configuration things i.e. IP binding, etc however if you would want to install runtime, download application zip, configured role specific setting, it is best to use Startup task. Please visit my blog Windows Azure: Startup task or OnStart(), which to choose? to learn more about it.
Now in your case it is best to use Startup task. What you can do it as below:
Create your ROR package a zip and place it at Windows Azure Blob Storage
Create a Cmmmand batch file which will do:
2.1 Download the ZIP
2.2 Unzip to Zip content to a specific location
2.3 Update the status back to AZure Blob Storage (Optional)
In your OnStart() function you just need to configure the ROR
The code will look as below if you have TCP Endpoint name "RORWeb80" set to use port 80:
TcpListener RoRPortListener = new TcpListener(RoleEnvironment.CurrentRoleInstance.InstanceEndpoints["RORWeb80"].IPEndpoint);
RoRPortListener.Start();
I have written a sample app for Tomcat/Java based worker role which does exactly the same. So what you can do it just replace the Tomcat ZIP file with ROR ZIP and reuse the code exactly.
As long as you don't need admin-level access (e.g. modifying registry, installing msi's, etc.) you can do your setup from OnStart(), including launching your script. Just include the startup script with your project (don't forget to set Copy Local to true).
Same goes with startup script: you call your cmd file, which then executes the sequence for you. And if you give it elevated permissions, you can run installers, modify registry settings, install custom perf counters, whatever.
In either case: you can keep your apache zip, ruby installers, etc. in blob storage and, at startup, download them to local storage. This saves you from bundling everything within the deployment, which gives you a few advantages (being able to update ruby / apache without redeploy, reduced package size, etc.).
There's a sample app on codeplex that demonstrates the basics of setting up Tomcat via startup script. For one more example, you can look at the scripts installed via Eclipse Windows Azure plugin for Java. These scripts are quite similar. The key is to have some way of downloading files from blob storage and then unzipping them. the codeplex project I referred to points to a sample app that does simple blob downloading. The Eclipse packaging provides similar functionality in a .vbs app. Here's a snippet of one of my scripts from an Eclipse-based project:
SET SERVER_DIR_NAME=apache-tomcat-7.0.25
SET WAR_NAME=myapp.war
rd "\%ROLENAME%"
mklink /D "\%ROLENAME%" "%ROLEROOT%\approot"
cd /d "\%ROLENAME%"
cscript /NoLogo util\unzip.vbs jre7.zip "%CD%"
cscript /NoLogo util\unzip.vbs tomcat7.zip "%CD%"
copy %WAR_NAME% "%SERVER_DIR_NAME%\webapps\%WAR_NAME%"
cd "%SERVER_DIR_NAME%\bin"
set JAVA_HOME=\%ROLENAME%\jre7
set PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%\bin
cmd /c startup.bat
The codeplex project has a similar-looking script.
Don't forget: you'll need to set up an Input Endpoint for your role (part of the role properties).
To get blobs into blob storage, there are both free tools (like Clumsy Leaf CloudXplorer and paid tools (such as Cerebrata's Cloud Storage Studio).
To download blobs to local storage, you can either write a few lines of .net code (from OnStart) or just use the utility pointed to in the codeplex project.