Custom workflow action deployment on multi server farm

Question

I created a wsp solution that which create 2 custom workflow actions. I want to deploy it to my 2 servers farm which have an application server and a webfront end server. SPF Web application is not activated on the app server.

My visual studio solution goes like this: -One project which create the dll, where actions code is. -One project which create the wsp package, feature, etc. The package references the other project as additional assembly.

My problem is, when I deploy my wsp package with Deployment Server Type WebFrontEnd, the feature is only installed on the wfe and I can't activate it. I can't see the feature in the manage feature page (the feature is farm level). When I change the Deployment Server Type of the package to ApplicationServer, I get the following message:

"This solution must be deployed to application servers, not front-end Web servers. It cannot contain a resource that is scoped to a Web application."

I did some tests. I removed the additional assembly from my package and then I can deploy my wsp solution as ApplicationServer type (but can't use my custom actions..). Then I created a dummy dll with nothing in it, added it as additional assembly to my sharepoint package and I realised I can't deploy my wsp as ApplicationServer type again.

So, can I reference an additional assembly from my wsp solution and still deploy as ApplicationServer type??

How can I deal with this? Any idea?

Answer 1

I did it again, I've been looking for answers for this all day, I finally post something here and one hour later, I got myself the answer. Here it is anyway.

I deployed independently both solutions using 2 wsp packages. One simply deploys the dll into the gac (and is ApplicationServer), the other one is using it without deploying it itself (and is WebFronEndServer). Now I have to deal with making sure the first one is deployed before using the other one... Feature activation dependency should do it.

Regards.