ASP.NET Web Application Build Output - How do I include all deployment files?

Question

When I build my ASP.NET web application I get a .dll file with the code for the website in it (which is great) but the website also needs all the .aspx files and friends, an

Answer 1

ASP.NET doesn't have real xcopy deployment for new sites. It depends on having a virtual directory/Application in IIS. However, once that virtual directory is created you can use xcopy for updates.

Answer 2

It depends on how complicated solution you need, you could just use a script and jenkins for example. You can use MSBUild with Jenkins for just deploying to an IIS. And if you got Jenkins other tools is pretty easy to connect into it later on. But if you just want to build, use a script that jenins execute every build that uses MSDeploy and it will work great.

This is how i do it, just to give you a feeling:

Sonarqube uses Gallio, Gendarme, FXcop, Stylecop, NDepths and PartCover to get your metrics and all this is pretty straight forward since SonarQube do this automatically without much configuration.

Here is Jenkins witch builds and get Sonar metrics and a another job for deploying automatically to IIS. I use a simple script one line that calls my MSBuild and wich URL, pass and user.

And Sonarqube, all metrics for my project. This is a simple MVC4 app, but it works great!:

If you want more information can i provide you with a good guide.

This whole setup uses MSBuild, too build and deploy the apps.

Answer 3

The _CopyWebApplication target on MSBuild will do exactly what you need. The catch is that only the main assembly will be copied to the bin folder and that's why a copy task is needed to also copy any other file on the bin folder.

I was trying to post the sample script as part of this post but wasn't able to.

Please take a look at this article on my blog that describes how to create a MSBuild script similar to the one you need.