iis

Installing Web Deploy

Introduction#

Installing Web Deploy allows quick installation of web applications directly from the development environment using Visual Studio.

Installation types:

online - target Windows server has Internet access - installation is simple using Installing and configuring Web deployment on servers with Internet connection example below

offline - target Windows server is offline - installation is rather complex because several components and configuration must be done manually (or scripted)

Installing WebDeploy on IIS with ASP.NET

  1. Install WebServer Role
  2. Install WebDeploy 3.6 from MSDN
  3. Activate ASP.NET 4.6 under Web Server (IIS) > Web Server > Application Development

Installing and configuring Web deployment on servers with Internet connection

In order to be able to directly deploy web project changes to an Web Server, the following steps must be followed. If target server has Internet access, the process is quite simple, as Microsoft has a Web Platform package to do almost everything that is needed.

  1. Cleanup

Make sure that C:\Program Files\IIS does not contain older version of Microsoft Web Deploy. If it contains, uninstall it (them) from Add/remove programs and remove any files left

  1. Web platform installer

Install Web platform installer (WPI) from here

  1. Web deploy installation

Run WPI, search for Web Deploy 3.6 for Hosting Servers and install everything it contains. It will take care to install all the required dependencies (e.g. for SQL deployment) and also make IIS ready to be configured for Web deployments

  1. IIS configuration

IIS must be configured in order to allow web deployments on one or more of its Web sites.

  • Rights: access web site -> IIS manager permissions and configure which users are allowed to publish. NOTE: in some particular configuration, trying to select a user might lead to IIS manager crashing. In these rare cases, just enter username manually - e.g. domain\username

  • Web deploy Publishing configuration - Right click on Web site -> Deploy… -> Configure Web Deploy Publishing

NOTE: In order to for publishing to work, selected port (default is 8172) must be opened (it might be blocked in some companies).

Full installation details (step by step with relevant pictures) can be found here

Installing and configuring Web deployment on servers without Internet connection

Fully configuration of Web deployment without Internet connection (offline) is harder to make because Web platform installer (UI) operates by querying packages list and content from an Internet location.

  1. Cleanup

Make sure that C:\Program Files\IIS does not contain older version of Microsoft Web Deploy. If it contains, uninstall it (them) from Add/remove programs and remove any files left

  1. Web Platform Installer v5 Command Line (WebPICMD.exe) allows to export and install packages without the “online” requirement. Full installation and usage instructions can be found here.

  2. Required packages for Web Deploy

  • install Web Deploy into an “online” machine

  • export packages for it using WPI Command Line

    C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer>WebPICMD.exe /Offline /Product s:“WDeployPS” /Path:C:\OfflineCache

Dependencies list will be output:

The software that you obtain using the Web Platform Installer Command Line Tool
is licensed to you by its owner.  Microsoft grants you no rights for third part
 software.
Loading products in online feeds ...

Loading products in offline feeds...
Creating offline cache for following products:
WDeployPS
netframework2
WindowsInstaller31
PowerShell2
PowerShellMsu
ManagementService
IISManagementConsole
WASConfigurationAPI
NetFx4Extended-ASPNET45
WASNetFxEnvironment
NetFx3
IIS7
StaticContent
WASProcessModel
DefaultDocument
DirectoryBrowse
HTTPErrors
HTTPLogging
LoggingTools
RequestMonitor
RequestFiltering
StaticContentCompression
ASPNET
NETExtensibility
ISAPIExtensions
ISAPIFilters
WDeploy_3_5
WDeployNoSMO
WDeployNoSMO_3_5
NetFx4
WDeploy_Only_3_5
NETFramework4
WindowsImagingComponent
IIS51
IIS60
NETFramework45
VWD11_Only_BaseLocale
VWD2012IncompatibleOSs
VS11_Not_RTM_Block
VWD11_RC_Below_Block
SMO
SMO_11_1
SQLCLRTypes_11_1
WindowsInstaller45
SQLCLRTypes_Only_x86_11_1
SQLCLRTypes_Only_x64_11_1
SMO_11_1_Only_x86
SMO_11_1_Only_x64
SMO_10_5
SQLNativeClient_10_5
SQLCLRTypes_10_5
SQLCLRTypes_x86_10_5
SQLCLRTypes_x64_10_5
SMO_Only_x86_10_5
SMO_Only_x64_10_5
WindowsVista_OrUp
WindowsVista_Below
DACFX_3_1
SQLDOM_11_0
SQLCLRTypes_11_0
SQLCLRTypes_Only_x86_11_0
SQLCLRTypes_Only_x64_11_0
DACFX_X64_3_1
DACFX_X86_3_1
WindowsVista_Below_DACFX
SMO_11_0
SQLNativeClient_11_0
SMO_Only_x64_11_0
SMO_Only_x86_11_0

...

All offline cache operations completed successfully.
To use the new offline feed, please run the following from the command line:

WebPiCmd.exe /Install /Products:<products you want> /XML:<Offline main feed>
Done !

The list is much longer than the actual needed packages for a particular Windows Server because it exports for both x86 and x64 and assumes that nothing is installed.

One way is to use /Install option to install the packages, but a much faster way is to install Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web from here. This will install all required prerequisites. Of course, Visual Studio itself is not required on target server and can be uninstalled.

Also, Microsoft Web Deploy 3.5 can be upgraded to Microsoft Web Deploy 3.6.

  1. IIS Management Service installation

Install Management Service from Server Manager -> Local Server -> Server Roles -> Web Server (IIS) -> Management Tools -> Management Service

NOTE: sanity check before going to configuration

  • check that Web Deployment Agent Service is running
  • check that Web Management Service is running
  1. IIS configuration

IIS must be configured in order to allow web deployments on one or more of its Web sites.

Rights: access web site -> IIS manager permissions and configure which users are allowed to publish. NOTE: in some particular configuration, trying to select a user might lead to IIS manager crashing. In these rare cases, just enter username manually - e.g. domain\username

Web deploy Publishing configuration - Right click on Web site -> Deploy… -> Configure Web Deploy Publishing

NOTE: In order for publishing to work, selected port (default is 8172) must be opened (it might be blocked in some companies).

Full installation details (step by step with relevant pictures) can be found here

Excluding Files and Folders from Web Deployment

Typically, some files from the Web Application should not be overwritten when performing the deployment (e.g. web.config). This can be accomplished by:

1) Excluding from output - which means setting Build action to None. This is the easiest way, but it might not work for some particular files or folders, that must be in the output for the application to run locally

2) Excluding Files and Folders from a Web Package by creating a special xml file in the Web application root folder. E.g.:

File name = [project name].wpp.targets
File content = 
    
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" 
         xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <ItemGroup>   
    <!-- this will exclude all files from Internal folder -->
    <ExcludeFromPackageFolders Include="Internal">
      <FromTarget>ContactManager.Mvc.wpp.targets</FromTarget>
    </ExcludeFromPackageFolders>

    <!-- this will exclude specified files -->
    <ExcludeFromPackageFiles Include="Scripts\jquery-1.4.4-
vsdoc.js;Scripts\jquery-1.4.4.js;Scripts\jquery-ui.js;Scripts\jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.js;Scripts\jquery.validate-vsdoc.js;Scripts\jquery.validate.js;Scripts\jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js;Scripts\MicrosoftAjax.debug.js;Scripts\MicrosoftMvcValidation.debug.js">
      <FromTarget>ContactManager.Mvc.wpp.targets</FromTarget>
    </ExcludeFromPackageFiles>
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

More details can be found here.

Web deployment automatic backups

Web deployment offers the option to automatically backup target Web site (not target Web application!) on deployment. This is recommended to allow web application rollback.

In order to configure automatic backups, the following steps must be followed:

1) Enable backups

Open %programfiles%\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\scripts\BackupScripts.ps1 in Powershell

Execute the following commands:

# Turns on all backup functionality
TurnOn-Backups -On $true

# Turns off all backup functionality
TurnOn-Backups -On $false

# Changes default global backup behavior to enabled
Configure-Backups -Enabled $true

# Changes default backup behavior for site "foo" to enabled
Configure-Backups -SiteName "foo" -Enabled $true

# Changes the path of where backups are stored to a sibling directory named "siteName_snapshots".  
# For more information about path variables, see the "backupPath" attribute in the section 
# "Configuring  Backup Settings on the Server for Global usage manually in IIS Config"
Configure-Backups -BackupPath "{SitePathParent}\{siteName}_snapshots"

# Configures default backup limit to 5 backups
Configure-Backups -NumberOfBackups 5

# Configures sync behavior to fail if a sync fails for any reason
Configure-Backups -ContinueSyncOnBackupFailure $false

# Adds providers to skip when performing a backup
Configure-Backups -AddExcludedProviders @("dbmysql","dbfullsql")

# Allows a site administrator to enable backups and set the number of backups at the site level
Configure-BackupSettingsProvider -CanSetEnabled $true -CanSetNumBackups $true

# Allows a site administrator to control which providers they want to skip in a backup, as 
# well as whether they can continue a sync after a backup failure
Configure-BackupSettingsProvider -CanSetContinueSyncOnBackupFailure $true -CanAddExcludedProviders $true

2) Check backup settings on global or site level

Get-BackupSettings
Get-BackupSettings -SiteName "Default Web Site"

3) Further backup customization

Backup settings can be configured for each web site. Open applicationHost.config and add backup settings for its specific location:

<location path="siteName">
    <system.webServer>
        <wdeploy>
            <backup enabled="true" numberOfBackups="4">
                <excludedProviders>
                    <clear />
                    <provider name="dbfullsql" />
                </excludedProviders>
            </backup>
        </wdeploy>
    </system.webServer>
</location>

For security related information and other information related to command line usage, access this article.

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