Deployment of PrecompiledApp issue

Question

The autogenerated PrecompiledApp.config is causing me some headache. Im automating the deployment of an older web site and 50% of the time when I deploy I get this error:

System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file '\\web.prod.local\c$\Sites\Website\PrecompiledApp.config' because it is being used by another process.

Content:

<precompiledApp version="2" updatable="true"/>

To the best of my knowledge websites uses some shadow copy feature to allow updating the site "runtime", with things such as app.config etc. However this 1 file seems to be an exception.

Can anyone suggest a workaround besides stopping the website while deploying?

Kind regards

Answer 1

Judging by the path in the error message I see you're trying to copy the files over a network share while deploying. This is bad practice to update the files directly over a network share or FTP etc. And this is the reason, actually. Network deployment is slow and while some files are still being updated/uploaded - the ASP.NET on the server is already trying to recycle the app, copy the files to "Temporary ASP.NET folders" etc. etc. etc.

Deployment best practice:

ZIP your precompiled site, upload, then run UNZIP on the server remotely

Here's how you run UNZIP remotely:

plink -ssh -l USERNAME -pw PASSWORD web.prod.local c:\Sites\Website\unzip -q -o c:\Sites\Website\site.zip -d c:\Sites\Website\

"plink" is a free SSH tool for windows (command-line) you need it on your dev machine

"web.prod.local" is your server address.

"c:\Sites\Website\" is the path your website on the server

You need SSH installed on your server to run commands remotely, the simplest option is too install the free tool: "freesshd" (google it)

Drop "unzip.exe" on the server as well, you see it's being called right there. Simplest way is to drop it right into the c:\Sites\Website\

PS. This is just an example, you can come up with your own solution