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is there an option to do config transforms at deployment time? like Octopus would do?

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anatoliib

05 Jun, 2017 10:59 PM

We've explored using Parameters and Config Transforms via multiple builds and both approaches have issues:

1. "Parameters" method ultimately ends up being un-auditable and non-reversible which makes me super uncomfortable with using AppVeyor to deploy.
2. Config Transforms via multiple builds could be interesting but then problem is when you deploy a configuration it doesn't show anywhere in history which configuration you deployed. So you end up without any audit trail of what configuration went where. Need more there.

if AppVeyor could do the tranform at the deploy time like Octopus this would be of tremendous help.

Can someone advise if this is possible to do now or will be in the near future?

1. 1 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on 06 Jun, 2017 05:57 PM

   

   Hello,

   Please take a look at Web Deploy Parametrization section and let us know if this helps.

   Ilya.

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2. 2 Posted by anatoliib on 06 Jun, 2017 06:22 PM

   

   Thanks, this refers to the "parameters" method I mentioned in my post. I didn't see this article get into agent-side config transform methodology, or whether AppVeyor can support that.

   Can someone look into this a little further and shed some light on our options?

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3. 3 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on 06 Jun, 2017 06:37 PM

   

   I did not realize that you are using agent deployment. You can use deploy.ps1 script, described here, to modify web.config before deployment on target server.

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4. 4 Posted by anatoliib on 06 Jun, 2017 06:41 PM

   

   interesting, looks that I'd have to write the whole thing - from looking for transform files to applying transform, reporting errors etc.

   Is there an existing script that can be used for applying transforms?

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5. 5 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on 06 Jun, 2017 07:15 PM

   

   Sorry we do not have that kind of scripts handy. However small google search returned this, which looks pretty useful. Also please note that all environment variables passed to Environment deployment (and they can be passed from appveyor.yml) are available in that script.

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6. 6 Posted by anatoliib on 06 Jun, 2017 07:18 PM

   

   Thanks, you know if you would be easier to write this if there was some local way of testing such PS script on the workstation instead of editing it on AppVeyor and retrying to deploy. For that reason it would be also super useful if someone from AppVeyor wrote some initial version that could be tweaked by customers. No?

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7. 7 Posted by Ilya Finkelshte... on 06 Jun, 2017 10:26 PM

   

   Agreed, this would be useful. What about doing this together? Could you please create public repo and transforms, describe some scenario in what case what transform should be applied and then we will created and test the script.

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8. Ilya Finkelshteyn closed this discussion on 25 Aug, 2018 02:17 AM.