Where is web.config file when running Azure web role in Compute Emulator?

Question

I created an empty Azure Cloud Service project, then added a web role there. The role project has a web.config file.

When I hit F5 the role is deployed in Compute emulator. I went into the folder where role binaries are deployed - there's no web.config file there.

What's happening? Is that because I didn't set "copy always" on web.config file? What web.config does my role use?

Answer 1

If your role is configured for Full IIS mode (for those unaware of the difference between Hosted Web Core and Full IIS, see this blog post ), the compute emulator should deploy the web role to IIS where it can be viewed in IIS Manager. On my machine (I'm running Azure SDK 1.5), the deployed web role's physical path is my source code directory.

Answer 2

Even though the preferred way of storing configuration in Windows Azure applications is in the ServiceConfiguration.cscfg file, there are still many cases when you may want to use a normal .NET config file - especially when configuring .NET system components or reusable frameworks. In particular whenever you use Windows Azure diagnostics you need to configure the DiagnosticMonitorTraceListener in a .NET config file.

When you create your web role project, Visual Studio creates a web.config file for your .NET configuration. While your web application can access this information, your RoleEntryPoint code cannot-because it's not running as a part of your web site. As mentioned earlier, it runs under a process called WaIISHost.exe, so it expects its configuration to be in a file called WaIISHost.exe.config. Therefore, if you create a file with this name in the your web project and set the "Copy to Output Directory" property to "Copy Always" you'll find that the RoleEntryPoint can read this happily. This is one of the only cases I can think of where you'll have two .NET configuration files in the same project!

All info is from Azure Team Blog and I have used this solution successfully- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/

Answer 3

I think web.config is compiled into your assembly as content in your development environment, and is not directly accessible like in staging/prod. You don't need to use Copy Always, if its marked as Content its all you need. You can use Environment.CurrentDirectory to see your web root path.