I have a Visual Studio 2012 solution containing a Windows service project and a web application project.
I want Team City (version 8.0.3) to create two zip files (one for the service and one for the web app) that I will deploy manually.
Should I create a build step to build the entire solution, followed by a build step to publish the Windows service and a build step to publish the web site (via publish profiles). Then use Artifact paths in General Settings to zip up these two published folders?
Or should I have just one build step to build the solution and then use the Artifact paths to create the two zip files?
Or is there a better way than either of the above?
You have to ask yourself if these two projects are linked and in which manner they should be built together.
My feeling is : if your projects are in the same solution, they are linked in some ways and have to be built together.
Then, you should build your solution (sln) and not projects (*proj).
Application organization
Generally, your build server should not redefine -too much- the way your applications are organized. You should always use your plateform application descriptor to build your applications.
In case of .NET and Visual Studio, the application descriptor is your solution (sln). It defines the needs and how your application have to be built.
If your project have to be built separately, they should be in differents solution unless you prefer to create specific solution configuration (in addition to Release & Debug).
Anyway, the solution is still the build entry point.
TeamCity
Speaking about TeamCity, different and standalone applications should be in separate build configurations.
The pure build (code compilation) should be in one build step and you should not use too much code compilation runners in one build configuration.
Your build configurations should reflect your applications farm logic.
If you need to link them in some ways which are related to packaging for example, you can link your build configurations through snapshot or artifact dependency.
Related
I am trying to setup the CI for Azure Web Jobs using local TFS 2013. The build server itself is fully patched and has Build Tools 2017 installed. I have tried a standalone Web Jobs project in a solution as well as a solution with a Web project and Web Jobs project. From VS2017 the publish (in case of Web project and Web Jobs project) and Publish as WebJobs (in case of standalone Web Jobs project) work just fine and everything gets deployed. NuGet package Microsoft.Web.WebJobs.Publish is included. In both scenarios, the local build/publish publish properly website as well as jobs in app_data/... folder but TFS builds don't even create app_data folders. It seems the final collection of files for publishing is trying to pick the files from WebJobs/bin/** folder which isn't even created in TFS build. The TFS builds add additional argument /p:OutDir="C:\Builds\2\iPayment.Core\Dev-iPayment.ServiceBus.Agents\Binaries\\ and the assembly files for WebJobs are not collected and thus not dropped into app_data/... The build parameters are passed as
/p:PublishProfile=ReleaseWebDeploy
/p:_DestinationType=AzureWebSite
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:WebPublishMethod=Package
/p:PackageAsSingleFile=true
/p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true
The symptoms are similar to what are described in http://chamindac.blogspot.com/2015/08/package-azure-web-job-with-tfs-build-to.html but my version of XAML build is slightly different than in the blog post and there is nothing to override the OutDir without probably modifying the build template itself.
In a standalone WebJobs project, if I use the MSBuild command line without the OutDir, the bin/** are created and packaged properly and get deployed to Azure but that option doesn't work for the solution where both WebProject and WebJobs are in a single solution and need to be deployed together. Also, I could not find any way to empty the OutDir outside of XAML definition.
I have confirmed the presence of webjob-publish-settings.json (in both cases) and webjobs-list.json (in case of where solution has WebProject as well as WebJobs), which is actually needed and works fine from VS2017 deployment. The publish profile is also correct and it is used by the VS2017 deployment. The TFS build is configured to build the solution in both cases. Microsoft.Web.WebJobs.Publish.1.1.0 is used which is the latest version.
It turns out that the OutputPath property was not being set in our template. There is no "Output Location" to be set as "As Configured". I ended up passing MSBuild Arguments and modifying the template to do the replacement for $(OutDir) in two places
MSBuildArguments.Replace("$(OutDir)", [BinariesDirectory]))] and MSBuildArguments.Replace("$(OutDir)", [outputDirectory]))] respectively for <mtbwa:MSBuild ...> under "Try to Compile the Project" and "For Each Configuration in BuildSettings.PlatformConfigurations"
The company I currently work for has a solution with 3 projects.
_Common... which was originally a Web project, but then changed to a Class Library.
Website1... Which is a website
Website2... Completely different website.
In Azure, we have a Deployment configuration so whenever our BitBucket Repo gets a checkin, it should build and deploy the solution.
Unfortunately, it seems like _Common is getting built as the target project. Which is breaking Azure.
ALSO Unfortunately, we have Two DIFFERENT Products (Website1 and Website2) which are in Two Different Azure Apps. They are both looking at the same BitBucket Repo, and both building whenever a checkin happens... but both are building _Common.
Can I have our "Website1" Azure App build the solution with Website1 as the startup project, and have our "Website2" Azure App build the solution with "Website2" As the startup project?
This obviously won't work to set the default project in Github, since we still need two different builds with two different startup projects.
You certanly can!
Go to your "Website1" Web App and go to Settings > Application Settings.
If you are using .Net Framework 4.5 or lower
Add a setting called Project, which value points to the CSPROJ file you want to build, using the full path from the repository root folder.
If you are using ASP.NET Core 1.0 / ASP.NET 5
Add a setting called Project, which value points to the folder that contains the project.json file of the project you want to deploy, do not include the filename in the path.
I have a Visual Studio solution housing an Azure Cloud Service with the following projects:
CloudService
CloudServiceRole
Tests
Where the Tests project is a standard MSTest project that contains unit tests for the business logic in the CloudServiceRole project.
The code is stored in Visual Studio Online and I have hooked up the automated CI build deployment that Azure offers. When I check in code, my staging deployment of the cloud service is automatically updated. However, the Tests project is never even built during the CI builds! This, of course, means that no unit tests run during the build as the "run unit tests" part of the build process finds no assemblies with tests.
My goal is to change this so the tests project is built and all the unit tests executed.
Looking at the MSBuild arguments that the CI deployment process uses, it appears that only the CloudService:Publish target is executed. The CloudService project has no dependency on the Tests project so MSBuild never even builds the latter.
What I have tried
I cannot manually add a CloudService->Tests dependency because when I add dependencies on projects that are not Cloud Service Role projects, I get an error during build (The item "C:\a\src\MyProject\Tests\Tests.csproj" in item list "ProjectReferenceWithConfiguration" does not define a value for metadata "Name".) and I cannot add a CloudServiceRole->Tests dependency because that would make a circular dependency.
Instructing MSBuild to build the full solution by manually adding a /t:Build parameter resulted in yet another error: C:\a\bin\ServiceDefinition.csdef: Need to specify the physical directory for the virtual path 'Web/' of role Web.
Adding the Tests project as a separate build target, alongside the solution, results in the tests getting built! However, at the same time, it disables the Continuous Deployment functionality: More than one solution found. Continuous Deployment skipped.
Trying to make a fake Cloud Service Role project that references the Tests project but has zero instances configured results in a build error: WAT100: The following roles 'Tests.FakeRole' have an instance count of 0. Instance count of 0 is not supported in deployments to Microsoft Azure. Attempting to disable this validation results in a build error due to a defect in the Azure SDK.
You need to run a Build and a Publish separately. I ran into the same problem on my VSO (now VSTS) project and this fixed it. This happens because your cloud service doesn't depend on your unit test project.
1) Visual Studio Build (or MSBuild) action with arguments /t:Build (clean here)
2) Visual Studio Build (or MSBuild) action with arguments /t:Publish (do not clean here)
Note: I had to run these actions separately (not /Build;Publish) otherwise I got an error about the cloud service entry point.
Pieced this together from this question and from here and here.
One workaround that appears to bring results is to add a pre-MSBuild script to the build definition and explicitly build the Tests project in that script.
:: This is used as a pre-build script in Continuous Deployment builds because on their own, they do not build the Tests project.
"c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" %~dp0\..\..\Tests\Tests.csproj /t:Build /p:Configuration=Debug;Platform=AnyCPU;OutDir="%~dp0\..\..\..\..\bin\\"
It appears to do the job, although I am not sure what side-effects I should be aware of. My main concern is that the binaries from this build go into the same directory as the binaries from the Cloud Service build - is there perhaps some possibility of conflict here?
I am trying to create automated build to publish a folder with files onto Azure web-site. And I cannot accomplish this.
I am NOT publishing a solution (.sln), but rather a folder with files. I am using VS2013 and Visual Studio Online.
I have experience with TFS web publishing, so I published solutions many times.
So, what I did so far:
Created an MSBuild build.xml file that just copies files from the folder to the output.
Created a build definition based on AzureContinuousDeployment.11.xaml
Specified build.xml in my build definition, Process tab, in "Solution to build" parameter:
If I build my project, it is correctly built, files are copied to the output, etc (I can verify it by opening drop location, all files are there).
Then, I:
Created a web-site in Azure, linked it to my TFS subscription.
Downloaded a publish profile (.PublishSettings from a web-site).
Created a Web publish profile (.pubxml) in Visual Studio based on .PublishSettings file).
Specified Web Deploy Publish Profile and Deployment Settings Name:
But now I am getting an error during build:
Exception Message: Please specify a Visual Studio Solution (.sln) to build. (type BuildFromSolutionException)
So it asks me for a Visual Studio solution, but earlier it worked perfectly with MSBuild file (after step 3).
I tried to rename my .xml to .sln (probably it is not what I should have done), and build now says "There was no Windows Azure project (.ccproj) detected in the solution. Continuous delivery to an Azure Cloud Service requires an Azure project. (type CCProjNotFoundException)"
If I don't specify "Deployment Settings Name", build completes without errors, but again no publishing to Azure.
So, the question is, how to publish a custom MSBuild build, without a solution, onto Azure? Is TFS continuous Azure publishing for Solutions only? I expect it to be agile, like I published folders from Local Git to Web-site without any hassle.
What should I do?
There are a few confused ideas in your question. Fits, there is no relationship between and automated build and Git. You are using Team Foundation Build to run the workflow of deployment. It is the workflow that is not working for you. In effect the build and deployment script. In fact the script you are using works with both Git and TFVC so that is not the issue.
That specific script is designed specifically for building an azure project that is then continuously delivers to Azure and you likley can't use it as you are. You can however create another script and use that. I would suggest you try instead to use the Default build script and use a powershell script within the build to collect the files and then push them to Azure.
If you want to go a little more advanced you could create a copy of the default and make one that does not require MSBuild at all.
I have created a new release build in TFS 2013 and I want to configure it to perform a web deploy. I am not sure how to specify which project to deploy. Ideally I want to web deploy 2 web projects to IIS on the server (both projects will have a corresponding website in IIS), but if it not possible I can live with having 2 separate builds. I have added the following setings to MSBuild Arguments (in Advanced section of the process) in build definition:
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish
/p:Configuration=Release
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True
/p:DeployIisAppPath="<IISSIteName>"
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl=https://<my server IP>/MsDeploy.axd
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True
/p:username=Administrator
/p:password=xxxxx
I can see it is conneting fine, but it doesn't publish anything. I also tried to specify my web project in Items to build section, but that didn't help. What am I missing? Must be some setting.
If I have understood correctly, you have 2 web projects in the solution and you want to create build definition to deploy them as two different web sites on IIS server.
There could be better ways of handling this but what I have done in my project is to have two separate build definitions for 2 web projects.
For each build definition, specify the csporj file of the project to build under “items to build” section of the process tab.
Even after doing this TFS may not publish the web site at desired location. It may show success but files won’t be copied to the destination location.
In this case, check the log messages of the build activity. If you find a warning similar to this:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets (484, 9): warning: The OutputPath property is not set for project ProjectName.csproj'.
Please check to make sure that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='Release' Platform='Any CPU'
Then it may be related to build configuration. If you are using “Any CPU” as build configuration then change it to “AnyCPU” (remove space).
Refer following link for the detailed explanation:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/0bb277ec-a08c-4795-88f0-3207654e2560/the-outputpath-property-is-not-set-for-project-xxxxxbtproj-please-check-to-make-sure-that-you?forum=tfsbuild
Amey