How can I do a silent deployment with a wsp solution and exe.config file?

Question

I have a SharePoint solution (packaged in a wsp file) created with WSPBuilder which is coupled with a simple Setup.exe and Setup.exe.config. The Setup.exe.config just points to a WSP solution.

Is there a way to pass in values such as which webapplicaiton the solution is deployed to that way our customer can perform a silent install with no user interaction?

I'm thinking this would be a attribute in the Setup.exe.config file since that is where the appSettings are located. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

There sure is! Check out the stsadm command line tool. You'll probably want to first call the addsolution command (to add it into Sharepoint's database), then deploysolution (to push it out to specific or all web applications).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288981%28office.12%29.aspx

It will look something like this:

stsadm.exe -o addsolution MySolution.wsp
stsadm.exe -o deploysolution -name MySolution.wsp -local -allowGacDeployment -url http://www.sharepointsite.com

Other people have developed addons for stsadm which can do all kinds of other cool stuff in a scripted fashion - search around if you need to do other parts in your silent installation.

Tim