We have WebRole, that hosting multiple sites. We made startup tasks for each site with some site specific actions. The problem is that only startup task of first site (first site listed in section), could be run during deployment.
Looks like this happens cause only first site (or that one from web-role defifnition) will be copied to [drive]:\approot folder at WebRole Instance. All other sites will be copied to [drive]:\sites\ (early it was another location so it could be a subject of future changes).
Is there any simple way to run batch files for each site in [drive]:\sites\ ?
Is there any tricks with RoleEnvironment object or xPath values (like here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh404006.aspx) that can provide exact path where additional sites will be placed ?
ATM we have 2 options, both are hacky and unstable, imo:
1.Read data from IIS configuration and use it as main startup task input
2.Scan /sites/ for explicitly named scripts and execute it if found.
Startup Task is meant to be for a Role and not for a site. You have to find your way out using the RoleEntryPoint descendant and utilize its OnStart method to manually run your startup tasks per site.
As for finding out the sites directories check out this question, as the answer completly covers the task. I use it, it is 100% reliable for production.
Related
I 've found out that Azure websites (trial version) doesn't autostart my node sever process (it starts only when I load the url in the web browser); and that when there are no requests in a while, the process is killed.
I mean, when I git push my server, I would like it to start running immediately and continuously.
I read (here, for example) that this might have to do with the way iisnode manages azure websites, and that I can't do anything to change it. Is this the actual way Azure websites work? Is there any way I can deal with this?
Thanks in advance,
Bruno.
You've find the answer. There is no other answer.
The process termination because of inactivity comes from IIS - there is Idle Timeout setting. Which to my knowledge is not configurable in Azure Web Sites (at least not Free tier). Check out also this SO question and its answer to get better understanding on why you can't change this timeout on the FREE and STANDARD tiers.
And here is an interesting workaround to avoid this idle timeout. Actually if you use technique, you will also have kind-of "auto start", in terms that when your scheduler hits your site after a new deployment, it will "boot up".
This can get a little complicated, but if you don't want to use their 5-min ping service, you can keep these always on by doing the following:
Create an app setting on your website configuration tab within the portal:
WEBSITE_PRIVATE_EXTENSIONS and give it a value of 1
Create a text file named applicationhost.xdt and populate it with:
<?xml version="1.0"?><configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform"><system.applicationHost><applicationPools><add name="DefaultAppPool" managedRuntimeVersion="v4.5" startMode="AlwaysRunning"><processModel identityType="ApplicationPoolIdentity" /></add></applicationPools></system.applicationHost></configuration>
ftp into your website and create a folder on the root directory called Site Extensions. (there should now be 3 folders in your root: LogFiles, site, & SiteExtensions)
Create another folder within 'Site Extensions', named ASPLimits
Upload the applicationhost.xdt into the ASPLimits folder
Restart your website using the portal
I have two Sites within my WebRole and have defined a Startup task.
The first line works fine, it creates a new App pool for me:
%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe add apppool /name:"VCPool" /managedRuntimeVersion:"v4.0" /managedPipelineMode:"Integrated"
Now I would like to change my second to this new created AppPool, but adding another line right after, doesn't help.
%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set app "WebRole_IN_0_VC/" /applicationPool:"VCPool"
It seems the second site is somehow not yet ready.
How can I delay my task by 30 seconds or delay appcmd.exe slightly?
Unless there is a way to create dependencies for this startup task that it shall only be executed when that second site is up and running?
Any help would be highly appreciated,
Many Thanks,
Is there a way to delay this execution by 30 seconds to make sure the second site is up and can be changed?
Update:
Thanks for the hints. I have made further investigation into this matter. I have found OnStart() event.
1) But since I am using silverlight and simply wrap the existing Web project in the Cloud Roles project, I wouldn't have a WebRole.cs as such. Can I just add it to my Silverlight Web project and use it there? Or is it recommended creating a WebRole project from scratch and make it to replace the Silverlight Web project alltogether?
2) Regarding the <Runtime/> tag in the service definition, do I simply add it like this? Would it have any security implications when the webrole runs elevated?
<WebRole name="WebRole" enableNativeCodeExecution="true" vmsize="ExtraSmall">
<Runtime executionContext="elevated"/>
<Sites>
<Site name="WebRole" physicalDirectory="./WebRole">
...
</Sites>
</WebRole>
3) Last but not least how do I run a cmd file or in fact this line
%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set site /site.name:"WebRole_IN_0_VC" /[Path='/'].applicationPool:"ASP.NET v4.0" >>Log.txt
in the OnStart() method?
Can you explore using PowerShell scripts for performing these tasks. PowerShell has a way to sleep thread. Something like
Batch file
%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe add apppool /name:"VCPool" /managedRuntimeVersion:"v4.0" /managedPipelineMode:"Integrated"
powershell -command "Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted" 2>> err.out
powershell .\sleep.ps1 2>> err.out
%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe set app "WebRole_IN_0_VC/" /applicationPool:"VCPool"
I have not tried but it should work. See this post to know about Powershell integration.
The site, as you have discovered, is created after the 'Task' section runs. Instead, run your code from the 'OnStart' event. The site will have been created by that point. You may need to update your Service Definition file to run your role 'elevated' This can be done by adding this tag:
<Runtime executionContext="elevated"/>
Edited
To answer your further questions:
1) Whatever project you have, you should just be able to add the RoleEntryPoint class. You may have to do this manually.
2) Adding the runtime tag won't add any significant risk to your deployment.
3) Create a cmd file to put your command in (i.e. OnStart.cmd) and use some code like this:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("OnStart.cmd")
More information on starting a process here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/53ezey2s.aspx
For those interested ... I just blogged about how to execute AppCmd startup tasks on Windows Azure configure IIS websites - including finding the site by web role name, and executing it delayed so that the site config is already created by Azure's IISConfigurator.exe.
More here: http://mvolo.com/configure-iis-websites-windows-azure-startup-tasks-appcmd/.
Thanks,
Mike
It's been several hours lost now, i just don't get it.
Situation :
- Migrating an ASP.net app to Azure
- IMPORTANT : This is a webrole with several websites, all websites are compiled in a folder "azure.builds" so my sites bindings are like
physicalDirectory="..\azure.builds\www.mywebsite.com"
physicalDirectory="..\azure.builds\cb.mywebsite.com"
and so on
I have a cmd script that works great on my dev machine, which set permission on IIS to execute on an exe file (it has to be called by an html form).
Here is my local code startup.cmd which works against my local IIS :
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/handlers /+"[name='MY_GCI', path='.exe',verb='',modules='CgiModule', scriptProcessor='c:\websites\myproject\azure.builds\cb.mywebsite.com\cgi-bin\mymodule.exe',resourceType='Either']"
On my html form the file is called via action "http://cb.mywebsite.com/cgi-bin/mymodule.exe" and guess what it works.
But in my migration to Azure it doesn't, i'm unable to set permission to this particular file. The problem is i can't figure the full complete path to the EXE files as the example above show.
I tried this (%ROLEROOT%) :
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:system.webServer/handlers /+"[name='MY_GCI', path='.exe',verb='',modules='CgiModule', scriptProcessor='%ROLEROOT%\azure.build\cb.mywebsite.com\cgi-bin\mymodule.exe',resourceType='Either']"
Does not work.
I studied several example involving similar CGI setup (such running PHP) but the difficulty is that the EXE module have to be exposed on http://cb.mywebsite.com/cgi-bin/mymodule.exe wich is not even the main root webiste on my azure webrole, so this is not exactly the same.
Sorry if it is not very clear to understand, let say in short : how to find the full local path of a particular file in a particular site node in a webrole within a startup cmd file ?
It appears you have this value outside of Azure:
scriptProcessor='c:\websites\myproject\azure.builds\cb.mywebsite.com\cgi-bin\mymodule.exe
Now you want the equivalent within Azure. The key for doing this is to use the ROLEROOT environment variable.
It appears you have considered ROLEROOT already, but perhaps there is a little bit off in mapping into your directory structure. I suggest you RDP into the Azure instance and get oriented (look at e:\approot for starters, but you are not guaranteed to always be there, thus the need for using ROLEROOT). RDP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg443832.aspx
If your real problem has to do with "...the difficulty is that the EXE module have to be exposed on http://cb.mywebsite.com/cgi-bin/mymodule.exe wich is not even the main root webiste on my azure webrole, so this is not exactly the same." then I am not sure I can help as I am unsure of issue you are describing. But one idea: RDP in (as mentioned above) and try to execute the CGI script by hand in Azure and see how that goes. If that doesn't work, you may have a path or permission problem. If it does work, you still may have a problem related to permissions (since the RDP account will have more power than your default IIS user).
A couple of other things to try: Ensure your Azure Web Role is running with elevated permissions by using the following setting in ServiceDefinition.csdef:
<WebRole name="WebHost">
<Runtime executionContext="elevated"/>
...
And also consider running your startup task elevated, also via ServiceDefinition.csdef:
<Startup>
<Task commandLine="startup.cmd" executionContext="elevated" />
</Startup>
And, finally, some StartUp Task debugging tips:
http://blog.smarx.com/posts/windows-azure-startup-tasks-tips-tricks-and-gotchas
I've got a TFS build set up to build and deploy a web application. I'm passing in the MSDeploy parameters via the TFS build definition's MSBuild arguments. First time round this is working fine. When someone accesses the web app, one of the controls (Microsoft charting control) generates a couple of files in an empty directory I've added to the solution.
When I go to rebuild (or continuous integration is triggered) the next build will usually fail because it can't delete one of the generated files. When I try and manually delete the file it tells me that IIS worker process is using it and it can't be deleted.
Now to get the build building I'd have to manually restart IIS every time, which is not desirable with CI in mind. I've taken a look through Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll and there's nothing there to restart IIS using MSDeploy.
At the moment I'm thinking that adding stubs of the temporary files in the solution might be a resolution (maybe MSDeploy will be able to close the process if the file is a permanent part of the deployment) or I could do some unpleasantness with Exec in the solution file to get an IIS reset.
It's probably a long shot but has anyone come up against this and found a nice solution?
You could use MSBuild Extension Pack to stop the application pool automatically before deployment. There are several tasks in the MSBuild.ExtensionPack.Web namespace to manage IIS, such as stopping and starting an application pool, deleting an application, etc.
So I figured out that by adding the ResetWebServer="FALSE" attribute to the solution manifest prevents SharePoint from recycling any app pools.
However, when upgrading a solution that originally did not specify ResetWebServer="FALSE" or when retracting a solution that does specify ResetWebServer="FALSE", the application pools are still being recycled. Is there a way to prevent any auto-recycling of app pools?
This does not seem possible given the document on MSDN (see below), note that I included Deploying a Solution over Upgrading a solution as underneath it is effectively doing a file replacement. I believe the restart/recycling is necessary as a result of how IIS functions. An option to explore if you wanted to manage when this occurs is to ensure that all deployments are done via timer jobs and execute when their impact will be minimized.
Deploying a solution
Initially, manifest and feature manifests are parsed to find assembly and _layouts files, which are copied to the appropriate locations. All other files contained within a feature directory are copied to the feature directory. After solution files are copied to the target computers, a configuration reset is scheduled for all front-end Web servers; the reset then deploys the files and restarts Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).
Retracting a solution
On each front-end Web server, the following occurs:
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is disabled.
Files are removed from the system.
IIS is re-enabled and Windows SharePoint Services is reloaded when
a user browses to a page.
You might also take a look at the "-local" switch. Didn't try it yet but it seemed that it allowed deployment server per server when you are in a load balanced situation.
Might be a good lead.