How to publish a web project with MSBuild?

Question

In Visual Studio 2008 if you have a web project you can use menu Build -> Publish Web.
Can I achieve the same result with msbuild via command line?

Answer 1

I think what you want to use is aspnet_compliler

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC>aspnet_compiler -?
Utility to precompile an ASP.NET application
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Usage:
aspnet_compiler [-?] [-m metabasePath | -v virtualPath [-p physicalDir]]
                [[-u] [-f] [-d] [-fixednames] targetDir] [-c]
                [[-keyfile file | -keycontainer container]
                     [-aptca] [-delaySign]]
                [-errorstack]

-?            Prints this help text.
-m            The full IIS metabase path of the application. This switch cannot
              be combined with the -v or -p switches.
-v            The virtual path of the application to be compiled (e.g.
              "/MyApp"). If -p is specified, the physical path is used to
              locate the application. Otherwise, the IIS metabase is used, and
              the application is assumed to be in the default site (under
              "/LM/W3SVC/1/Root"). This switch cannot be combined with the -m
              switch.
-p            The physical path of the application to be compiled. If -p is
              missing, the IIS metabase is used to locate the app. This switch
              must be combined with -v.
-u            If specified, the precompiled application is updatable.
-f            Overwrites the target directory if it already exists. Existing
              contents are lost.
-d            If specified, the debug information is emitted during
              compilation.
targetDir     The physical path to which the application is compiled. If not
              specified, the application is precompiled in-place.
-c            If specified, the precompiled application is fully rebuilt. Any
              previously compiled components will be re-compiled. This option
              is always enabled when targetDir is specified.
-keyfile      The physical path to the strong name key file.
-keycontainer Specifies a strong name key container.
-aptca        If specified, the strong-name assembly will allow partially
              trusted callers.
-delaysign    If specified, the assembly is not fully signed when created.
-fixednames   If specified, the compiled assemblies will be given fixed names.
-nologo       Suppress compiler copyright message.
-errorstack   Shows extra debugging information that can help debug certain
              conditions.

Examples:

The following two commands are equivalent, and rely on the IIS metabase. The
compiled application is deployed to c:\MyTarget:
    aspnet_compiler -m /LM/W3SVC/1/Root/MyApp c:\MyTarget
    aspnet_compiler -v /MyApp c:\MyTarget

The following command compiles the application /MyApp in-place. The effect is
that no more compilations will be needed when HTTP requests are sent to it:
    aspnet_compiler -v /MyApp

The following command does *not* rely on the IIS metabase, as it explicitly
specifies the physical source directory of the application:
    aspnet_compiler -v /MyApp -p c:\myapp c:\MyTarget

Answer 2

Found the answer in this blog post: How to publish a web site with MSBuild.
In more detail is here: Using MSBuild to deploy visual studio 2005 web applications.