How to pass MSDeploy-style parameters to MSBuild via the commandline

msbuildmsdeployteamcitywebdeploy

I am setting up TeamCity to deploy our Website Project application (using a *.wdproj) and Web Deploy application to IIS.

I have a build configuration that uses MSBuild.exe with the MSDeployPublish to build and then deploy the application.

We now want to get the application to deploy to multiple target environments, therefore need a way to supply different settings based on the target environment.

I have added a parameters.xml file to the Web Deployment Project, and have verified that the parameters set in here are making all the way through the target IIS server and being correctly applied – great!

Now what I want to do is have different parameter settings per environment. I was hoping I could use something like the MSDeploy.exe -setParam argument to specify different values for each environment, however I can find no way to get my parameter values into MSBuild via the commandline.

I suspect I might need to do one of the following:

Split MSBuild and MSDeploy into separate build steps.
Configure a task somewhere in the pipeline to take 1 of n versions of parameters.something.xml and move it into parameters.xml so it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline.

I'm looking for the simplest way to move ahead at this point, any suggestions welcome.

For reference, here is the command I'm experimenting with now:

msbuild /target:MSDeployPublish MySite_deploy.wdproj /P:Configuration=Debug
/P:DeployOnBuild=True /P:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/P:MsDeployServiceUrl=www.myserver.com:8172/MsDeploy.axd
/P:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /P:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc
/P:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /P:UserName=MyUser /p:Password=MyPassword
/P:DeployIisAppPath=www.myserver.com/MySite
/P:ServerURL=http://www.tryingtoforcethis.com

It's working beautifully except the value for ServerURL, which is a parameter I've defined in my parameters.xml, is not making its way into the target site. The default I specified in parameters.xml, however, is. So I know that the parameters are working, I just can't figure out how to add them to the msbuild commandline.

Best Answer

Well, I think the short answer is that with MSBuild 4.0 and VS2010, you can't just pass arbitrary parameters into MSDeployPublish from the call to MSBuild.

I found these posts helpful:

http://forums.iis.net/t/1167657.aspx/1 - Ming Chen's comments

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TinyHappyFeatures3PublishingImprovementsChainedConfigTransformsAndDeployingASPNETAppsFromTheCommandLine.aspx - the comments from Richard Szalay at the bottom

After reading these, and sifting through the Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets file for some time trying to find a "way in", I finally settled on having multiple copies of Parameters.xml in my project folder in source control, labelled according to their environment eg:

Parameters.Test.xml
Parameters.Staging.xml
Parameters.Live.xml

Then, prior to the package and deploy, I just copy one of these files into Parameters.xml and it gets picked up by the rest of the pipeline - done!

BTW I had a temporary problem getting the parameters.xml copy and subsequent cleanup to work within a single MSBuild.exe call due to what seems to be some sort of file access issue, I've detailed it here:

MSBuild.exe Copy task not working properly unless a version of the file already appears in target

IIS7 + related answer ....

Ok - here's what I ended up doing. More or less, following the post by Simon Weaver in this thread/question.

But when it comes to the MSBuild settings .. most people here are using following setting: /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent which is NOT RIGHT for IIS7. Using this setting means TFS tries to connect to the url: https://your-server-name/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE But to access that url, the user to authenticate needs to be an Admin. Which is fraked. (And you need to have the Admin-override rule thingy ticked). This url is for IIS6 I think.

Here's the standard error message when you try to connect using RemoteAgent :-

Standard 401 Frak Off u suck RemoteAgent, error

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets (3588): Web deployment task failed.(Remote agent (URL http://your-web-server/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer.) Make sure the site name, user name, and password are correct. If the issue is not resolved, please contact your local or server administrator. Error details: Remote agent (URL http://your-web-server/MSDEPLOYAGENTSERVICE) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer. An unsupported response was received. The response header 'MSDeploy.Response' was 'V1' but 'v1' was expected. The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

So .. you need to change your MSDeployPublishMethod to this:

/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC

The WMSVC stands for Windows Manager Service. It's basically a newer wrapper over the Remote Agent but now allows us to correct provide a user name and password .. where the user does NOT have to be an admin! (joy!) So now you can correct set which users u want to have access to .. per WebSite ..

enter image description here

It also now tries to hit the the url: https://your-web-server:8172/MsDeploy.axd <-- which is EXACTLY what the Visual Studio 2010 Publish window does! (OMG -> PENNY DROPS!! BOOM!)

enter image description here

And here's my final MSBuild settings:

/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish 
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl=your-server-name
/p:DeployIISAppPath=name-of-the-website-in-iis7    
/p:username=AppianMedia\some-domain-user 
/p:password=JonSkeet<3<3<3
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True

Notice the username has the domain name in it? Ya need that, there. Also, in my picture, I've allowed our DOMAIN USERS access to the website for managament. As such, my new user account i added (TFSBuildService) has Membership to the Domain Users group ... so that's how it all works.

Now - if u've read all this, have a lolcat (cause they are SOOOOOOOO 2007)....

enter image description here

How to pass a query string parameter

You probably meant to use @ManagedProperty. This isn't useable on a view scoped bean to set a request parameter, because the view scope is of a broader scope than the request scope.

The canonical JSF2 way of passing request parameters and invoking actions on them would be something like the following:

view.xhtml view:

<h:link value="Edit" outcome="edit">
    <f:param name="id" value="#{item.id}" />
</h:link>

edit.xhtml view:

<f:metadata>
    <f:viewParam name="id" value="#{edit.id}" />
    <!-- You would normally also convert/validate it here. -->
    <f:event type="preRenderView" listener="#{edit.init}" />
</f:metadata>

Edit backing bean:

@ManagedBean
@ViewScoped
public class Edit {

    private Long id;

    public void init() {
        // This method will be invoked after the view parameter is set.
    }

    // ...
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to get TFS2010 to run MSDEPLOY for me through MSBUILD

IIS7 + related answer ....

Standard 401 Frak Off u suck RemoteAgent, error

How to pass a query string parameter

See also:

Related Topic