Publish to IIS setting Environment Variable

Question

Reading these two questions answers I was able to run an Asp net 5 app on IIS 8 5 server   Asp net vNext early beta publish to IIS in windows server  How to configure an MVC6 app to work on IIS   The problem is that the web app is still using env EnvironmentName with value Development even when run on IIS   Also  I want to run two versions of the same Web  Staging  Production  on the same server  so I need a method to set the variable for each Web separately   How to do this

User · Answer

I have created a repository for publishing IIS with the environment configuration in Web.config.

https://github.com/expressiveco/AspnetCoreWebConfigForEnvironment

Setup
- Get the sections from .csproj and .user.csproj files into your project files.
- Get the MyAspNetEnvironment.props, web.development.config and web.production.config files.
Configuration
- Change the value of ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT property in user.csproj relevantly.

User · Answer

For those of you looking to this in an azure devops pipeline  this can be achieved by adding the PowerShell on target machines task and running the following script   envVariables         name  VARIABLE1  value  Value1        name  VARIABLE2  value  Value2      Set-WebConfigurationProperty -PSPath IIS   -Location    mySite   -Filter  system webServer aspNetCore environmentVariables -Name   -Value  envVariables

User · Answer

Other than the options mentioned above  there are a couple of other Solutions which works well with automated deployments or require fewer configuration changes   1  Modifying the project file   CsProj  file    MSBuild supports the EnvironmentName Property which can help to set the right environment variable as per the Environment you wish to Deploy  The environment name would be added in the web config during the Publish phase   Simply open the project file    csProj  and add the following XML    lt  -- Custom Property Group added to add the Environment name during publish   The EnvironmentName property is used during the publish for the Environment variable in web config   -- gt     lt PropertyGroup Condition      Configuration         Or    Configuration       Debug   gt       lt EnvironmentName gt Development lt  EnvironmentName gt     lt  PropertyGroup gt     lt PropertyGroup Condition      Configuration         AND    Configuration       Debug    gt       lt EnvironmentName gt Production lt  EnvironmentName gt     lt  PropertyGroup gt    Above code would add the environment name as Development for Debug configuration or if no configuration is specified  For any other Configuration the Environment name would be Production in the generated web config file  More details here  2  Adding the EnvironmentName Property in the publish profiles   We can add the  lt EnvironmentName gt  property in the publish profile as well  Open the publish profile file which is located at the Properties PublishProfiles  profilename pubxml  This will set the Environment name in web config when the project is published  More Details here   lt PropertyGroup gt     lt EnvironmentName gt Development lt  EnvironmentName gt   lt  PropertyGroup gt    3  Command line options using dotnet publish  Additionaly  we can pass the property EnvironmentName as a command line option to the dotnet publish command  Following command would include the environment variable as Development in the web config file   dotnet publish -c Debug -r win-x64  p EnvironmentName Development

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I know a lot of answers has been given but in my case I added web  Environment  config versions in my project and when publishing for a particular environment the value gets replaced   For example  for Staging  web Staging config   lt  xml version  quot 1 0 quot   gt   lt configuration xmlns xdt  quot http   schemas microsoft com XML-Document-Transform quot  gt       lt location gt           lt system webServer gt               lt aspNetCore gt                   lt environmentVariables xdt Transform  quot InsertIfMissing quot  gt                       lt environmentVariable name  quot ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT quot                                           value  quot Staging quot                                           xdt Locator  quot Match name  quot                                           xdt Transform  quot InsertIfMissing quot    gt                   lt  environmentVariables gt               lt  aspNetCore gt           lt  system webServer gt       lt  location gt   lt  configuration gt    For Release or Production I will do this  web Release config   lt  xml version  quot 1 0 quot   gt   lt configuration xmlns xdt  quot http   schemas microsoft com XML-Document-Transform quot  gt       lt location gt           lt system webServer gt               lt aspNetCore gt                   lt environmentVariables xdt Transform  quot InsertIfMissing quot  gt                       lt environmentVariable name  quot ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT quot                                           value  quot Release quot                                           xdt Locator  quot Match name  quot                                           xdt Transform  quot InsertIfMissing quot    gt                   lt  environmentVariables gt               lt  aspNetCore gt           lt  system webServer gt       lt  location gt   lt  configuration gt   Then when publishing I will choose or set the environment name  And this will replace the value of the environment in the eventual web config file

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To get the details about the error I had to add ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT environment variable for the corresponding Application Pool  system applicationHost applicationPools    Note  the web application in my case was ASP NET Core 2 web application hosted on IIS 10  It can be done via Configuration Editor in IIS Manager  see Editing Collections with Configuration Editor to figure out where to find this editor in IIS Manager

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Edit  as of RC2 and RTM releases  this advice is out of date  The best way I have found to accomplish this in release is to edit the following web config sections in IIS for each environment   system webServer aspNetCore    Edit the environmentVariable entry and add an environment variable setting   ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT    lt  Your environment name  gt     As an alternative to drpdrp s approach  you can do the following    In your project json  add commands that pass the ASPNET ENV variable directly to Kestrel    commands          Development    Microsoft AspNet Server Kestrel --ASPNET ENV Development        Staging    Microsoft AspNet Server Kestrel --ASPNET ENV Staging        Production    Microsoft AspNet Server Kestrel --ASPNET ENV Production     When publishing  use the --iis-command option to specify an environment   dnu publish --configuration Debug --iis-command Staging --out  outputdir  --runtime dnx-clr-win-x86-1 0 0-rc1-update1    I found this approach to be less intrusive than creating extra IIS users

User · Answer

tredder solution with editing applicationHost config is the one that works if you have several different applications located within virtual directories on IIS   My case is    I do have API project and APP project  under the same domain  placed in different virtual directories  Root page XXX doesn t seem to propagate ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT variable to its children in virtual directories and       I m unable to set the variables inside the virtual directory as  NickAb described  got error The request is not supported   Exception from HRESULT  0x80070032  during saving changes in Configuration Editor   Going into applicationHost config and manually creating nodes like this    lt location path  XXX app  gt       lt system webServer gt           lt aspNetCore gt               lt environmentVariables gt                   lt clear   gt                   lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Staging    gt               lt  environmentVariables gt           lt  aspNetCore gt       lt  system webServer gt   lt  location gt   lt location path  XXX api  gt       lt system webServer gt           lt aspNetCore gt               lt environmentVariables gt                   lt clear   gt                   lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Staging    gt               lt  environmentVariables gt           lt  aspNetCore gt       lt  system webServer gt   lt  location gt    and restarting the IIS did the job

User · Answer

You could alternatively pass in the desired ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT into the dotnet publish command as an argument using     p EnvironmentName Staging   e g    dotnet publish  p Configuration Release  p EnvironmentName Staging   This will generate out the web config with the correct environment specified for your project    lt environmentVariables gt     lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Staging    gt   lt  environmentVariables gt

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After extensive googling I found a working solution  which consists of two steps   The first step is to set system wide environment variable ASPNET ENV to Production and Restart the Windows Server  After this  all web apps are getting the value  Production  as EnvironmentName   The second step  to enable value  Staging  for staging web  was rather more difficult to get to work correctly  but here it is    Create new windows user  for example StagingPool on the server  For this user  create new user variable ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT with value  Staging   you can do it by logging in as this user or through regedit  Back as admin in IIS manager  find the Application Pool under which the Staging web is running and in Advanced Settings set Identity to user StagingPool  Also set Load User Profile to true  so the environment variables are loaded   lt - very important  Ensure the StagingPool has access rights to the web folder and Stop and Start the Application Pool    Now the Staging web should have the EnvironmentName set to  Staging    Update  In Windows 7  there is a command that can set environment variables from CMD prompt also for a specified user  This outputs help plus samples    gt setx

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I have my web applications  PRODUCTION  STAGING  TEST  hosted on IIS web server  So it was not possible to rely on ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT operative s system enviroment variable  because setting it to a specific value  for example STAGING  has effect on others applications    As work-around  I defined a custom file  envsettings json  within my visualstudio solution     with following content          Possible string values reported below  When empty it use ENV variable value or Visual Studio setting       - Production      - Staging      - Test      - Development    ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT          Then  based on my application type  Production  Staging or Test  I set this file accordly  supposing I am deploying TEST application  i will have    ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT    Test    After that  in Program cs file just retrieve this value and then set the webHostBuilder s enviroment       public class Program               public static void Main string   args                        var currentDirectoryPath   Directory GetCurrentDirectory                var envSettingsPath   Path Combine currentDirectoryPath   envsettings json                var envSettings   JObject Parse File ReadAllText envSettingsPath                var enviromentValue   envSettings  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT   ToString                 var webHostBuilder   new WebHostBuilder                    UseKestrel                    CaptureStartupErrors true                   UseSetting  detailedErrors    true                    UseContentRoot currentDirectoryPath                   UseIISIntegration                    UseStartup lt Startup gt                     If none is set it use Operative System hosting enviroment             if   string IsNullOrWhiteSpace enviromentValue                                   webHostBuilder UseEnvironment enviromentValue                              var host   webHostBuilder Build                 host Run                      Remember to include the envsettings json in the publishOptions  project json       publishOptions            include                wwwroot          Views          Areas    Views          envsettings json          appsettings json          appsettings  json          web config               This solution make me free to have ASP NET CORE application hosted on same IIS  independently from envoroment variable value

User · Answer

Update web config with an  lt environmentVariables gt  section under  lt aspNetCore gt    lt configuration gt     lt system webServer gt       lt aspNetCore       gt         lt environmentVariables gt           lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Development    gt         lt  environmentVariables gt       lt  aspNetCore gt     lt  system webServer gt   lt  configuration gt    Or to avoid losing this setting when overwriting web config  make similar changes to applicationHost config specifying the site location as  NickAb suggests    lt location path  staging site com  gt       lt system webServer gt           lt aspNetCore gt               lt environmentVariables gt                   lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Staging    gt               lt  environmentVariables gt           lt  aspNetCore gt       lt  system webServer gt   lt  location gt   lt location path  production site com  gt       lt system webServer gt           lt aspNetCore gt               lt environmentVariables gt                   lt environmentVariable name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Production    gt               lt  environmentVariables gt           lt  aspNetCore gt       lt  system webServer gt   lt  location gt

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This answer was originally written for ASP NET Core RC1  In RC2 ASP NET Core moved from generic httpPlafrom handler to aspnetCore specific one  Note that step 3 depends on what version of ASP NET Core you are using   Turns out environment variables for ASP NET Core projects can be set without having to set environment variables for user or having to create multiple commands entries    Go to your application in IIS and choose Configuration Editor  Select Configuration Editor  Choose system webServer aspNetCore  RC2 and RTM  or system webServer httpPlatform  RC1  in Section combobox Choose Applicationhost config     in From combobox  Right click on enviromentVariables element  select  environmentVariables  element  then Edit Items   Set your environment variables  Close the window and click Apply  Done   This way you do not have to create special users for your pool or create extra commands entries in project json  Also  adding special commands for each environment breaks  build once  deploy many times  as you will have to call dnu publish separately for each environment  instead of publish once and deploying resulting artifact many times   Updated for RC2 and RTM  thanks to Mark G and tredder

User · Answer

What you need to know in one place    For environment variables to override any config settings  they must be prefixed with ASPNETCORE    If you want to match child nodes in your JSON config  use   as a separater  If the platform doesn t allow colons in environment variable keys  use    instead  You want your settings to end up in ApplicationHost config  Using the IIS Configuration Editor will cause your inputs to be written to the application s Web config -- and will be overwritten with the next deployment  For modifying ApplicationHost config  you want to use appcmd exe to make sure your modifications are consistent  Example   systemroot  system32 inetsrv appcmd exe set config  Default Web Site MyVirtualDir  -section system webServer aspNetCore    environmentVariables  name  ASPNETCORE AWS Region  value  eu-central-1     commit site Characters that are not URL-safe can be escaped as Unicode  like  u007b for left curly bracket  To list your current settings  combined with values from Web config    systemroot  system32 inetsrv appcmd exe list config  Default Web Site MyVirtualDir  -section system webServer aspNetCore If you run the command to set a configuration key multiple times for the same key  it will be added multiple times  To remove an existing value  use something like  systemroot  system32 inetsrv appcmd exe set config  Default Web Site MyVirtualDir  -section system webServer aspNetCore  - environmentVariables  name  ASPNETCORE MyKey  value  value-to-be-removed     commit site

User · Answer

Just add  lt EnvironmentName gt  to your publish profile and be done with it   lt PropertyGroup gt     lt EnvironmentName gt Development lt  EnvironmentName gt   lt  PropertyGroup gt   That information gets copied to web config    Don t set web config manually since it gets overwritten   Source  https   docs microsoft com en-us aspnet core fundamentals environments

User · Answer

To extend on  tredder s answer you can alter the environmentVariables using appcmd  Staging   windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd set config  staging example com   section system webServer aspNetCore   environmentVariables  name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Staging    commit APPHOST  Production   windir  system32 inetsrv appcmd set config  example com   section system webServer aspNetCore   environmentVariables  name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value  Production    commit APPHOST

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I have modified the answer which  Christian Del Bianco is given  I changed the process for  net core 2 and upper as project json file now absolute    First  create appsettings json file in root directory  with the content              Possible string values reported below  When empty it use ENV          variable value or Visual Studio setting          - Production         - Staging         - Test        - Development     ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT    Development      Then create another two setting file appsettings Development json and appsettings Production json with the necessary configuration  Add necessary code to set up the environment to Program cs file   public class Program   public static void Main string   args        var logger   NLogBuilder ConfigureNLog  nlog config   GetCurrentClassLogger          var currentDirectoryPath   Directory GetCurrentDirectory        var envSettingsPath   Path Combine currentDirectoryPath   envsettings json        var envSettings   JObject Parse File ReadAllText envSettingsPath        var enviromentValue   envSettings  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT   ToString            try                  CreateWebHostBuilder args  enviromentValue  Build   Run                 catch  Exception ex                  NLog  catch setup errors         logger Error ex   Stopped program because of setup related exception            throw            finally               NLog LogManager Shutdown             public static IWebHostBuilder CreateWebHostBuilder string   args  string enviromentValue    gt      WebHost CreateDefaultBuilder args           UseStartup lt Startup gt             ConfigureLogging logging   gt                        logging ClearProviders                logging SetMinimumLevel Microsoft Extensions Logging LogLevel Trace                       UseNLog               UseEnvironment enviromentValue          Add the envsettings json to your  csproj file for copy to published directory       lt ItemGroup gt           lt None Include  envsettings json  CopyToPublishDirectory  Always    gt       lt  ItemGroup gt   Now just change the ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT as you want in envsettings json file and published

User · Answer

Similar to other answers  I wanted to ensure my ASP NET Core 2 1 environment setting persisted across deployments  but also only applied to the specific site   According to Microsoft s documentation  it is possible to set the environment variable on the app pool using the following PowerShell command in IIS 10    appPoolName    AppPool   envName    Development  cd   env SystemRoot system32 inetsrv    appcmd exe set config -section system applicationHost applicationPools     name   appPoolName   environmentVariables  name  ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT  value   envName     commit apphost   I unfortunately still have to use IIS 8 5 and thought I was out of luck  However  it is still possible to run a simple PowerShell script to set a site-specific environment variable value for ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT   Import-Module -Name WebAdministration  siteName    Site   envName    Development  Set-WebConfigurationProperty -PSPath IIS   -Location  siteName -Filter  system webServer aspNetCore environmentVariables -Name   -Value    Name    ASPNETCORE ENVIRONMENT   Value    envName

[iis] Publish to IIS, setting Environment Variable

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