Web deploy

Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy
Monday, September 13, 2010 .NET ASP.NET IIS7 Visual Studio

This is the twenty-eighth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release.

This blog post continues a series of posts I’m doing that cover the new improvements we made around web deployment. In my first post in the deployment series I provided an overview of the new VS 2010 Web Deployment features.

In today’s post I’m going to be discussing Microsoft Web Deploy – which is a free server technology that enables a comprehensive publishing and deployment mechanism. Web Deploy enables you to not only publish files – but also provision database schema/data, run database change scripts, set security ACLs, and more. All of these deployment steps can be automated using Visual Studio.

This post will provide a step by step tutorial on how to install Web Deploy and enable it on a web-server. I’ll then demonstrate how you can use Visual Studio 2010 to directly publish to servers using Web Deploy, as well as how you can use Visual Studio to create installation packages that you can use to automate the deployment of your applications.
Web Deploy – And Why Should You Care

Deploying a web application or site involves several steps. You typically need to:

Copy files and folders
Provision database schema and optionally populate database content
Set appropriate read/write and security ACLs on files and folders
Install and configure SSL certificates
Deploy other misc dependencies (Event logs, GAC libraries, COM objects, etc)

Performing all of these steps manually is tiresome, slow, and dangerous (since manual deployment steps are error prone). Enabling an automated process that allows you to quickly provision and deploy applications on a server helps reduce the chances of things going wrong, and can dramatically improve the cycle time it takes for you to get a change you make in an application into production.

Microsoft Web Deploy

Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy

Monday, September 13, 2010

.NET ASP.NET IIS7 Visual Studio

This is the twenty-eighth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release.
This blog post continues a series of posts I’m doing that cover the new improvements we made around web deployment.  In my first post in the deployment series I provided an overview of the new VS 2010 Web Deployment features.
In today’s post I’m going to be discussing Microsoft Web Deploy – which is a free server technology that enables a comprehensive publishing and deployment mechanism.  Web Deploy enables you to not only publish files – but also provision database schema/data, run database change scripts, set security ACLs, and more.  All of these deployment steps can be automated using Visual Studio.
This post will provide a step by step tutorial on how to install Web Deploy and enable it on a web-server.  I’ll then demonstrate how you can use Visual Studio 2010 to directly publish to servers using Web Deploy, as well as how you can use Visual Studio to create installation packages that you can use to automate the deployment of your applications.

Web Deploy – And Why Should You Care

Deploying a web application or site involves several steps. You typically need to:

• Copy files and folders
• Provision database schema and optionally populate database content
• Set appropriate read/write and security ACLs on files and folders
• Install and configure SSL certificates
• Deploy other misc dependencies (Event logs, GAC libraries, COM objects, etc)

Performing all of these steps manually is tiresome, slow, and dangerous (since manual deployment steps are error prone).  Enabling an automated process that allows you to quickly provision and deploy applications on a server helps reduce the chances of things going wrong, and can dramatically improve the cycle time it takes for you to get a change you make in an application into production. 
Microsoft Web Deploy
Web Deploy is a free technology built by my team that can improve web deployment. It is a deployment service that runs on a server, and enables you to either locally or remotely deploy applications onto it.  Web Deploy includes built-in support for creating virtual directories and applications within IIS, copying files and folders, provisioning databases (both SQL Server and MySQL), setting file-system ACLs and more (it even includes built-in providers for things like setting registry entries, registering COM components, etc).  In addition to having these built-in deployment features, it also supports a .NET based provider API that enables you to create and plug-in your own custom deployment actions – which allow you to customize it however you want.
The wire-protocol for Web Deploy is HTTPS – which means Web Deploy can be used through firewalls (enabling easy, secure, deployment to remote hosted servers).  Web Deploy also supports both admin and non-admin deployment scenarios.  The non-admin scenarios enable administrators to configure Web Deploy on a server, and then delegate a subset of deployment capabilities to developers who do not have admin accounts on the production server.  This enables a very secure and flexible deployment approach.  I’ll cover the configuration steps to enable delegated deployment scenarios in my next blog post in this series.

Installing Web Deploy on Windows Server 2008

Visual Studio 2010 (and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express) will by default install Web Deploy on your development machine as part of their setup.  This provides you with what you need to create Web Deployment setup packages within VS, as well as publish them to remote servers that have the Web Deploy service installed and enabled.
Below are the steps for how to install Web Deploy on a production server running IIS 7.x on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2:
1) Download and run the Microsoft Web Platform Installer on your production server.
2) Click the “Web Platform” tab within the Web Platform Installer, then click the “Customize” link under the “Web Server” section.  Select the “Web Deployment Tool 1.1” feature as well as the “Management Service” feature:

3) Press the Install Button.  This will download and install the Web Deployment Package, and enable the IIS Management Service feature that is built-into Windows.

Enabling Deployments with Windows Server 2008

We now have Web Deploy installed – next we need to enable deployments with it.
Web Deploy supports deployments by administrators, as well as deployments by non-administrators (aka delegated deployments). In this blog post, I’m going to cover how to enable deployments using an account that has administrator permissions on the server.  I will cover how to enable delegated deployments by developers that do not have an administrator account in my next blog post in this series.
1) The first step to enable Web Deploy is to start the IIS Admin Tool (Start -> Run -> inetmgr.exe).  Then double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon on the home-screen:

When you double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below.  In the Actions pane, click the “Edit Feature Settings…” link.  This will bring up the “Edit Feature Settings” dialog - check the “Allow administrators to bypass rules” option within this dialog box.  This will allow those with Administrator accounts on the server to bypass the delegation capabilities of the Web Management Service and perform actions using their administrator capabilities:

Then return back to the IIS Admin Tool home-screen and double click the “Management Service” icon:

When you double-click the “Management Service” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below.  Click the “Enable Remote Connections” checkbox to enable remote deployments.  You can optionally choose which IP address and port the management service runs on – as well as what client IP addresses are allowed to connect with it.  You can tweak these settings to lock down who can access the deployment service.
When you are done click the “Start” link within the “Actions” tab to start the Web Management Service on the server:

Automating Deployment with Microsoft Web Deploy

Monday, September 13, 2010

.NET ASP.NET IIS7 Visual Studio

This is the twenty-eighth in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release.
This blog post continues a series of posts I’m doing that cover the new improvements we made around web deployment.  In my first post in the deployment series I provided an overview of the new VS 2010 Web Deployment features.
In today’s post I’m going to be discussing Microsoft Web Deploy – which is a free server technology that enables a comprehensive publishing and deployment mechanism.  Web Deploy enables you to not only publish files – but also provision database schema/data, run database change scripts, set security ACLs, and more.  All of these deployment steps can be automated using Visual Studio.
This post will provide a step by step tutorial on how to install Web Deploy and enable it on a web-server.  I’ll then demonstrate how you can use Visual Studio 2010 to directly publish to servers using Web Deploy, as well as how you can use Visual Studio to create installation packages that you can use to automate the deployment of your applications.

Web Deploy – And Why Should You Care

Deploying a web application or site involves several steps. You typically need to:

• Copy files and folders
• Provision database schema and optionally populate database content
• Set appropriate read/write and security ACLs on files and folders
• Install and configure SSL certificates
• Deploy other misc dependencies (Event logs, GAC libraries, COM objects, etc)

Performing all of these steps manually is tiresome, slow, and dangerous (since manual deployment steps are error prone).  Enabling an automated process that allows you to quickly provision and deploy applications on a server helps reduce the chances of things going wrong, and can dramatically improve the cycle time it takes for you to get a change you make in an application into production. 
Microsoft Web Deploy
Web Deploy is a free technology built by my team that can improve web deployment. It is a deployment service that runs on a server, and enables you to either locally or remotely deploy applications onto it.  Web Deploy includes built-in support for creating virtual directories and applications within IIS, copying files and folders, provisioning databases (both SQL Server and MySQL), setting file-system ACLs and more (it even includes built-in providers for things like setting registry entries, registering COM components, etc).  In addition to having these built-in deployment features, it also supports a .NET based provider API that enables you to create and plug-in your own custom deployment actions – which allow you to customize it however you want.
The wire-protocol for Web Deploy is HTTPS – which means Web Deploy can be used through firewalls (enabling easy, secure, deployment to remote hosted servers).  Web Deploy also supports both admin and non-admin deployment scenarios.  The non-admin scenarios enable administrators to configure Web Deploy on a server, and then delegate a subset of deployment capabilities to developers who do not have admin accounts on the production server.  This enables a very secure and flexible deployment approach.  I’ll cover the configuration steps to enable delegated deployment scenarios in my next blog post in this series.

Installing Web Deploy on Windows Server 2008

Visual Studio 2010 (and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express) will by default install Web Deploy on your development machine as part of their setup.  This provides you with what you need to create Web Deployment setup packages within VS, as well as publish them to remote servers that have the Web Deploy service installed and enabled.
Below are the steps for how to install Web Deploy on a production server running IIS 7.x on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2:
1) Download and run the Microsoft Web Platform Installer on your production server.
2) Click the “Web Platform” tab within the Web Platform Installer, then click the “Customize” link under the “Web Server” section.  Select the “Web Deployment Tool 1.1” feature as well as the “Management Service” feature:

3) Press the Install Button.  This will download and install the Web Deployment Package, and enable the IIS Management Service feature that is built-into Windows.

Enabling Deployments with Windows Server 2008

We now have Web Deploy installed – next we need to enable deployments with it.
Web Deploy supports deployments by administrators, as well as deployments by non-administrators (aka delegated deployments). In this blog post, I’m going to cover how to enable deployments using an account that has administrator permissions on the server.  I will cover how to enable delegated deployments by developers that do not have an administrator account in my next blog post in this series.
1) The first step to enable Web Deploy is to start the IIS Admin Tool (Start -> Run -> inetmgr.exe).  Then double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon on the home-screen:

When you double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below.  In the Actions pane, click the “Edit Feature Settings…” link.  This will bring up the “Edit Feature Settings” dialog - check the “Allow administrators to bypass rules” option within this dialog box.  This will allow those with Administrator accounts on the server to bypass the delegation capabilities of the Web Management Service and perform actions using their administrator capabilities:

Then return back to the IIS Admin Tool home-screen and double click the “Management Service” icon:

When you double-click the “Management Service” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below.  Click the “Enable Remote Connections” checkbox to enable remote deployments.  You can optionally choose which IP address and port the management service runs on – as well as what client IP addresses are allowed to connect with it.  You can tweak these settings to lock down who can access the deployment service.
When you are done click the “Start” link within the “Actions” tab to start the Web Management Service on the server:

The server is now setup for deployments using an administrator account with Web Deploy.
Important Tip: One thing to watch for is whether you have a firewall enabled on your server, or within the cluster where your server is hosted.  By default the Management Service runs using the HTTPS protocol on port 8172.  This port might be locked down by default depending on your hosting configuration.  If so you should either unlock it with your firewall/hoster – or pick a different port number that is allowed.  You can test to see whether the management service is available simply by opening up a browser and accessing it using a URL like: https://yourservername:8172/MsDeploy.axd – if you are prompted for a username/password then you know it is working, and there is no firewall blocking access to it.  If it times out then it is likely that a firewall is blocking it.
The server is now setup for deployments using an administrator account with Web Deploy.
Important Tip: One thing to watch for is whether you have a firewall enabled on your server, or within the cluster where your server is hosted.  By default the Management Service runs using the HTTPS protocol on port 8172.  This port might be locked down by default depending on your hosting configuration.  If so you should either unlock it with your firewall/hoster – or pick a different port number that is allowed.  You can test to see whether the management service is available simply by opening up a browser and accessing it using a URL like: https://yourservername:8172/MsDeploy.axd – if you are prompted for a username/password then you know it is working, and there is no firewall blocking access to it.  If it times out then it is likely that a firewall is blocking it.
Web Deploy is a free technology built by my team that can improve web deployment. It is a deployment service that runs on a server, and enables you to either locally or remotely deploy applications onto it. Web Deploy includes built-in support for creating virtual directories and applications within IIS, copying files and folders, provisioning databases (both SQL Server and MySQL), setting file-system ACLs and more (it even includes built-in providers for things like setting registry entries, registering COM components, etc). In addition to having these built-in deployment features, it also supports a .NET based provider API that enables you to create and plug-in your own custom deployment actions – which allow you to customize it however you want.

The wire-protocol for Web Deploy is HTTPS – which means Web Deploy can be used through firewalls (enabling easy, secure, deployment to remote hosted servers). Web Deploy also supports both admin and non-admin deployment scenarios. The non-admin scenarios enable administrators to configure Web Deploy on a server, and then delegate a subset of deployment capabilities to developers who do not have admin accounts on the production server. This enables a very secure and flexible deployment approach. I’ll cover the configuration steps to enable delegated deployment scenarios in my next blog post in this series.
Installing Web Deploy on Windows Server 2008

Visual Studio 2010 (and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express) will by default install Web Deploy on your development machine as part of their setup. This provides you with what you need to create Web Deployment setup packages within VS, as well as publish them to remote servers that have the Web Deploy service installed and enabled.

Below are the steps for how to install Web Deploy on a production server running IIS 7.x on Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2:

1) Download and run the Microsoft Web Platform Installer on your production server.

2) Click the “Web Platform” tab within the Web Platform Installer, then click the “Customize” link under the “Web Server” section. Select the “Web Deployment Tool 1.1” feature as well as the “Management Service” feature:

image

3) Press the Install Button. This will download and install the Web Deployment Package, and enable the IIS Management Service feature that is built-into Windows.
Enabling Deployments with Windows Server 2008

We now have Web Deploy installed – next we need to enable deployments with it.

Web Deploy supports deployments by administrators, as well as deployments by non-administrators (aka delegated deployments). In this blog post, I’m going to cover how to enable deployments using an account that has administrator permissions on the server. I will cover how to enable delegated deployments by developers that do not have an administrator account in my next blog post in this series.

1) The first step to enable Web Deploy is to start the IIS Admin Tool (Start -> Run -> inetmgr.exe). Then double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon on the home-screen:

image

When you double-click the “Management Service Delegation” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below. In the Actions pane, click the “Edit Feature Settings…” link. This will bring up the “Edit Feature Settings” dialog - check the “Allow administrators to bypass rules” option within this dialog box. This will allow those with Administrator accounts on the server to bypass the delegation capabilities of the Web Management Service and perform actions using their administrator capabilities:

image

Then return back to the IIS Admin Tool home-screen and double click the “Management Service” icon:

image

When you double-click the “Management Service” icon it will bring you to a page that looks like below. Click the “Enable Remote Connections” checkbox to enable remote deployments. You can optionally choose which IP address and port the management service runs on – as well as what client IP addresses are allowed to connect with it. You can tweak these settings to lock down who can access the deployment service.

When you are done click the “Start” link within the “Actions” tab to start the Web Management Service on the server:

image

The server is now setup for deployments using an administrator account with Web Deploy.

Important Tip: One thing to watch for is whether you have a firewall enabled on your server, or within the cluster where your server is hosted. By default the Management Service runs using the HTTPS protocol on port 8172. This port might be locked down by default depending on your hosting configuration. If so you should either unlock it with your firewall/hoster – or pick a different port number that is allowed. You can test to see whether the management service is available simply by opening up a browser and accessing it using a URL like: https://yourservername:8172/MsDeploy.axd – if you are prompted for a username/password then you know it is working, and there is no firewall blocking access to it. If it times out then it is likely that a firewall is blocking it.