How to Publish Web with msbuild?

Question

I got it mostly working without a custom msbuild script. Here are the relevant TeamCity build configuration settings:

Artifact paths: %system.teamcity.build.workingDir%\MyProject\obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp 
Type of runner: MSBuild (Runner for MSBuild files) 
Build file path: MyProject\MyProject.csproj 
Working directory: same as checkout directory 
MSBuild version: Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 
MSBuild ToolsVersion: 4.0 
Run platform: x86 
Targets: Package 
Command line parameters to MSBuild.exe: /p:Configuration=Debug

This will compile, package (with web.config transformation), and save the output as artifacts. The only thing missing is copying the output to a specified location, but that could be done either in another TeamCity build configuration with an artifact dependency or with an msbuild script.

Update

Here is an msbuild script that will compile, package (with web.config transformation), and copy the output to my staging server

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Release</Configuration>
        <SolutionName>MySolution</SolutionName>
        <SolutionFile>$(SolutionName).sln</SolutionFile>
        <ProjectName>MyProject</ProjectName>
        <ProjectFile>$(ProjectName)\$(ProjectName).csproj</ProjectFile>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <Target Name="Build" DependsOnTargets="BuildPackage;CopyOutput" />

    <Target Name="BuildPackage">
        <MSBuild Projects="$(SolutionFile)" ContinueOnError="false" Targets="Rebuild" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration)" />
        <MSBuild Projects="$(ProjectFile)" ContinueOnError="false" Targets="Package" Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration)" />
    </Target>

    <Target Name="CopyOutput">
        <ItemGroup>
            <PackagedFiles Include="$(ProjectName)\obj\$(Configuration)\Package\PackageTmp\**\*.*"/>
        </ItemGroup>
        <Copy SourceFiles="@(PackagedFiles)" DestinationFiles="@(PackagedFiles->'\\build02\wwwroot\$(ProjectName)\$(Configuration)\%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)')"/>
    </Target>
</Project>

You can also remove the SolutionName and ProjectName properties from the PropertyGroup tag and pass them to msbuild.

msbuild build.xml /p:Configuration=Deploy;SolutionName=MySolution;ProjectName=MyProject

Update 2

Since this question still gets a good deal of traffic, I thought it was worth updating my answer with my current script that uses Web Deploy (also known as MSDeploy).

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="4.0">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Release</Configuration>
    <ProjectFile Condition=" '$(ProjectFile)' == '' ">$(ProjectName)\$(ProjectName).csproj</ProjectFile>
    <DeployServiceUrl Condition=" '$(DeployServiceUrl)' == '' ">http://staging-server/MSDeployAgentService</DeployServiceUrl>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <Target Name="VerifyProperties">
    <!-- Verify that we have values for all required properties -->
    <Error Condition=" '$(ProjectName)' == '' " Text="ProjectName is required." />
  </Target>

  <Target Name="Build" DependsOnTargets="VerifyProperties">
    <!-- Deploy using windows authentication -->
    <MSBuild Projects="$(ProjectFile)"
             Properties="Configuration=$(Configuration);
                             MvcBuildViews=False;
                             DeployOnBuild=true;
                             DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish;
                             CreatePackageOnPublish=True;
                             AllowUntrustedCertificate=True;
                             MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent;
                             MsDeployServiceUrl=$(DeployServiceUrl);
                             SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True;
                             UserName=;
                             Password=;"
             ContinueOnError="false" />
  </Target>
</Project>

In TeamCity, I have parameters named env.Configuration, env.ProjectName and env.DeployServiceUrl. The MSBuild runner has the build file path and the parameters are passed automagically (you don't have to specify them in Command line parameters).

You can also run it from the command line:

msbuild build.xml /p:Configuration=Staging;ProjectName=MyProject;DeployServiceUrl=http://staging-server/MSDeployAgentService

Using the deployment profiles introduced in VS 2012, you can publish with the following command line:

msbuild MyProject.csproj /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=<profile-name> /p:Password=<insert-password> /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0

For more information on the parameters see this.

The values for the /p:VisualStudioVersion parameter depend on your version of Visual Studio. Wikipedia has a table of Visual Studio releases and their versions.

I came up with such solution, works great for me:

msbuild /t:ResolveReferences;_WPPCopyWebApplication /p:BuildingProject=true;OutDir=C:\Temp\build\ Test.csproj

The secret sauce is _WPPCopyWebApplication target.

I don't know TeamCity so I hope this can work for you.

The best way I've found to do this is with MSDeploy.exe. This is part of the WebDeploy project run by Microsoft. You can download the bits here.

With WebDeploy, you run the command line

msdeploy.exe -verb:sync -source:contentPath=c:\webApp -dest:contentPath=c:\DeployedWebApp

This does the same thing as the VS Publish command, copying only the necessary bits to the deployment folder.

With VisualStudio 2012 there is a way to handle subj without publish profiles. You can pass output folder using parameters. It works both with absolute and relative path in 'publishUrl' parameter. You can use VS100COMNTOOLS, however you need to override VisualStudioVersion to use target 'WebPublish' from %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets. With VisualStudioVersion 10.0 this script will succeed with no outputs :)

Update: I've managed to use this method on a build server with just Windows SDK 7.1 installed (no Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 on a machine). But I had to follow these steps to make it work:

1. Make Windows SDK 7.1 current on a machine using Simmo answer (https://stackoverflow.com/a/2907056/2164198)
2. Setting Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\SxS\VS7\10.0 to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\" (use your path as appropriate)
3. Copying folder %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v11.0 from my developer machine to build server

Script:

set WORK_DIR=%~dp0
pushd %WORK_DIR%
set OUTPUTS=%WORK_DIR%..\Outputs
set CONFIG=%~1
if "%CONFIG%"=="" set CONFIG=Release
set VSTOOLS="%VS100COMNTOOLS%"
if %VSTOOLS%=="" set "PATH=%PATH%;%WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319" && goto skipvsinit
call "%VSTOOLS:~1,-1%vsvars32.bat"
if errorlevel 1 goto end
:skipvsinit
msbuild.exe Project.csproj /t:WebPublish /p:Configuration=%CONFIG% /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0 /p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem /p:publishUrl=%OUTPUTS%\Project
if errorlevel 1 goto end
:end
popd
exit /b %ERRORLEVEL%

found two different solutions which worked in slightly different way:

1. This solution is inspired by the answer from alexanderb [link]. Unfortunately it did not work for us - some dll's were not copied to the OutDir. We found out that replacing ResolveReferences with Build target solves the problem - now all necessary files are copied into the OutDir location.

msbuild /target:Build;_WPPCopyWebApplication  /p:Configuration=Release;OutDir=C:\Tmp\myApp\ MyApp.csproj

Disadvantage of this solution was the fact that OutDir contained not only files for publish.

2. The first solution works well but not as we expected. We wanted to have the publish functionality as it is in Visual Studio IDE - i.e. only the files which should be published will be copied into the Output directory. As it has been already mentioned first solution copies much more files into the OutDir - the website for publish is then stored in _PublishedWebsites/{ProjectName} subfolder. The following command solves this - only the files for publish will be copied to desired folder. So now you have directory which can be directly published - in comparison with the first solution you will save some space on hard drive.

msbuild /target:Build;PipelinePreDeployCopyAllFilesToOneFolder /p:Configuration=Release;_PackageTempDir=C:\Tmp\myApp\;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false MyApp.csproj

AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false parameter will guarantee that connection strings will not be handled as special artifacts and will be correctly generated - for more information see link.

You must set your environments

• < WebSite name>
• < domain>

and reference my blog.(sorry post was Korean)

• http://xyz37.blog.me/50124665657

• http://blog.naver.com/PostSearchList.nhn?SearchText=webdeploy&blogId=xyz37&x=25&y=7

  @ECHO OFF
  :: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5598668/valid-parameters-for-msdeploy-via-msbuild
  ::-DeployOnBuild -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-DeployTarget -MsDeployPublish
  :: -Package
  :: 
  ::-Configuration -Name of a valid solution configuration
  :: 
  ::-CreatePackageOnPublish -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-DeployIisAppPath -<Web Site Name>/<Folder>
  :: 
  ::-MsDeployServiceUrl -Location of MSDeploy installation you want to use
  :: 
  ::-MsDeployPublishMethod -WMSVC (Web Management Service)
  :: -RemoteAgent
  :: 
  ::-AllowUntrustedCertificate (used with self-signed SSL certificates) -True
  :: -False
  :: 
  ::-UserName
  ::-Password
  SETLOCAL
  
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727"
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5"
  IF EXIST "%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319" SET FXPath="%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319"
  
  SET targetFile=<web site fullPath ie. .\trunk\WebServer\WebServer.csproj
  SET configuration=Release
  SET msDeployServiceUrl=https://<domain>:8172/MsDeploy.axd
  SET msDeploySite="<WebSite name>"
  SET userName="WebDeploy"
  SET password=%USERNAME%
  SET platform=AnyCPU
  SET msbuild=%FXPath%\MSBuild.exe /MaxCpuCount:%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS% /clp:ShowCommandLine
  
  %MSBuild% %targetFile% /p:configuration=%configuration%;Platform=%platform% /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish /p:CreatePackageOnPublish=False /p:DeployIISAppPath=%msDeploySite% /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=%msDeployServiceUrl% /p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /p:UserName=%USERNAME% /p:Password=%password% /p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True /p:VisualStudioVersion=12.0
  
  IF NOT "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" PAUSE 
  ENDLOCAL