Visual Studio offers some built-in deployment features that require Frontpage Server Extensions to be installed on the web server:
- publishing of ASP.NET applications,
- publishing of Windows applications accessible through ClickOnce.
Right now, I deploy such applications manually by copying the relevant files with a WebDAV client.
It's not a lot of work, but it feels like I'm doing unnecessary work, since there's already a built-in feature of Visual Studio that would do this automatically for me.
On the other hand, I have a strong gut feeling that warns me against doing so: Right now, I have a good understanding of which protocols can be used to access the server, which users can do so, and which parts of the server they can access. Since I don't understand everything that the "magic CGIs" of the Frontpage Server Extensions are doing, I fear that I might accidentally open some security hole due to lack of knowledge.
As a .NET developer, what is your take on this? Did I miss some obvious advantage/disadvantage? Or is there even some established "best practice" in the community w.r.t. using the Frontpage Server Extensions for .NET web servers?
