web.config - auto generate a release version

Answer 1

How are you deploying your builds. In my environment, this used to be a pain point too, but now we use cruisecontrol.net and script our builds in nant. In our script, we detect the environment and have different versions of the config settings for each environment. See: http://www.mattwrock.com/post/2009/10/22/The-Perfect-Build-Part-3-Continuous-Integration-with-CruiseControlnet-and-NANT-for-Visual-Studio-Projects.aspx for my blogpost onthe subject of using cruisecontrol.net for build management. Skip to the end fora brief description of how we handle config versions.

Answer 2

1. Keep web.config out of Source Control (everybody has it's own where can mess up, etc)
2. Person responsible for deployment adds changes to web.config (f.eks. one who has overwritten web.config last time ;) )
3. Keep track on changes in web.config in wiki/bugtracker/txt document/whatever

At least it works for team made of 12 devs and 4 analysts.

Answer 3

I don't think you can 100% avoid this.

The last years of work ever and ever shows: where human worked, there are fails.

So, here are 3 ideas from my last company, not the best maybe, but better then nothing:

1. Write an batch file or an C#.Net Application that change your web.config on a doubleclick
2. Write a "ToDo on Release"-List
3. Do pair-realesing (== pair programming while realease :))

Answer 4

Visual Studio 2010 supports something like this. Check it out here.

Answer 5

In my most recent project I wrote a PowerShell script which loaded the web.config file, modified the necessary XML elements, and saved the file back out again. A bit like this:

param($mode, $src)
$ErrorActionPreference = "stop"
$config = [xml](Get-Content $src)

if ($mode -eq "Production")
{
    $config.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/system.web/compilation").SetAttribute("debug", "false")
    $config.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/system.web/customErrors").SetAttribute("mode", "off")
    $config.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/system.net/mailSettings/smtp/network").SetAttribute("host", "live.mail.server")
    $config.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/connectionStrings/add[@name='myConnectionString']").SetAttribute("connectionString", "Server=SQL; Database=Live")
}
elseif ($mode -eq "Testing")
{
    # etc.
}

$config.Save($src)

This script overwrites the input file with the modifications, but it should be easy to modify it to save to a different file if needed. I have a build script that uses web deployment projects to build the web app, outputting the binaries minus the source code to a different folder - then the build script runs this script to rewrite web.config. The result is a folder containing all the files ready to be placed on the production server.