Microsoft Web Deployment Team Blog : Web Deployment

Web Deployment Tool and PowerShell Blog

faith_a — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:20:00 GMT

If you want to use the Web Deployment Tool with PowerShell, look no further than our own tester James Cook's PowerShell blog post. He shows how to invoke our deployment APIs through PowerShell to perform a local sync of content. In future posts, he plans to add remoting and other capabilities.

And let us know if you want to use Web Deploy with PowerShell, we're interested in hearing about what tasks you'd like to accomplish and why!

Web Deployment Tool 1.0 has shipped!

faith_a — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:30:00 GMT

After 2 years of development and lots of customer feedback, we are proud to announce that the Web Deployment Tool has shipped the RTW of our version 1.0!

In version 1.0, we have the following components:

Powerful APIs that allow you to deploy, sync and migrate web applications on IIS, and perform granular operations like changing IP bindings, site names and changing file structures on the fly. You can also create a new provider to sync a new type of resource.
Command-line tool (msdeploy.exe) that allows you to perform all the same operations available in the APIs.
User interface built into IIS Manager 7.0 on Vista, Windows 2008 and Windows 7 that allows you to create packages (zip files containing IIS config, content, databases and more) and install them.
Delegation framework and service built into IIS 7.0 that allows you to delegate tasks like installing applications and databases without requiring them to be administrators on the box.
Remote administrative service that works on IIS 6.0 and 7.0 to allow server-level synchronization by administrators.

So, what can you do with these components?

Migrate Web applications from IIS 6.0. Simplify the planning of your IIS 6.0 to IIS 7.0 migrations by determining incompatibilities and previewing the proposed changes before starting the process. Learning about any potential issues in advance gives you the chance to take corrective measures and simplifies migration.
Synchronize your server farm. Synchronize between IIS 6.0 > IIS 6.0 or IIS 7.0, and only sync the differences. The tool simplifies the synchronization process by automatically determining the configuration, content and certificates to be synchronized for a Web site. Optionally, specify additional resources for sync, including databases, COM objects, GAC assemblies and registry settings.
Package, archive and deploy Web applications. Package configuration and content of Web applications, including databases, and then use the packages for storage or redeployment. These packages can be deployed using IIS Manager without requiring administrative privileges. The tool integrates with Visual Studio 2010 to help developers streamline the deployment of Web applications to the Web server. The tool also integrates with the Web Platform Installer to allow you to simply and easily install community web applications.

What are some of the new features in RTW?

Brand new UI to create those server-side delegation rules, instead of directly editing config.
Delete and recycle application support inside IIS Manager, even as a remote non-admin user.
A new temporary agent that doesn't require you to have any services installed on your remote machines, but instead temporarily adds the agent and then removes it after sync.
A rule to avoid overwriting newer files on the destination with a new rule.
A rule to avoid syncing based on time stamp differences and instead perform a checksum comparison.
A new provider (runCommand) allows you to run a batch file, script or exe as part of synchronization. This is convenient if you need to net start a service, for example.
Lots of enhancements to our parameterization, including the ability to validate what the user enters, and provide a parameters.xml file with answers to parameters instead of passing them one at a time in the command-line.

Some of our favorite scenarios include:

Create application packages that contain all of the IIS config, content, databases and more, including parameters so that when the server admin installs the package, they are prompted to fill in parameters like SQL Server connection string.
Insert a few XML files into your existing application zip file (such as DotNetNuke or WordPress) and make your application work seamlessly in control panels or through the Web Platform installer.
Build an automated deployment system using our APIs, cmd-line or the Visual Studio integration, so that you can deploy daily from test to staging to production.
Allow your developers to directly deploy to the staging server without admin intervention, and lock down exactly what they can change (mark a folder as an app but not change the site's binding).
Replace Application Center with a set of scripts or programs that call our APIs or cmd-line to sync multiple servers in a web farm.
Build a roll-back solution by taking a package of your live app, deploying the app_v2 package created in your dev environment, and checking for failures. In case of failures, automatically apply the v1 package or backup that you took.

But there are a lot more tasks and scenarios you can accomplish, we'd love to hear about what you're doing...

Go get our 1.0 release at http://www.iis.net/webdeploymenttool and let us know what you think!

Happy deployments,
Faith Allington and the entire Web Deployment team

UI sample for web farm synchronization

faith_a — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:47:00 GMT

One of our team members has built a pretty cool sample UI that allows syncing of multiple web servers and also using file change notifications to trigger syncs. Take a look at the sample at http://blogs.iis.net/moshaikh/archive/2009/04/26/web-server-change-notification-or-web-server-compare-or-multi-server-sync-in-a-web-farm.aspx

BTW we do plan to add this functionality at some point into the Web Deployment Tool itself but it will likely be after version 1 releases.

New release of MS Deploy RC1

faith_a — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:08:00 GMT

We have a new release of the RC1 build to fix a couple issues that people found. We recommend that folks download the new version as it fixes some important issues.

How can I get the new build?

Just go to our download links for x86 and x64.

How does it upgrade if I already have the earlier RC1 build?

If you install the new build, it will automatically uninstall the older build and install the new one.

How does it work if my server is running the old RC1 (437) and my client is running the new RC1 (438)?

You will get an error that there is a version mismatch. The reason for this is that if your builds are out of sync, something might be different in the syncing process and cause an error. So we require the client and server to be running the same build.

What issues were fixed?

Installing an application package in certain time zones would result in an error.
Skip and replace rules didn't work properly.
A couple of other smaller infrastructure changes.

Let us know if you see any issues!

Thanks,

-faith

Web Deployment Tool RC1 has shipped

faith_a — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:44:00 GMT

The Web Deployment team is excited to announce that RC1 shipped this morning! We now have a release candidate that can be used for production testing and supports many new features.

So what did we add, you ask?

The biggest feature is our integration with the Web Platform Installer, or WebPI. Now you can use WebPI to seamlessly install community web applications DotNetNuke or WordPress on your machine including all of their dependencies such as IIS, ASP.NET, PHP, etc., using the Web Deployment Tool to perform the application install. You can even submit your own applications into the Windows Web Application Gallery so they can be included in WebPI!

Beyond that we have a bunch of features as well as a lot of performance and stabilization work.

Web application packaging and deployment additions:

Added the ability to create packages by hand without requiring the Web Deployment Tool to be installed.
Enhanced the iisApp provider so that IIS application packages can be installed on IIS 6.0 (Windows 2003) and IIS 5.1 (XP).
Added the setAcl provider, which allows you to set ACLs on a destination machine. You can set ACLs on a folder or file and specify a username or group. It can also automatically detect the application pool or anonymous user to set ACLs for.
Improved the parameterization feature, including:
- A single parameter can be written to multiple places, instead of requiring a user to enter the information multiple times.
- Tags for parameters that can be interpreted by code or the IIS Manager UI, so that you can remove parameters if they aren't needed, for example.
- New parameter types, giving you more flexibility.
- UI support so that any parameter type can be created.
Added support for multiple database types.
Added the ability to create packages in the IIS Manager that include more than just IIS applications and SQL databases, now any provider can be included in a package.

Web server synchronization additions:

Added logging for the Remote Agent Service, so that you can easily troubleshoot remote sync issues.
Improved the logging for the Web Deployment Handler so that less unnecessary data is logged.
Added automatic detection of encrypted properties in IIS configuration, so that an encryption password must be set.
Improved the performance of synchronizations and fixed several of the issues with syncing large amounts of content.

Downloads
x86 version: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656139
x64 version: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656140

Documentation
Walkthroughs can be found at the Web Deployment Tool main page.
Full product documentation can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd569024.aspx.

Please join us in the forums and tell us what you think. What's great, what's bad, what's missing... we want to know!

Happy deployments!

Beta 2 skip and replace rules

faith_a — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:13:00 GMT

We posted about skip and replace rules awhile back, but this is probably one of the more complex areas of MS Deploy. You have to understand our provider structure to figure out what type of object needs to be replaced, what attribute, and then write a RegEx match. There are a lot of parameters you can set to scope the rules, and then the added complexity of regular expressions. So I wanted to post some of my favorite rules (not in priority order ;-)) for the command-line and also show the same rule for the PowerShell cmdlets.

If there are more rules that we should post as examples, please let me know!

1. Replace the home directory of a site or application

msdeploy -verb:sync -source:archiveDir=c:\App1 -dest:appHostconfig=MySite/App1 -replace:objectName=virtualDirectory,scopeAttributeName=physicalPath,match=c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\app1,replace=c:\dest\app1

I have an archive with an application that points to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\app1. I already have content in that location so when I sync, I want to create a new destination directory.

2. Replace multiple home directories for a site and child applications that have different paths

msdeploy -verb:sync -source:archiveDir=c:\NewSite1 -dest:appHostconfig=NewSite2 -replace:objectName=virtualDirectory,scopeAttributeName=physicalPath,match=c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot,replace=c:\dest2 -replace:objectName=virtualDirectory,scopeAttributeName=physicalPath,match=c:\\dest,replace=c:\dest3 -replace:objectName=virtualDirectory,scopeAttributeName=physicalPath,match=c:\\images,replace=c:\images2

I have an archive of a web site that contains a lot of directories. Most exist under c:\inetpub\wwwroot, and I likely already have content in this location, so I've decided to create a brand new site (just by specifying a new site name in the destination) and also change all the directories.

I use 3 replace rules for each different physical path I need to replace. My archive has a site with 5 applications, 3 underneath c:\inetpub\wwwroot and 2 under separate directories. In order to figure out all the paths I need to replace, I might know this in advance or I can open archive.xml in Notepad and search for every entry of ".dirPath". This will show me every place that we have a directory path.

3. Change the binding for a web site

msdeploy -verb:sync -source:package=site1.zip -dest:appHostconfig=MySite -replace:objectName=binding,targetAttributeName=bindingInformation,match=:80:,replace=:81:10.0.0.1

$dest = Get-DeploymentObject apphostconfig MySite
$source = Get-DeploymentObject archiveDir c:\FullSite
Update-DeploymentObject $dest $source -replace 'objectName=binding,targetAttributeName=bindingInformation,match=:80:,replace=:81:10.0.0.1'

In this case, I'm syncing from an archive that contains a site called Faith. With this sync, I am syncing it with a new name, MySite, to create a brand new site. I am also changing the port and adding an IP address. Note that it will change every binding that has matches :80: globally.

Visual Studio 2010 deployment features (including MS Deploy)

faith_a — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:15:00 GMT

We briefly mentioned that Visual Studio 2010 is integrating the Web Deployment Tool, but we didn't really go into details.

Here's a great blog post that covers the highlights of VS 2010 deployment features, not just MS Deploy, but a lot of other cool stuff as well!

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2009/02/04/web-deployment-with-vs-2010-and-iis.aspx

The MSDeploy SQL Database Provider (dbFullSql)

yaminij — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:34:00 GMT

Overview

The MSDeploy SQL Database provider, also called dbFullSql is desgined for first-time installation or deployment of SQL databases to a specified destination database. This blog will serve more as a first step towards using the dbFullSql provider that recently shipped with the Beta 2 version of MSDeploy. The provider can be used in the following ways

1) Syncing a single source database to an empty or nonexistent destination database

2) Syncing a source database to an editable .sql file

3) Sync from a .sql file to an existing destination database.

Implementation

The dbFullSql provider uses SMO internally to generate the source database scripts and apply them to the target database. The following SMO Scripting Options are set to true by default inside the dbFullSql provider

a) ScriptSchema

b) ScriptData

c) DriAll

d) Triggers

e) Indexes

f) NoFileGroup

We support passing all SMO options, that take boolean values, as parameters to the dbFullSql provider. For more examples on how to use the SMO options with the dbFullSql provider, please check the command-line usage below. Since the script is only generated from the database specified as the source, it is not required to specify the SMO option as a parameter on the destination as well.

The dbFullSql provider will also create the target database if it does not exist. If you would like to drop the destination database and create a new one on sync, you can use the dropDestinationDatabase=true parameter on the destination

The dbFullSql provider also has transactional support during the execution of the SQL scripts on the destination database. This means, if there is an error in the middle of the sync, all the changes made to the destination database until then will be rolled back.

Command-line Usage

1) To sync a single source database (eg. SourceDatabase), to an empty or nonexistent destination database, you should run the following command

Syntax:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="<source db connection string>" -dest:dbFullSql="<dest db connection string>"

Example:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

-dest:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DestDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

2) To sync a source database (eg. SourceDatabase), to an editable .sql file

Syntax:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="<source db connection string>" -dest:dbFullSql="<absolutePath to a .sql file>"

Example:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

-dest:dbFullSql="d:\SourceDb.sql"

3) To sync a .sql file to an existing destination database

Syntax:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="<absolutePath to a .sql file>" -dest:dbFullSql="<dest db connection string>"

Example:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="d:\SourceDb.sql"

-dest:dbFullSql="Data Source=SqlMachine\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DestDatabase;User Id=user1;password=blah"

4) To specify SMO options as parameters to the dbFullSql provider

Syntax:

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="<absolutePath to a .sql file>",smoOptionName=value -dest:dbFullSql="<dest db connection string>"

Example:

In order to skip scripting data on the source database and to sync only schema, you can run the following command

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true", ScriptData=false

-dest:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DestDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

Example:

In order to include schema-qualified table references for foreign key constraints into the generated script, you can pass SchemaQualifyForeignKeysReferences=true to the dbFullSql provider

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true", SchemaQualifyForeignKeysReferences=false

-dest:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DestDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

5) You could also sync a database to a package or an archive

Example:

a) msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

-dest:archivedir="c:\archive"

b) msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:dbFullSql="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=SourceDatabase;Integrated Security=true"

-dest:package="c:\package.zip"

6) To sync multiple databases and database scripts to multiple databases, you can use a manifest file with the MSDeploy manifest provider.

Limitations

The dbFullSql provider cannot be used for incremental publishing to a target database. You can incrementally publish to a target database, only if there is no collision between existing objects on the source database and the target database.

The dbFullSql provider operates at the database level only and not at the SQL Server level. Hence any objects at the server level, like logins, on which objects at the database level depend on (like users) will not be scripted.

We currently do not support passing any non-boolean SMO option to the dbFullSql provider.

References

For more information about SMO scripting options, you can refer this link

For information on how to download and install SMO and MSDeploy in general, you can refer the MSDeploy Help File

The Web Deployment Tool is @ PDC!

faith_a — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:49:00 GMT

Just wanted to let everyone know that a bunch of us from the IIS and MS Deploy team are here at PDC 2008 in sunny Los Angeles! If you're here for PDC, please stop by the Windows Server 2008 Web Platform booth or check out our great talks on web deployment. We have some great news being announced and we'd love to meet folks that are currently using or interested in using the Web Deployment Tool.

Happy deployments!

Faith Allington, and the entire Web Deployment Tool team