2

This might sound like an obvious question but I can't seem to find the answer online.

I have an MVC solution that is made up of a few projects eg: Data project, Domain project, Service project, Web project, etc.

I am now ready to publish the solution to my web server. I know I can build each project and upload the dll's and view/content files for each project in my solution but I was wondering if there is a better(automated) way to deploy a multi project solution to the server?

The ideal solution for me would be to click on Deployment Package in Visual Studio on my Web project and for it to automatically create the files and folders required for the entire solution.

Am I missing something here or do I really need to do this following every time I want to publish to the server:

  1. Download Web Deployment Projects and attach a deployment project for each of my projects.
  2. Setup a new ProjectName_deploy folder and point all of the deployment projects to outout here.
  3. Open FTP and manually upload the relevant files onto the server using FTP.

It would seem nuts to me that I'd have to jump through all those hoops every single time I wanted to publish to the server. I'm guessing that by using Web Deploy or something similar I could automate this entire process but I just can't seem to find the relevant help online.

I'm using Visual Studio 2010 Professional with Windows Server 2003/IIS6.

Thanks for the advice.

Rich

Richard Reddy
  • 2,120
  • 3
  • 25
  • 39

1 Answers1

3

You can FTP directly from Visual Studio using the Publish option. Just right click on the main project in the Solution Explorer and select Publish... A dialog will prompt you for the information on the FTP server the first time, fill it in, and select the Publish button. Every time you publish after that it will remember the FTP information and you just hit the Publish button. If your main project has references set up to the other projects (ex: domain, data...) the publishing process will automatically build and include the appropriate assemblies/DLLs.

Kevin Junghans
  • 17,475
  • 4
  • 45
  • 62
  • Thanks for pointing that out Kevin. Everything worked great once I set the references in the 'Web' project to the other projects in my solution. Tied it in with Web Deploy and everything is working great now. – Richard Reddy Mar 28 '12 at 11:13