Azure Web App Deploy: Invalid config when packaging and deploy multiple netcore webs

[phatcher]

Environment

• Server - VSTS
• Agent - Hosted 2017

Issue Description

Build a solution containing multiple webs which I need to deploy into Azure as a main web and virtual applications.

Problem I am hitting is invalid web.config in the virtual applications as they contain the asp.net core handler (see IIS Configuration of sub-applications

Looking for advice as to the best way to fix this...

1. Perform some web.config transform as part of the packaging (see also https://github.com/aspnet/websdk/issues/115)
2. Perform some transform as part of the publish

I'd prefer option 2 as to me whether it's a virtual application is a deployment rather than a build issue

It would be really nice if the Azure Web App Deploy task could take care of this since it knows it's deploying a virtual application.

I'd also suggest documenting this requirement somewhere more prominently since tracking this down has taken quite a while and the behaviour is quite different to standard .NET Framework deployments.

[vincent1173]

@phatcher , Can you try XML transformation in App Service Deploy task to transform your web.config as required? More info here.

[phatcher]

@vincentdass I tried a web.Release.config like this...

<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="" xdt:Transform="Remove" xdt:Locator="XPath(system.webServer/handlers[@name='aspNetCore'])" />
        </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

but it didn't work

[vincent1173]

@phatcher , Can you try the following Transform file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <handlers>
      <remove name="aspNetCore" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

[vincent1173]

@phatcher , closing the thread, as the above transform file should have resolved the issue.

[phatcher]

@vincentdass Sorry, was on holiday last week - I've tried the config transform and it's not working; the deployment log says that it has applied the transform and web.config/web.Release.config are present in the deployment directory.

It also doesn't work if I try this in Visual Studio (15.7.4) using the Preview Transform which I presume is using the same ctt.exe under the hood?

For reference I have a web.config with

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="*" modules="AspNetCoreModule" resourceType="Unspecified" />
        </handlers>
        <aspNetCore processPath="%LAUNCHER_PATH%" arguments="%LAUNCHER_ARGS%" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" />
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

and a web.Release.config with

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <remove name="aspNetCore" />
        </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

The config files are set to Content and Do Not Copy but they are present in the published artifact

[vincent1173]

@phatcher , transform files are not removed after transformation, so they are deployed along with config file.

Can you try the following transform file instead:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <add name="aspNetCore" xdt:Transform="Remove" />
        </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

verified with config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <add name="aspNetCore" path="*" verb="*" modules="AspNetCoreModule" resourceType="Unspecified" />
        </handlers>
        <aspNetCore processPath="%LAUNCHER_PATH%" arguments="%LAUNCHER_ARGS%" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" />
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

You can verify it online here.

The above transformation should result in

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>

        </handlers>
        <aspNetCore processPath="%LAUNCHER_PATH%" arguments="%LAUNCHER_ARGS%" stdoutLogEnabled="false" stdoutLogFile=".\logs\stdout" />
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

[phatcher]

@vincentdass Thanks that one worked!

So it's basically using the standard web.config transform syntax?

And just to confirm, for a specified environment transform to work a web.XXX.config file must exist matching the VSTS environment e.g. if you have an Staging environment you must have a web.Staging.config if you want to have specific work to happen?

[vincent1173]

@phatcher , yes, you are correct, additionally, Web.Release.config is applied prior toWeb.< Env Name >.config