Publish an web application on build with NAnt, MSBuild or any other tool

Question

I have a scenario where I have to setup a test environment where I want to be able to tell my NAnt or other build tool to make an new IIS web application, put the latest bins in the newly created IIS web application, and post me an email where the new address and port where the new application are addressed, is this possible and how? which tool?

Answer 1

There are several ways to approach this:

1. Set up a continuous integration (CI) server on the test environment. This is a viable option if your test environment machine doesn't change often and it's a single machine.
2. Push the installation from your development machine using tools like PsExec
3. Combination of the two: you have a build CI server which pushes the installation to (multiple) test environments.

Of course, you also need a good build script which will set up the IIS application (NAnt offers tasks for this). Emailing to you can be done by CI server (CruiseControl.NET Email Publisher, Hudson...).

I suggest taking some time to read this excellent article series: Automation for the people: Deployment-automation patterns

Answer 2

Our CruiseControl .Net build server does exactly this as part of it's NAnt build-script process...

Once the code is retrieved from source control, it's all built/compiled in turn. Web projects are then handled slightly differently to normal .dlls, as they are deployed to a particular folder (either on the current machine or otherwise) where IIS (also set-up by the script) to serve the pages.

Admittedly, we're using Virtual Directories instead of creating and disposing of new website instances on the server, as otherwise we'd have to manage the port numbers for each website.

NAnt has the capabilities of doing all of this IIS work, as well as all of the email work too - I'd certainly recommend looking at this avenue of enquiry to solve your problem. Plus, you also get the continous integration aspect as a side-benefit in your case!