How do you update an ASP.NET web application?

Question

Simple question. If you have a compiled and published ASP.NET web application running on a server and you need to update, say, a line in one of the codebehind files. Do you shut down the entire site, republish, then load the site back up? Or do you publish straight to your live site with users still using it?

Answer 1

For myself, place an app.offline app_offline.htm file into the site, then overwrite the entire website with the latest published build.

there are a few options when building a site -> one dll for the site or one per page. if u just updated one line in a code behind, and you have chosen the build option for one per page, then you can just copy/paste that new page dll.

i don't like that method personally. I find it simple to app_offline.htm the site.

Answer 2

If it is a single file and a simple site that uses that app_code folder to store the code behinds, I simply xcopy up the new files. If I use http expiration headers I may need to do some better scheduling to make sure things like javascript files and css sheets match the rest of the site that was updated.

Answer 3

For emergency patches:

If its just a codebehind file, I copy the entire /bin/ out and replace all DLL's (mostly out of habit)

If its an aspx, I just copy the aspx.

For actual deployments, I have an automated system that checks out the code from source control, builds a clean release build, takes the site offline, and then robocopies it out to the deployment target. Its a one click process (Thanks CruiseControl!).