[asp.net] How to Publish Web with msbuild?

Visual Studio 2010 has a Publish command that allows you to publish your Web Application Project to a file system location. I'd like to do this on my TeamCity build server, so I need to do it with the solution runner or msbuild. I tried using the Publish target, but I think that might be for ClickOnce:

msbuild Project.csproj /t:Publish /p:Configuration=Deploy

I basically want to do exactly what a web deployment project does, but without the add-in. I need it to compile the WAP, remove any files unnecessary for execution, perform any web.config transformations, and copy the output to a specified location.

My Solution, based on Jeff Siver's answer

<Target Name="Deploy">
    <MSBuild Projects="$(SolutionFile)" 
             Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration);DeployOnBuild=true;DeployTarget=Package" 
             ContinueOnError="false" />
    <Exec Command="&quot;$(ProjectPath)\obj\$(Configuration)\Package\$(ProjectName).deploy.cmd&quot; /y /m:$(DeployServer) -enableRule:DoNotDeleteRule" 
          ContinueOnError="false" />
</Target>

You must set your environments

• < WebSite name>
• < domain>

and reference my blog.(sorry post was Korean)

• http://xyz37.blog.me/50124665657

• http://blog.naver.com/PostSearchList.nhn?SearchText=webdeploy&blogId=xyz37&x=25&y=7

  @ECHO OFF
  :: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5598668/valid-parameters-for-msdeploy-via-msbuild
  ::-DeployOnBuild -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-DeployTarget -MsDeployPublish
  :: -Package
  :: 
  ::-Configuration -Name of a valid solution configuration
  :: 
  ::-CreatePackageOnPublish -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-DeployIisAppPath -<Web Site Name>/<Folder>
  :: 
  ::-MsDeployServiceUrl -Location of MSDeploy installation you want to use
  :: 
  ::-MsDeployPublishMethod -WMSVC (Web Management Service)
  :: -RemoteAgent
  :: 
  ::-AllowUntrustedCertificate (used with self-signed SSL certificates) -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-UserName
  ::-Password
  SETLOCAL
  
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727"
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5"
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319"
  
  SET targetFile=<web site fullPath ie. .\trunk\WebServer\WebServer.csproj
  SET configuration=Release
  SET msDeployServiceUrl=https://<domain>:8172/MsDeploy.axd
  SET msDeploySite="<WebSite name>"
  SET userName="WebDeploy"
  SET password=%USERNAME%
  SET platform=AnyCPU
  SET msbuild=%FXPath%\MSBuild.exe /MaxCpuCount:%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS% /clp:ShowCommandLine
  
  %MSBuild% %targetFile% /p:configuration=%configuration%;Platform=%platform% /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish /p:CreatePackageOnPublish=False /p:DeployIISAppPath=%msDeploySite% /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=%msDeployServiceUrl% /p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /p:UserName=%USERNAME% /p:Password=%password% /p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0
  
  IF NOT "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" PAUSE 
  ENDLOCAL
  

this is my working batch

publish-my-website.bat

SET MSBUILD_PATH="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin"
SET PUBLISH_DIRECTORY="C:\MyWebsitePublished"
SET PROJECT="D:\Github\MyWebSite.csproj"


cd /d %MSBUILD_PATH%
MSBuild %PROJECT%  /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:DeployDefaultTarget=WebPublish /p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem /p:DeleteExistingFiles=True /p:publishUrl=%PUBLISH_DIRECTORY%

Note that I installed Visual Studio on server to be able to run MsBuild.exe because the MsBuild.exe in .Net Framework folders don't work.

I came up with such solution, works great for me:

msbuild /t:ResolveReferences;_WPPCopyWebApplication /p:BuildingProject=true;OutDir=C:\Temp\build\ Test.csproj

The secret sauce is _WPPCopyWebApplication target.

With VisualStudio 2012 there is a way to handle subj without publish profiles. You can pass output folder using parameters. It works both with absolute and relative path in 'publishUrl' parameter. You can use VS100COMNTOOLS, however you need to override VisualStudioVersion to use target 'WebPublish' from %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets. With VisualStudioVersion 10.0 this script will succeed with no outputs :)

Update: I've managed to use this method on a build server with just Windows SDK 7.1 installed (no Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 on a machine). But I had to follow these steps to make it work:

1. Make Windows SDK 7.1 current on a machine using Simmo answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/2907056/2164198)
2. Setting Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7\10.0 to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\" (use your path as appropriate)
3. Copying folder %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0 from my developer machine to build server

Script:

set WORK_DIR=%~dp0
pushd %WORK_DIR%
set OUTPUTS=%WORK_DIR%..\Outputs
set CONFIG=%~1
if "%CONFIG%"=="" set CONFIG=Release
set VSTOOLS="%VS100COMNTOOLS%"
if %VSTOOLS%=="" set "PATH=%PATH%;%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319" && goto skipvsinit
call "%VSTOOLS:~1,-1%vsvars32.bat"
if errorlevel 1 goto end
:skipvsinit
msbuild.exe Project.csproj /t:WebPublish /p:Configuration=%CONFIG% /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0 /p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem /p:publishUrl=%OUTPUTS%\Project
if errorlevel 1 goto end
:end
popd
exit /b %ERRORLEVEL%

This my batch file

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe C:\Projects\testPublish\testPublish.csproj  /p:DeployOnBuild=true /property:Configuration=Release
if exist "C:\PublishDirectory" rd /q /s "C:\PublishDirectory"
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_compiler.exe -v / -p C:\Projects\testPublish\obj\Release\Package\PackageTmp -c C:\PublishDirectory
cd C:\PublishDirectory\bin 
del *.xml
del *.pdb

I don't know TeamCity so I hope this can work for you.

The best way I've found to do this is with MSDeploy.exe. This is part of the WebDeploy project run by Microsoft. You can download the bits here.

With WebDeploy, you run the command line

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:contentPath=c:\webApp -dest:contentPath=c:\DeployedWebApp

This does the same thing as the VS Publish command, copying only the necessary bits to the deployment folder.

For generating the publish output provide one more parameter. msbuild example.sln /p:publishprofile=profilename /p:deployonbuild=true /p:configuration=debug/or any

You can Publish the Solution with desired path by below code, Here PublishInDFolder is the name that has the path where we need to publish(we need to create this in below pic)

You can create publish file like this

Add below 2 lines of code in batch file(.bat)

@echo OFF 
call "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\Tools\VsMSBuildCmd.bat"
MSBuild.exe  D:\\Solution\\DataLink.sln /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=PublishInDFolder
pause

found two different solutions which worked in slightly different way:

1. This solution is inspired by the answer from alexanderb [link]. Unfortunately it did not work for us - some dll's were not copied to the OutDir. We found out that replacing ResolveReferences with Build target solves the problem - now all necessary files are copied into the OutDir location.

msbuild /target:Build;_WPPCopyWebApplication  /p:Configuration=Release;OutDir=C:\Tmp\myApp\ MyApp.csproj

Disadvantage of this solution was the fact that OutDir contained not only files for publish.

2. The first solution works well but not as we expected. We wanted to have the publish functionality as it is in Visual Studio IDE - i.e. only the files which should be published will be copied into the Output directory. As it has been already mentioned first solution copies much more files into the OutDir - the website for publish is then stored in _PublishedWebsites/{ProjectName} subfolder. The following command solves this - only the files for publish will be copied to desired folder. So now you have directory which can be directly published - in comparison with the first solution you will save some space on hard drive.

msbuild /target:Build;PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder /p:Configuration=Release;_PackageTempDir=C:\Tmp\myApp\;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false MyApp.csproj

AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false parameter will guarantee that connection strings will not be handled as special artifacts and will be correctly generated - for more information see link.

Using the deployment profiles introduced in VS 2012, you can publish with the following command line:

msbuild MyProject.csproj /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=<profile-name> /p:Password=<insert-password> /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0

For more information on the parameters see this.

The values for the /p:VisualStudioVersion parameter depend on your version of Visual Studio. Wikipedia has a table of Visual Studio releases and their versions.