we are hosting 3 different web applications in azure machine and we are using CI to push this changes from build server TFS in the azure to our machines.
the trouble is in physicalDirectory porperty as we could not find any possibily to use any of build-variables there, so we have to use relative path like this
physicalDirectory="..\..\..\..\..\..\bin\_PublishedWebsites\xxxxxx"
we have two issues with this, one is that the loca build and hosted build needs different relative paths, and second is that one our two branhces are not on same level.
I tried
physicalDirectory="$(OutpuPath)\_PublishedWebsites\xxxxxx"
as well as
physicalDirectory="%OutpuPath%\_PublishedWebsites\xxxxxx"
had no success with any of those.
is this possible at all, if not is there any other way to replace this values?
thanks
almir
You can define your own environment variables in azure, this approach may work for you
"http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg432991.aspx"
Related
Our asp mvc is published automatically using octopus deploy. We use web config transformations and we always end up with additional environment specific files in the installation folder. Eg
Web.development.config
Web.test.config
Web.preprod.config
There is a slight advantage in having these files deployed since we can easily compare values between different environments when troubleshooting.
Is there an security risk in having different config files deployed to a production environment??
IIS should be configured to prevent the download of .config files by default, but depending on how tight your security needs are, it might be worth getting rid of them. (eg if someone comprises a test server, they do not gain access to production).
If you do want to get rid of the, you can write a PostDeploy.ps1 script to remove Web.*.config
These files can be removed using the community-contributed step File System - Clean Configuration Transforms.
If you want them to be available for diagnostic purposes, redeploy the Release, but switch off this step.
We have an Website project that's hosted in Azure, and we use Web.config transforms for setting environment variables. However, our current approach for building the system for different environments is to build the project multiple times (currently this is 3), which is inefficient.
We'd like to move to using Web Deploy, as this would then set us up nicely for using Release Manager.
Our issue is around using Web Deploy parameters instead of web.config transforms; we need to substitute multiple xml elements, rather than single values.
After much research, I found these 2 articles which detail almost exactly what I'm trying to do
http://blogs.iis.net/elliotth/web-deploy-xml-file-parameterization
http://www.iis.net/learn/publish/using-web-deploy/parameterization-improvements-in-web-deploy-v3
Essentially I'm trying to replicate Scenario 5, but using a separate Set Parameter file for the value.
Unfortunately, in the examples, referencing an external xml file only works if it is on the target machine. Some testing with a colleague confirmed this; works on local machine, but not on Azure.
Is there a way I can force Web Deploy to look in a particular location for the external configuration files?
As you've already noticed, Web Deploy is only able to read replacement values on the local machine or on a UNC share. It can't read that specific file over HTTP.
If you're deploying to an Azure Web App, then one thing you could try would be to use Kudu/FTP to manually upload that file one level above your wwwroot folder. Then you could specify the file location like so:
D:\home\site\prices.xml:://book[#name='book1']/price
Of course this implies that you'd have to pre-upload this file before publishing to your site, so it's not a perfect solution, but it should work for what you're trying to accomplish.
I need to deploy web applications to an IIS 7.5. I have tried to create a web deploy package but I run into a problem.
Most of the applications I need to deploy are nested under virtual directories. Example:
Web Site/vDir/vDir/application
This seems to work if the virtual directories are already created. But if they are missing the application are instead created directly under the Website.
I create the package with the parameters /t:build;Package
Atm. I am using the cmd file to deploy with parameters /Y /m:[Servername]
I can't find a way to change the dest parameter. Do I need to use msdeploy directly instead?
I saw a very similar question containing a good answer by AaronS.
He basically suggests creating a custom build task, including an example code.
Currently we have a development cloud services (acme-dev-service) and a production cloud service (acme-prod-service). Our current setup in our solution has a cloud service project called acme.application that uses transformation of the .cscfg and .csdef files for deploying the project to the two environments (production and development). I don’t like the transformation method because it feels like a bit of a hack to me. So after doing some research it seems that you can have multiple configuration files which solves some of the issue but I am running into problems because you are only allowed one service definition. This doesn’t work for us because the production environment requires extra certificates as well as different hostHeader bindings than our dev environment does.
So it seems we cant really get away from using the transformations. So I guess my question boils down to am I looking at the Azure Service Project files in the wrong light? Should we really be mapping one Azure Project to one Azure cloud service? Should I have an Azure project for Production and a second Azure Project for Development?
Is there a better way to do this? Or a best practice for working with multiple environments in Azure?
The CSDefinition file is the real kicker here. If you have a value you need to be different between two environments (dev/test/stage/production, etc.) then you really have three options:
1) Manually modify the value before a deployment. Errr....Okay....you have two options.
1) Tap into the MS Build process and determine which cloud configuration you have selected (the one used to determine which version of the .cscfg file will be used) and then have the build modify the .csdef after the build and prior to packaging (there is a time when the file has been copied to a different directory just before packaging and this is where you want to make the change). This can be tricky, though I've seen it done and have even done so myself in the early SDK days. Here is a blog post explaining one example where he's using WebConfigTransformRunner to do just that: http://fabriccontroller.net/blog/posts/apply-xdt-transforms-to-your-servicedefinition-csdef-file/. I don't really think this is your best option because it is opaque. It's not evident what is going on and someone who comes along after you to maintain the code will not know about this little gem and will spend forever trying to figure out why some value they put into the csdef somewhere is somehow getting overwritten after they publish to a different environment.
2) Use the two Azure Project approach you mentioned. You can set up build definitions in your Build tool of choice that determine which of the Azure projects you want to build and publish. Personally I think this is the best way to deal with different .csdef files. It's straight forward and doesn't require modifying the csproj files. I'm not opposed to csproj file changing, it's just not overly obvious it was done and, speaking as someone who has inherited things like that, it's not easy to find when people do that kind of thing and they aren't around to tell you about it.
Windows 2003/IIS 6...
I have a virtual directory on a web site that closely mirrors the configuration another virtual directory on the same site will need. Since we have multiple dev/staging/test/prod environments, I'd like to be able to export the values of one virtual directory and quickly fire one up on either the same machine (with a different name/source directory) or on another machine (with perhaps the same name/source directory).
Can that be done? I see you can export the configuration through the IIS manager, but it seems to have a lot of keys embedded in it and I'm not sure if that can be directly imported into a separate entity on the same/different machine, or if it's only used for backups in case the original gets corrupted and needs to be restored.
You may want to take a look at the sample VBScript files installed with IIS 6. On my system they are in C:\Windows\System32
Two in particular seem relevant to your question:
iisvdir.vbs - allows listing, creating, and deleting virtual directories locally or remotely.
iiscnfg.vbs - allows exporting configuration for copying to another machine.
Neither one of these does exactly what you want, but it looks to me like they could be used as sample code to help you get to where you want.
Have you taken a look at the IIS6 Migration Tool yet? It may address your needs.