Deploying umbraco with TeamCity - continuous-integration

Question

First post on Stack, so please be gentle!
We are just getting into Continuous Integration with TeamCity. We have setup a TeamCity project(s) that looks like so:
Solution Build (builds entire solution) - .Sln file
Debug to Dev Server (builds .csproj in Debug configuration and Deploys to test server using MSDeploy)
Release to Production (builds .csproj in Release configuration and Deploys to production server using MSDeploy)
Within our Umbraco Visual Studio project (which is a Web Application not the standard Website project type) we have the umbraco_client and umbraco folders excluded from the Project, primarily because they are already compiled and don't need to be re-compiled by our process. Both folders are however included in the SVN repo.
The problem we are experiencing is that because these two folders are excluded from the Visual Studio project, TeamCity does not deploy them.
So my question boils down to "how do you include folders in the TeamCity build package where the folders are in the SVN but excluded from the Visual Studio project?".
Any pointers would be really appreciated.
Thanks
dotdev

Answer 1

We've been using TeamCity for umbraco. This is what we've been doing recently on our internal dev servers:
/p:Configuration=Debug
/p:DeployOnBuild=True
/p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl=OurDevServer/msdeployagentservice
/p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent
/p:CreatePackageOnPublish=True
/p:DeployIisAppPath=umbraco_site
/p:IgnoreDeployManagedRuntimeVersion=True
/p:FilesToIncludeForPublish=AllFilesInProjectFolder
/p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=True
/p:ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment="media;App_Data\Logs;App_Data\preview"
/p:IncludeSetAclProviderOnDestination=False
/p:AuthType=NTML /p:UserName=
They key to solving the problem you are having is
/p:FilesToIncludeForPublish=AllFilesInProjectFolder
By default, it is set to something like "AllFilesInProject". Combining FilesToIncludeForPublish with the ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment can give you some control over exactly what TeamCity attempts to deploy

Answer 2

I would suggest using an approach similar to the one described in this blog post: http://blog.iqit.dk/2013/11/using-package-restore-in-umbraco-projects
You don't mention nuget, so assuming you use a zip or web pi to setup Umbraco in your solution, but you should still be able to use the targets listed in msbuild or add to your web applications .csproj when building your solution. It would require that you have the Umbraco and Umbraco_client folders somewhere in Svn repo or on your build server in order to copy it in.
As an alternative I can also recommend that you download the UmbracoCms nuget as that contains an extension to the msdeploy pipeline that includes the two mentioned folders in an msdeploy zip package. But again also based on the nuget install and thus a standard location for the Umbraco folders.
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I've based my TeamCity builds on Troy Hunt's excellent "You're Deploying it Wrong" series - which is an excellent step by step guide to integrating Visual Studio based projects and TeamCity. http://www.troyhunt.com/2010/11/you-deploying-it-wrong-teamcity.html
As to excluding the umbraco and umbraco_client folders from SVN; a complex Umbraco build will probably have changes in the Umbraco folder to the default build eg adding Umbraco Event Handlers, adding new Umbraco Sections, changes to back-office tabs. I don't think umbraco_client will change unless you get into changing rich text editors and so on - but it is possible. So I'm not sure that excluding those particular folders is correct. Excluding the media folder is often discussed as well - but it does make TeamCity config simpler if everything is there.
But to answer your question you could exclude them from the build and copy them onto your build server; then add a 'Command Line' runner build step that simply copies them back into place before the build step starts.
I usually add a source control change step that fires a rebuild and have two build steps in TeamCity for an Umbraco project. One is a 'Visual Studio (sln)' runner to check that the sln file has every reference and third party product set up correctly (this should eliminate the 'it works on my machine' issues); and the second is a 'MSBuild' runner that replicates the csproj build process. With the second build step with the right permissions (if your ports are open on the machine you're deploying to, or you're deploying to the same machine as you are on) you could test this in Visual Studio or DOS.
These two build steps should be able to deploy to the IIS website on a staging server; and if the right ports are open on your live or UAT server you could then add a third build step and deploy it onwards (if the first two build steps run properly).