MSDeploy runCommand using relative path

Question

I am trying to run a command as a part of my packaging/deployment process via MSDeploy. In particular, I am trying to create a custom event log by running installutil against one of my DLLs, but I am having trouble with specifying a relative path to the DLL from the deployment directory. To get started, I added the below config to my csproj in order to generate the runCommand provider inside of my Manifest file. Please note the absolute path to the DLL.

<PropertyGroup>
    <!-- Extends the AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest action to create Custom Event Log -->
    <IncludeEventLogCreation>TRUE</IncludeEventLogCreation>
    <AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest Condition="'$(AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest)'==''">
      $(AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest);
      CreateEventLog;
    </AfterAddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <Target Name="CreateEventLog" Condition="'$(IncludeEventLogCreation)'=='TRUE'">
    <Message Text="Creating Event Log" />
    <ItemGroup>
      <MsDeploySourceManifest Include="runCommand">
        <path>installutil C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyTestApp\bin\BusinessLayer.dll</path>
      </MsDeploySourceManifest>
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>
  <ItemGroup>

After calling msbuild, this generated my manifest correctly inside of my package.zip. When I ran MyTestApp.deploy.cmd /Y it correctly called msdeploy and deployed my files to inetpub\wwwroot\MyTestApp and ran my command from the manifest below:

<runCommand path="installutil C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyTestApp\bin\BusinessLayer.dll ... etc 

The problem I am having is I do not want to hardcode this DLL path to c:\inetpub\etc. How can I make the above call using the relative path from my deployment directory under Default Web Site? Ideally, I would like MSDeploy to take this path and pass it as a variable to the runCommand statement in order to find the DLL. Then I could write something like: <path>installutil $DeploymentDir\NewTestApp\bin\BusinessLayer.dll</path> without having to worry about hard-coding an absolute path in.

Is there any way to do this without using the absolute path to my DLL every time?

Answer 1

You can add definition of DeploymentDir to the .csproj with the action you wrote above:

<PropertyGroup>
<DeploymentDir Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release' AND '$(DeploymentDir)'==''">Release Deployment Dir</DeploymentDir>
<DeploymentDir Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Debug' AND '$(DeploymentDir)'==''">Debug Deployment Dir</DeploymentDir>
<DeploymentDir Condition="'$(DeploymentDir)'==''">C:\inetpub\wwwroot</DeploymentDir>
<AplicationName Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release' AND '$(AplicationName)'==''">NewTestApp</AplicationName>
<AplicationName Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Debug' AND '$(AplicationName)'==''">MyTestApp</AplicationName>
<ApplicationDeploymentDir Condition="'$(ApplicationDeploymentDir)'==''">$(DeploymentDir)\$(ApplicationName)\bin</ApplicationDeploymentDir>
</PropertyGroup>

Theese conditions will allow to change everything from command line to take full control over the build process in your build system or script.

MSBuild.exe yourproj.proj /p:Configuration=Release /p:DeploymentDir=D:\package /p:ApplivationName=BestAppForever

And inside of your task you can use it

<ItemGroup>
  <MsDeploySourceManifest Include="runCommand">
    <path>installutil $(ApplicationDeploymentDir)\BusinessLayer.dll</path>
  </MsDeploySourceManifest>
</ItemGroup>