Wouldn't it be great if you could fully control your Azure web app deployments, have them configuration and environment driven and all this orchestrated using C#? Well it turns out with Cake Kudu you can!
Kudu
Kudu is the engine behind continuous deployments, WebJobs, and many other features in Azure web apps and mobile services.
Out of the box Kudu allows you to build and deploy you web apps directly on Azure triggered by when you push to your code GitHub, Bitbucket, Visual Studio Online, Dropbox and many more services, it can also host it's own GIT repository so can push directly to Kudu.
Cake Kudu
Cake Kudu is an add-in for the Cake build system which gives you an API to the Kudu deployment environment.
It gives you easy access to
- Deployment paths
- App settings
- Connection strings
- Source control management
- Tool paths
- Web site information
- Deployment sync file/folder methods
Super charging Kudu
So what does Cake and the Cake Kudu add-in bring to the table? It will let you do custom build, test and deploy scripts written in C#, driven by convention, environment and configuration.
This enables advanced scenarios like synchronized deployment of multiple web sites (i.e. frontend, API, backoffice) from one repository, adapting build configuration depending on dev/production/geographical region/etc., basically endless possibilities for continuous deployment automation.
It lets you use any of the available aliases and add-ins for Cake, you could post deployment statuses to Slack / Gitter, migrate databases using AliaSql and much more, all written in a rich, compiled and statically typed language like C# and with the extensive dsl the Cake builds system provides.
You could even use your Azure web app as a build server posting not a website but i.e. a build result report to the web.
Usage
Continuous deployment
First, if you haven't already, you need to enable continuous deployment on your web app, you do that via Settings->Publishing->Continuous Deployment and choose the provider that hosts your source code.
.deployment
To change the default deployment behavior you have to add an .deployment file the root of to your repository, this tells Kudu what to run on deployment.
Example config file:
[config]
command = deploy.cmd
deploy.cmd
To enable Cake from the Kudu environment we need a little bootstrapper script that sets up folders and fetches Cake binaries from NuGet and then calls Cake with C# deployment script as parameter.
Example deploy bootstrapper:
@echo off
IF NOT EXIST "Tools" (md "Tools")
IF NOT EXIST "Tools\Addins" (md "Tools\Addins")
nuget install Cake -ExcludeVersion -OutputDirectory "Tools"
Tools/Cake/Cake.exe deploy.cake -verbosity=Verbose
The above script will create the tools & addins folders, fetch Cake from NuGet(upgrade if newer version exists) and launch the Cake build system with a C# script called deploy.cake.
deploy.cake
Below is a very basic deployment Cake script. What it basically does is:
- Fetches any command line tools needed from NuGet.
- Fetches and references any Cake add-ins needed from NuGet.
- Sets up global variables and validates that it's running on the Kudu environment.
- Cleans any traces of previous builds.
- Restores any NuGet packages used by the web app.
- Builds/compiles the web app.
- If all goes well published the web app.
The process is dependency based so if any step would fail the deployment would be aborted and reported as failed in the Azure portal.
#tool "KuduSync.NET" "https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/"
#addin "Cake.Kudu" "https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/"
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// ARGUMENTS
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
var target = Argument<string>("target", "Default");
var configuration = Argument<string>("configuration", "Release");
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// GLOBAL VARIABLES
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
var websitePath = MakeAbsolute(Directory("./src/TestWebSite"));
var solutionPath = MakeAbsolute(File("./src/TestWebSite.sln"));
if (!Kudu.IsRunningOnKudu)
{
throw new Exception("Not running on Kudu");
}
var deploymentPath = Kudu.Deployment.Target;
if (!DirectoryExists(deploymentPath))
{
throw new DirectoryNotFoundException(
string.Format(
"Deployment target directory not found {0}",
deploymentPath
)
);
}
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// TASK DEFINITIONS
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Task("Clean")
.Does(() =>
{
//Clean up any binaries
Information("Cleaning {0}", websitePath);
CleanDirectories(websitePath + "/bin");
});
Task("Restore")
.Does(() =>
{
// Restore all NuGet packages.
Information("Restoring {0}...", solutionPath);
NuGetRestore(solutionPath);
});
Task("Build")
.IsDependentOn("Clean")
.IsDependentOn("Restore")
.Does(() =>
{
// Build all solutions.
Information("Building {0}", solutionPath);
MSBuild(solutionPath, settings =>
settings.SetPlatformTarget(PlatformTarget.MSIL)
.WithProperty("TreatWarningsAsErrors","true")
.WithTarget("Build")
.SetConfiguration(configuration));
});
Task("Publish")
.IsDependentOn("Build")
.Does(() =>
{
Information("Deploying web from {0} to {1}", websitePath, deploymentPath);
Kudu.Sync(websitePath);
});
Task("Default")
.IsDependentOn("Publish");
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// EXECUTION
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
RunTarget(target);
In action
Conclusion
The combination of the Cake build system and Kudu engine proves to be a very powerful and flexible tool for all your deployment needs.
