TFS 2018 Release Management to IIS

Question

I am setting up a release for the first time in 2018 Release Management. We have a website that we want deployed to IIS.

The build definition is setup and has created the artifacts. When I setup the release definition I select the IIS Website Deployment template which gives me two tasks.

1. IIS Web App Manage
2. IIS Web App Deploy

They seem to cover similar ground, but I cannot find documentation to tell me how they are different. Do I need both?

When I configure IIS Web App Deploy, the Website Name field is grayed out. The link icon tells me

This setting is linked to the 'Website name' (Parameters.WebsiteName) process parameter.

So I created the process parameter in the release definition and the build definition with a different name. However the Website Name does not update. Is there a way to manually edit this field?

Answer 1

In short:

IIS Web App Manage

This task does provisioning , for example creating an IIS Web Site and Application Pool. Typically this is only needed the first time deploying to a target machine, but there is no harm in running it on every deploy, since it then just skips creating already existing items.

IIS Web App Deploy

This task deploys your code.

Answer 2

You need to create a Deployment Group before using the IIS Website Deployment template. Deployment groups in VSTS/TFS make it easier to organize the servers that you want to use to host your app. A deployment group is a collection of machines with a VSTS/TFS agent on each of them. Each machine interacts with VSTS/TFS to coordinate deployment of your app.

Useful link and blog for your reference:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/build-release/archive/apps/aspnet/aspnet-from-vsts-to-windows-vm?view=vsts
• https://abelsquidhead.com/index.php/2017/11/28/build-and-deploy-to-multiple-iis-servers-and-sql-server-using-vsts/

If you don't want to use this template, you could also try other extensions, such as IIS Web App Deployment Using WinRM .

Answer 3

Both tasks are needed. The website name is set on the Environment level then referenced in all of the tasks within.