How to restart the IIS application pool remotely via command line and MSDeploy

iis-10msdeployremote-access

I am creating GitHub actions to automatically deploy my website.

I have everything working other than the ability to remotely restart the application pool.

From what I've read, I need to stop the application pool, publish the site, start the application pool

shell: cmd
  run: '"C:/Program Files (x86)/IIS/Microsoft Web Deploy V3/msdeploy.exe" -verb:sync -allowUntrusted -source:recycleApp -dest:recycleApp="${{ env.IIS_WEBSITE_NAME }}",recycleMode="StopAppPool",computerName="${{ env.DOMAIN_URL }}:8172/msdeploy.axd?site=${{ env.IIS_WEBSITE_NAME }}",username="${{ env.IIS_SERVER_USERNAME }}",password="${{ env.IIS_SERVER_PASSWORD }}",AuthType="Basic"'

The output from this command is

Info: Using ID '0a153730-a072-4bb1-868e-ae39a3e7659b' for connections to the remote server.
Info: Adding MSDeploy.recycleApp (MSDeploy.recycleApp).
Info: Adding recycleApp (***).
Error: (11/23/2020 7:08:08 AM) An error occurred when the request was processed on the remote computer.
Error: Unable to perform the operation. Please contact your server administrator to check authorization and delegation settings.

I don't know how to work out why this is the case! MSDeploy.exe works fine to deploy the website using the same remote path, username and password.

Do I need to enable remote recycling of application pools on the remote machine? I found the folder where the logs are stored but found nothing useful (although I likely don't know what I am looking for)

I don't know how to make this work. as the output is not telling me what I need to do.

Best Answer

You should be able to accomplish this using PowerShell. The WebAdministration module has many cmdlets for managing IIS. The snippet below will stop and start the Example Pool using the Stop-WebAppPool and Start-WebAppPool. There is also a Restart-WebAppPool module you could run instead.

shell: powershell
run: Import-Module WebAdministration; Stop-WebAppPool -Name "Example Pool"

...your other deployment steps...

shell: powershell
run Import-Module WebAdministration; Start-WebAppPool -Name "Example Pool"
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