TFS/MSBuild build/publish web deploy does not transform the web.config files

Question

I'm trying to deploy a two-websites project in a Visual Studio 2012 solution via TFS as part of a build. We're at the point where we have two different web servers, WIP (work in progress) and DEV.

We want to deploy different connection strings to either server so they can connect to different databases. We've tested our solution on a development machine with Visual Studio and for all configurations, when any web project is published, the web.config connection string is transformed as expected when we check the web server.

The build is working fine on the WIP server which uses the default Debug solution configuration. The configuration in the TFS Build is Any CPU|Debug.

For the next configuration (DEV), we are sure that the web projects both publish via Visual Studio 2012 to the web servers and that the web.config files transform.

However, when we run the DEV build using MSBuild arguments, we notice that no transformation happens. We've sent the configuration in the Items to Build section of the build to: Any CPU|Dev.

/p:VisualStudioVersion=10.0 /p:DeployOnBuild=True;PublishProfile=app.ui.dev.pubxml /p:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish /p:MsDeployServiceUrl=https://server-dev-hrtech:8172/MSDeploy.axd /p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /p:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSVC  /p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /p:Username=username /p:Password=password /p:_WPPCopyWebApplication=True /p:PipelineDependsOnBuild=False

When we look at the build log and output directories - we can see compiled assemblies in the obj/Debug directory and not the obj/Dev directory as we'd expected. In the logs, we can clearly see /p:Configuration="Dev" as we'd expect.

The bottom line is the published web.config that ends up on the web server is the default web.config file from the Debug configuration (that is, untransformed). It is as if MSBuild is unable to see the configuration parameter passed in the arguments for the solution.

I've now tried running msbuild from the command line on my development machine to try and understand why this would happen.

By stripping back the MSBuild parameters that are sent via the TFS build, I can see that this doesn't transform the web config:

msbuild "app-no database.sln" /t:app_ui:Rebuild /P:TransformConfigFiles=true /p:Configuration=Dev  /p:Platform="Any CPU" /p:MSDeployServiceUrl=https://app-dev-hrtech:8172/MSDeploy.axd /p:Username=username /p:Password=password /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:PublishProfile=app.ui.dev.pubxml /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0 > build.log

I can modify this and use MSBuild to build the project file directly. I've discovered that the command below does transform the web.config file for the published application:

msbuild app.ui\app.ui.csproj /p:Configuration=Dev  /p:MSDeployServiceUrl=https://app-dev-hrtech:8172/MSDeploy.axd /p:Username=username /p:Password=password /p:DeployOnBuild=True /p:PublishProfile=app.ui.dev.pubxml /p:VisualStudioVersion=11.0 /p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True > build.log

The problem is this would be difficult to run as part of a TFS build where they are multiple projects which some for websites and others for Windows servers, etc.

How can I use the first command, but amend it so that it properly transforms the web project?

As you can see I've created some publish profiles, so potentially they can be used in the MSBuild arguments as well in the TFS Build.

PS: we're using Visual Studio 2012, TFS 2010, Windows 2008R2 for servers and Windows 7 for development machines.

Answer 1

I've encountered this problem, regarding how to publish a web site through Publish Profile file, this article is the best one I ever saw.

For you case, it seems that you need to make the profile name same as the configuration name, e.g. use Dev.pubxml and Web.Dev.config.