Azure DevOps pipelines - Release ASP.NET WebAPI application to Azure Web Apps

Question

I usually deployed the ASP.NET WebAPI application to Azure App Services directly from Visual Studio. It is working and sometime convenient.

Now I want to setup the CI/CD process from Azure DevOps. I create a build pipeline as

trigger:
- master

pool:
  vmImage: 'windows-latest'

variables:
  solution: '**/*.sln'
  buildPlatform: 'Any CPU'
  buildConfiguration: 'Release'

steps:
- task: NuGetToolInstaller@1

- task: NuGetCommand@2
  inputs:
    restoreSolution: '$(solution)'

- task: VSBuild@1
  inputs:
    solution: '$(solution)'
    msbuildArgs: '/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)"'
    platform: '$(buildPlatform)'
    configuration: '$(buildConfiguration)'

- task: ArchiveFiles@2
  inputs:
    rootFolderOrFile: '$(Build.BinariesDirectory)'
    includeRootFolder: true
    archiveType: 'zip'
    archiveFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/$(Build.BuildId).zip'
    replaceExistingArchive: true

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  inputs:
    PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
    ArtifactName: 'drop'
    publishLocation: 'Container'``

The build pipeline works fine. Then I create a release as

- task: AzureWebApp@1
  displayName: 'Azure Web App Deploy: mylookupservice'
  inputs:
    azureSubscription: 'mylookupservice-connection'
    appType: webApp
    appName: 'mylookupservice'
    package: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/_mylookupservice-build/drop'
    deploymentMethod: runFromPackage

But the release only copied the files to the wwwroot directory, not running any deployment commands

Directory of D:\home\site\wwwroot

05/31/2021  07:33 PM               138 10270.zip
05/31/2021  07:33 PM            14,566 mylookupservice.deploy.cmd
05/31/2021  07:33 PM             4,070 mylookupservice.deploy-readme.txt
05/31/2021  07:33 PM               490 mylookupservice.SetParameters.xml
05/31/2021  07:33 PM               435 mylookupservice.SourceManifest.xml
05/31/2021  07:33 PM         9,570,882 mylookupservice.zip

What should I change? Or someone can point me to an example online.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 31 '21 at 20:57

You can fix this by making the release task as follows:

- task: AzureWebApp@1
  displayName: 'Azure Web App Deploy: mylookupservice'
  inputs: 
    azureSubscription: 'mylookupservice-connection'
    appType: webApp
    appName: 'mylookupservice'
    package: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/_mylookupservice-build/drop/*.zip'
    deploymentMethod: runFromPackage

The problem here is that you've set the drop folder path instead of the zip file's path for the "package" parameter in AzureWebApp@1. When you do so the task copies the folder content instead of deploying a package contained within a zip archive. In your case, it'll work if you change the folder path to the zip file path (the task accepts wildcard)

There are two zip files in the path. So the agent complains about it and requires to be more specific. So I tried both specific zip files (10270.zip and mylookupservice.zip). The first one gives no error, but not really deployed anything. and I can see a file "FAILED TO INITIALIZE RUN FROM PACKAGE.txt" at wwwroot. The second one gives the error: Publish using zip deploy option is not supported for msBuild package type. — user3616544, Jun 01 '21 at 03:04

Azure DevOps pipelines - Release ASP.NET WebAPI application to Azure Web Apps

1 Answers1