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How to manage connectionstring for CD

I have a legacy .net application running 4.0 that I have been given to maintain and as part of the maintenance I am updating the CI/CD system.
In doing that I found a bunch of manual file content replaces used to manage environment specific variables.
One of these is the connection string, I was wondering what the recommended way of handling connection strings in app and web.config files is across environments.
I tried slowcheetah but it doesn't do the transform for the web.config when you are not using the publish option.
Thanks for any help.

Yes you can do this with a msbuild script:
<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="bin\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll"/>
<Target Name="GenerateConfigs">
<MakeDir Directories="$(BuildOutput)" Condition="!Exists('$(BuildOutput)')"/>
<TransformXml Source="BTSNTSvc.exe.config"
Transform="BTSNTSvc.exe.$(Configuration).config"
Destination="$(BuildOutput)\BTSNTSvc.exe.config"/>
</Target>
Please review the following resources for performing a config transform without having to do a publish. This snippet was taken from the 2nd link.
http://matthewvukomanovic.blogspot.com/2012/10/webconfig-transform-without-publishing.html
http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2010/08/20/using-msbuild-4.0-web.config-transformation-to-generate-any-config-file.aspx

Prevent Config File From Publishing With Click-Once Deployment

I'm trying to use Click-Once publishing, trouble is, it's publishing also the Config file, which has the connection strings that I use on my development computer, not the correct ones I use in the production environment. How can I prevent the Config file from being published more than the first time? I tried in properties to not include it in the publishing list, but there is no option to do that.

Config files are part of Deployment since they store all the necessary settings which are used inside Addin.
If I understand the problem correctly then, you want to use some setting, say HOSTURL=http://example.com when Addin is in production environment and HOSTURL=http://localhost when you are developing the Addin and you are expecting all this to automatically without human involvement.
Then, you may try one of these:
[1] Try find the ClickOnceLocation and use settings depending upon value the ClickOnceLocation.
Assuming ClickOnceLocation contains "Debug" while you are developing/debugging the Addin.
//CodeBase is the location of the ClickOnce deployment files
Uri uriCodeBase = new Uri(assemblyInfo.CodeBase);
string ClickOnceLocation = Path.GetDirectoryName(uriCodeBase.LocalPath.ToString());
if(ClickOnceLocation.Contains("Debug"))
{
URL = "http://localhost";
}
else
{
URL = //from app.config
}
[2] Updating the app.config by using build configurations
There are some tricks you could use so that a different file with the values to the production server get picked up during publish.
You can have two separate config files one for local deployment/debugging and one for a real published or production version of the application. The debugging config file could point to the localhost server whereas the real published config file could point to the real server. You can then configure the build configurations such that the appropriate config file is picked up depending on the Active build configuration.
To add two different app.config files to the project, you can update the reference to app.config in your project file. The app.config is defined in the project file (vbproj or csproj) with the following xml:
<ItemGroup>
…
<None Include=”app.config” />
</ItemGroup>
There may be other nodes in the ItemGroup along with the app.config node. Delete the just app.config from this ItemGroup node and create a new ItemGroup under the node with the following xml:
<ItemGroup Condition=” ‘$(Configuration)|$(Platform)’ == ‘Debug|AnyCPU’ “>
<None Include=”app.config” />
</ItemGroup>
<ItemGroup Condition=” ‘$(Configuration)|$(Platform)’ == ‘Release|AnyCPU’ “>
<None Include=”publishedapp.config” />
</ItemGroup>
This basically means that the regular app.config file will be used when the Active configuration is set to Debug and the modified app.config with the real production variables stored in the “published” subfolder of the project is used when the active configuration is set to “Release”.
You can change the ItemGroup conditions to match other build configurations that you may have defined. One possibility is to have a separate “Publish” configuration defined based on the “Release” configuration but only used when you are actually going to publish an application.
An additional disclaimer with this process is that the VS project system itself and the designers are not aware of the additional app.config file; Visual Studio is only aware of the original file. The modified app.config with values for a production environment is only used by the msbuild process. So if you update the main app.config through the Settings Designer, the modified app.config will not be updated and you have to manually update the file.
Once you have configured your project appropriately you can simply switch between the different build configurations to change the config file and publish the application from Visual Studio without having to go through the update and re-sign process.

ensuring c# project dependencies are copied to output directory in Visual Studio and TFS

I am working on a project which has many dependencies which are developed on a separate team from me. We use TFS 2010. Many of my applications depend on libraries and xml files which are under active development, so I want to keep them up to date. I also don't want to create separate copies of the dll's and xml files for each application/project, but rather source them from their respective locations within the same source control repository. This should be possible using a relative path.
I tried putting the following in my .csproj file
<ItemGroup>
<Dependencies Include="..\..\Driver\Driver.dll">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</Dependencies>
</ItemGroup>
this doesn't work, either on my workstation or on the build server, however, the files show up as dependencies in the Solution Explorer, and it allows me to change the copy to output property and shows the full path the to files, which is valid.
Another thing I tried was just running xcopy as a pre-build event, which works on my local machine but does NOT copy the files to the output/TFS drop folder, so it isn't picking it up as a dependency.

Try using the Private Element instead, set to True.
<ItemGroup>
<Dependencies Include="..\..\Driver\Driver.dll">
<Private>True</Private>
</Dependencies>
</ItemGroup>
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629388.aspx

Multiple .NET Configuration Files and Setup Project Problem

In order to handle settings for different deployment targets, I moved application settings from app.config to its own file and included that file in app.config via configSource. I also created a settings file for each target.Here is an illustration:
Project A
app.config (references settings.config)
settings.config
settings.Release.config
settings.Debug.config
During post-build, I copy the appropriate settings.{configuration}.config to the output directory. This is working fine so far and I can see settings.config file in the project output directory containing settings for the current build configuration: Release, Debug, etc.
However, I am having a problem with the setup project that I have for this project (Project A). Initially, it was not including settings.config file. So I set the build action for settings.config file as Content and I added content files from Project A to the setup project. This ensured that settings.config file was included in the setup. However, since the setup project appears to be picking settings.config file from the project directory instead of the output directory, settings.config file included in the setup is not what it should be. I want the one from the output directory to be included in the setup program since that one is the correct one for the current build configuration. I tried the following:
Added settings.config as a file to the setup project. However, it seems like I can only specify absolute path. So when I add it from the output directory of a particular build configuration (..bin\debug\settings.config), it does not work in other build configuration since (..bin\debug\settings.config) does exist in the directory specified. I looked into using relative paths or dynamic paths in the setup project where the build configuration could be specifed as part of the path but I could not find anything.
I considered using pre-build event to actually modify settings.config file in the project directory and then have it copied over the output directory by setting its 'Copy to Output Directory' to copy always or copy if newer. This should ensure that the appropriate settings.config is copied to the output directory just like the post-build based solution and should also ensure that the contents of settings.config file is updated before the setup project includes it. However, I don't like this solution because I would have to make sure settings.config file is writeable before I can make any changes since it is source controlled. If it is readonly, then I need to flip it to writeable, make changes, and then set it to readonly again. It is adding extra complexity.
I was wondering if anyone has a better idea or knows a setup project trick that allows me to include settings.config file appropriate for the current build configuration in the setup program.
Thanks

If I had to approach this problem, I'd start by asking the following question:
Why does settings.config have to be under source code control if settings.Debug.config or settings.Release.config provide the same information?
The answer, if I read your question correctly, is because you needed to force a settings.config file to appear as part of the build output. I'm guessing this is because your setup project is using the built in "Primary output" choice.
What you can do instead is add that file to your setup project as an explicit file reference. Right-click on the setup project and choose add / file, then select the file you want to include. As you'll notice (unless it's been fixed in VS2008 which sadly I'm not yet allowed to use at work), there is a very annoying limitation placed on manually added files - there is no way to make the path build configuration aware. You can work around that by copying the appropriate settings.config file to a common location (e.g. bin/Configuration) and picking it up from there. This does limit you to building Debug and Release versions sequentially, rather than in parallel, but for many this probably isn't a huge problem.
If you aren't required to use VS setup projects, I strongly encourage you to take a look at WiX (Windows Installer XML - see http://wix.sourceforge.net/ for more information). That will easily allow you to accomplish what is necessary, although if you are unfamiliar with the internal workings of Microsoft Installer the initial learning curve could be a little steep. Microsoft use WiX themselves for some pretty significant setup tasks (e.g. Office 2007, SQL Server, etc.). It had been hoped that WiX would become part of Visual Studio (for VS 2010), but sadly that is no longer the case.

I decided to go about achieving the same result (being able to have different configuration settings for different target environments) in a different way. So here is how I implemented it and it is working great. I read some of the posts here at SO about XmlMassUpdate task from MSBuild Community Tasks and decided to utilize it. Here is what I did:
1) For each project that needs to have different settings depending on the target environment, I added an xml file called app.config.substitutions.xml or web.config.substitutions.xml to the project. So, the project looked like
Project A
app.config
app.config.substitutions.xml
app.config.substitutions.xml file has the settings substitutions that XmlMassUpdate will process and apply to app.config file. Below is a sample substitution file that I use:
<configuration xmlns:xmu="urn:msbuildcommunitytasks-xmlmassupdate">
<substitutions>
<Development>
<appSettings>
<add xmu:key="key" key="SomeSetting" value="DevValue" />
</appSettings>
</Development>
<Test>
<appSettings>
<add xmu:key="key" key="SomeSetting" value="TestValue" />
</appSettings>
</Test>
<Release>
<appSettings>
<add xmu:key="key" key="SomeSetting" value="ReleaseValue" />
</appSettings>
</Release>
</substitutions>
</configuration>
For details on how to specify substitutions, take a look at the documentation for XmlMassUpdate or just do a search on it.
2) Now I need to run XmlMassUpdate as part of build automation (TeamBuild/MSBuild). So in BeforeCompile in TeamBuild build definition file (basically a proj file), I added the following to run XmlMassUpdate on config files that have a corresponding .substitution.xml file
<PropertyGroup>
<SubstitutionFileExtension>.substitutions.xml</SubstitutionFileExtension>
<TargetEnvironment>Test</TargetEnvironment>
</PropertyGroup>
<Target Name="BeforeCompile" Condition="'$(IsDesktopBuild)'!='true'">
<CreateItem Include="$(SolutionRoot)\**\app.config;$(SolutionRoot)\**\web.config">
<Output ItemName="ConfigurationFiles" TaskParameter="Include"/>
</CreateItem>
<CreateItem Include="#(ConfigurationFiles)" Condition="Exists('%(FullPath)$(SubstitutionFileExtension)')">
<Output ItemName="ConfigFilesWithSubstitutions" TaskParameter="Include"/>
</CreateItem>
<Message Text="Updating configuration files with deployment target specific settings..."/>
<XmlMassUpdate
ContentFile="%(ConfigFilesWithSubstitutions.FullPath)"
SubstitutionsFile="%(ConfigFilesWithSubstitutions.FullPath)$(SubstitutionFileExtension)"
ContentRoot="/configuration"
SubstitutionsRoot="/configuration/substitutions/$(TargetEnvironment)"/>
</Target>
Note that config files are read-only during the build, I make sure to set them writeable before running this task. I actually have another custom MSBuild task that runs before XmlMassUpdate that handles common settings throughout all of the config files such as connection strings. That task makes the config files writeable. I also don't check modified config files back to the source control. They're (appropriate config file for the deployment target) included in the installer.

How do I automate repetitive tasks post-build?

I run an ASP.NET website solution with a few other projects in it. I've known that MSBuild projects are capable of this, but is it the best way? Are they easy to create? Is nAnt, CruiseControl.NET or any other solution better?
When I build the site (using Web Deployment Projects), can I automate part of the build so that it does not copy certain folders from the project into the Release folder? For instance, I have folders with local search indexes, images and other content part of the folder, but I never need or upload those when deploying the project.
I'm also looking toward this type of solution to automatically increment build and version numbers.

Here's an example of a Web Deployment Project scripting this sort of task in the .wdproj file:
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
<!-- ============================ Script Compression============================ -->
<MakeDir Directories="$(OutputPath)\compressed" />
<Exec Command="java -jar c:\yuicompressor-2.2.5\build\yuicompressor-2.2.5.jar --charset UTF-8 styles.css -o compressed/styles.css" WorkingDirectory="$(OutputPath)" />
<Exec Command="move /Y .\compressed\* .\" WorkingDirectory="$(OutputPath)" />
<RemoveDir Directories="$(OutputPath)\sql" />
<Exec Command="c:\7zip-4.4.2\7za.exe a $(ZipName).zip $(OutputPath)\*" />
</Target>
This would allow you to delete a folder.
(I suspect that if you wanted to not have the folder copy over at all, the solution file would be the place to specify that, though I haven't had to use that.)

MaseBase, you can use Web Deployment Projects to build and package Web Sites. We do that all the time for projects with a web application aspect. After you assign a WDP to a Web Site, you can open up the .wdproj file as plain-text XML file. At the end is a commented section of MSBuild targets that represent the sequence of events that fire during a build process.
<!-- To modify your build process, add your task inside one of the targets below and uncomment it.
Other similar extension points exist, see Microsoft.WebDeployment.targets.
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
</Target>
<Target Name="BeforeMerge">
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterMerge">
</Target>
<Target Name="AfterBuild">
</Target>
-->
You can uncomment the targets you want (e.g. "AfterBuild") and insert the necessary tasks there to carry out your repeated post-build activities.

You can set the Build Action/Copy to Output Directory property on individual files (select the file and hit F4 to open the properties window) to control what happens to them during build, but not for folders. This could probably be automated with a (pre) build task if you don't want to do it manually.
Alternatively, you can exclude these folders from the project (right click and 'exclude from project'); they'll still be there ("show all files" in solution explorer), but they won't be included when building the project.

CruiseControl.NET solves a different problem (continuous integration) ... however, I've had great success with NAnt for specifically what you're asking. There's a learning curve, but once you get proficient you'll wonder how you ever got along w/o it.

In addition to #Fredrik's tip about setting project items to "Copy to Output Directory", you can also specify a post-build action in the project's properties in the Build tab and include CMD commands like copy.exe and move.exe.

We use FinalBuilder to automate a bunch of post build / pre build tasks. There's also a web interface so you can kick off builds (or push websites) by logging in to the web site and clicking a button.
http://www.finalbuilder.com/

Can't you edit the Web Deployment project's MSBuild file for it to do what you want?