TeamCity - problem with Publish on ASP.net site - teamcity

Question

I am trying to configure TeamCity 5.0 to run "Publish" target on one of my projects.
When I load the solution in VS 2008 and click publish on the project the website is being build nicely - files on server appearing by themselves etc. Yet when I run the sln file via TeamCity Sln2008 runner the TeamCity returns:
[Project "Portal.csproj" (Publish target(s)):] Skipping unpublishable project.
Has anyone had the same problem?
Filip

Answer 1

You could create your own simple build file. For example:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="3.5" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>
<PropertyGroup>
<PackageFolder>C:\Builds\AppServer\Actual</PackageFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="Build" DependsOnTargets="BeforeBuild">
<MSBuild Projects="TeamWork-AppServer.sln"
Targets="Rebuild"
Properties="Configuration=Debug;OutDir=$(PackageFolder)\;"></MSBuild>
</Target>
</Project>
Or you can use VS 2008 Web Deployment Project. Here is a great turtorial.

Answer 2

If it is a WebProject you can use the Microsoft.WebApplication.targets. Unless you have installed the windows SDK on your build agent you will need to copy the targets file into your source control and reference it from your web project by adding:
<Import Project="{path to your tools}\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />
You can find the targets file here (depending on your os):
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v9.0\WebApplications
Now you just need to update your msbuild task to reference the right targets:
<MSBuild Projects="{path to your web project file}"
Targets="Build;ResolveReferences;_CopyWebApplication"
Properties="Configuration=Release;Architecture=Any;WebProjectOutputDir={your web root};OutDir={your web root}\bin\" />

Answer 3

Here is how I modified the .csproj file for an ASP.NET MVC project to deploy via TeamCity 5.1.2. In the .csproj file, replace the AfterBuild target with this XML (If there are already commands in your existing AfterBuild, you will have to merge them into these targets):
<PropertyGroup>
<DeployTarget>0</DeployTarget>
<PublishTarget>0</PublishTarget>
<PublishFolder>..\Deployment\YourWebsiteName</PublishFolder>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="PublishProperties">
<CreateProperty Value="$(PublishFolder)">
<Output TaskParameter="Value" PropertyName="WebProjectOutputDir"/>
</CreateProperty>
<CreateProperty Value="$(PublishFolder)\bin\">
<Output TaskParameter="Value" PropertyName="OutDir"/>
</CreateProperty>
</Target>
<Target Name="WebPublish" DependsOnTargets="BeforeBuild;PublishProperties">
<RemoveDir Directories="$(PublishFolder)"
ContinueOnError="true" />
<CallTarget Targets="ResolveReferences;_CopyWebApplication" />
</Target>
<Target Name="Deploy" DependsOnTargets="WebPublish">
<CreateProperty Value="Path\To\Your\Server" Condition="$(DeployFolder) == ''">
<Output TaskParameter="Value" PropertyName="DeployFolder"/>
</CreateProperty>
<RemoveDir Directories="$(DeployFolder)" Condition="$(CleanDeploy) == 1" />
<ItemGroup>
<DeploymentFiles Include="$(PublishFolder)\**\*.*" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="#(DeploymentFiles)"
DestinationFolder="$(DeployFolder)\%(RecursiveDir)" />
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<CallTarget Targets="WebPublish" Condition="$(PublishTarget) == 1" />
<CallTarget Targets="Deploy" Condition="$(DeployTarget) == 1" />
</Target>
This script uses the $(PublishTarget) and $(DeployTarget) properties to trigger additional steps after your project is built. The PropertyGroup at the beginning sets the default values to 0, so the extra targets are not run. You can override the default in TeamCity by going to the Properties and Environment Variables page of your build configuration and adding System Properties names "PublishTarget" and "DeployTarget" and setting their value to 1.
The Publish target contains most of the magic. This makes a call to the Visual Studio _CopyWebApplication target to output the website to the PublishFolder. By default the publish folder is "..\Deployment\YourWebsiteName" relative to the project file, but this can also be overridden with a System Property. The Deploy target takes the files output by the Publish target and copies them to the DeployFolder. DeployFolder can be set with a System Property in TeamCity or you can replace the "Path\To\Your\Server" path in the Deploy target.
You could also skip the extra Deploy step by simply setting the PublishFolder to whatever your deployment destination is. This script depends on the "Microsoft.WebApplication.Build.Tasks.Dll" and "Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" files installed by Visual Studio, but you can simply copy the files from your developer workstation to the build server. The default location is "C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications".

Answer 4

I have this same problem, here's what I've tried:
I have a solution file in Visual Studio 2010, committed to a Mercurial repository.
I have setup an FTP server for the root directory of the site to publish to, and publishing from within Visual Studio 2010 locally works nicely, it connects and uploads everything as expected, and the website works.
Now, I wanted to automate this on every push to the central Mercurial repository, and since I'm using TeamCity, I discovered that the field to specify the Target of the build, usually "Rebuild" can also take "Publish", so I specified "Rebuild;Publish", as per the documentation and help.
I have verified that after publishing in Visual Studio, and committing new files, a file named ProjectName.Publish.xml is accompanying my ProjectName.csproj file, and this file is pulled down into the server directory when TeamCity builds.
Yet, no publishing is done, and when I check the build log, it says:
[19:01:02]: [Project "Test.sln" (Rebuild;Publish target(s)):] Project "Test.UI.Web.csproj" (Publish target(s)):
[19:01:02]: [Project "Test.UI.Web.csproj" (Publish target(s)):] Skipping unpublishable project.
Exactly as the question here says.
Note that this is a development site, publishing just so that we can let more people test changes, so don't get into a discussion of whether this is actually a good idea or not.
Note: I do not care in which way the files are published, I just need the single TeamCity build-step to actually do it, so if anyone got a MSBuild-like solution that just sidesteps TeamCity, then I would be satisfied

Answer 5

Have you tried to execute Visual Studio directly, rather than relying on MSBuild to publish the project directly. MSBuild can't execute certain kinds of projects. I had a similar problem with getting MSI's built from within Team City.
I'm taking a guess at the exact commandline settings to this, since I don't know your exact setup.
<PropertyGroup>
<buildconfiguration>Release</buildconfiguration>
<DevEnv>C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.com</DevEnv>
</PropertyGroup>
<Exec Command="%22$(DevEnv)%22 /build $(buildconfiguration) $(teamcity_build_checkoutDir)\Test.sln /project Test.UI.Web.csproj"/>
If you're using the Team City solution runner as your build runner, you'll have to switch to MSBuild.
If you want to stay with the Team City runner, you could always try adding a project to your solution that will be the last one built, (or do it on the project that currently gets built last), and do the spawning trick as a post-build command line on the project.

Answer 6

Can TeamCity publish a Web project using the sln2008 build runner
Can TeamCity publish a Web project using the sln2008 build runner?
What type of project are you trying to publish?
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/msbuild/thread/7ec0d942-6354-41c3-9c97-7e7d1f461c29
Taken from above link:
What I discovered is that "Shared-addins" are not publishable
and are distinct and different from document and application level
VSTO addins, which are deployable.
When I rebuilt my application as an application level
VSTO addin, the publish option was available.
http://www.automise.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&aft=9813
Taken from above link:
Assuming you're using Visual Studio 2008, we're unable to execute the web site
publish feature from FinalBuilder as it's partially implemented by the VS IDE.
You'll need to use to the MSBuild action to compile the application and then
use one of the other actions (FTP, File Copy, etc) in FinalBuilder to perform
the deployment. Visual Studio 2010 has fixed this problem by performing the
entire publish using MSBuild, see this post for more info:
http://www.finalbuilder.com/forums....&afv=topic
Two threads that might help
http://devnet.jetbrains.net/thread/280420;jsessionid=5E8948AE810FFFF251996D85E7EB3FE3
Visual Studio. Publish project from command line

Answer 7

For anyone using Web Application Projects in VS2010, I managed to get TeamCity to package the deliverables and then Web Deploy the package after successfully building the solution.
With a little tweaking, this had the same effect as hitting the 'Publish' button in VS.
My solution has a handful of projects, 1 of which is an ASP.NET MVC Web Application project. I build the solution, package the web app project, and msdeploy the package in 3 steps. I haven't figured out a (better|shorter|simpler|more elegant) way to do this.
I don't have VS installed on my TeamCity server, so I needed to grab both C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web and C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web Applications and put them both in the same spot on the TeamCity server (the second depends on the first). If you're working w/x64 machines, I'd grab them from both Program Files (x86) and Program Files. You also need to have Web Deploy installed on your machine and (I believe) IIS Management Service (i.e., something listening on https://yourservername:8172/MsDeploy.axd)
There are 3 build steps:
Visusal Studio (sln), Target=Rebuild, Configuration=Debug
MSBuild WebProject.csproj, Targets=Package Commandline=/p:PackageLocation=%teamcity.build.checkoutDir%\Debug.zip /p:Configuration=Debug
Commandline, Executable=%teamcity.build.checkoutDir%\Debug.deploy.cmd, Parameters=
/Y "-setParam:'IIS Web Application Name'='Default Web Site/PreCreatedAppInIis'"
In that last step, 'IIS Web Application Name' is an actual parameter name, don't change it. It's value can either be something like 'Default Web Site' or whatever you named your website in IIS and/or it can be an IIS application path below it. If the application doesn't exist, you may run into errors about the app pool not being configured correctly to host the application. Rather than investigate it, I just created an application in the appropriate app pool. In my case, I'm targeting ASP.NET 4.0 x64 where the default app pool is ASP.NET 2.0 x64.