How to deploy static IIS site using Jenkins and Octopus

This post will cover how to create a nuget package for a project that needs deploying on different environments as an IIS Site holding static assets. However there is no difference between any other project that needs similar deployments except the octopus setup. We will be using Jenkins as builder and Octopus for deployment.

Use case

My use for this was for a Static IIS Site solution that needed often deployments. Main reason was to get rid of manual deployment and going to 1 click deployments.

Ideas for building on top of this: acceptance tests, blue-green deployment, logging.

Assumptions & setup

using git
have a project you want to deploy on multiple environments
have jenkins setup
have octopus setup
nuget feed in this tutorial: octopus integrated library.

Let’s do it manually first

We’re going to need NuGet packager to generate packages:

Download Nuget exe
we’re going to integrate it in our solution so we don’t depend on things installed on server
drop the exe in pathTo/myProject/tools
commit it into your git solution

Create NuSpec file

in the project root, create .nuspec file
use the following template to include everything in the solution
as it stands, it generates a nuget package that contains everything in the folder
NuSpec documentation reference for customisation, excluding files etc.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2011/08/nuspec.xsd">
    <metadata>
        <id>SolutionId</id>
        <version>1.0.0.0</version>
        <title>SolutionTitle</title>
        <authors>SolutionAuthors</authors>
        <owners>SolutionOwners</owners>
        <description>SolutionDescription</description>
        <language>en-US</language>
    </metadata>
    <files>
        <file src="**"/>
    </files>
</package>

Create NuGet Package manually

simply run this command from project root:

.\tools\NuGet.exe pack

Lets push this to our nuget feed

./tools/NuGet.exe myPackage.1.0.0.0.nupkg -ApiKey $OCTO_API -Source $OCTO_API_URL

Where:

$OCTO_API is your Octopus Api key that you can create HERE
$OCTO_API_URL is your octopus api endpoint, example: http://octopus.dev/nuget/packages
$OCTO_SERVER is your Octopus server url, example: http://octopus.dev
Build_Number is the build number generated by Jenkins (type it in manually when doing this manually) example: 1.0.0.0

Create a release

%OCTO_EXE_PATH% create-release --project %Project_Name% --version 1.0.0.%BUILD_NUMBER% --server %OCTO_SERVER% --apiKey %OCTO_API%

Deploy the release

%OCTO_EXE_PATH% deploy-release --project %Project_Name% --releaseNumber 1.0.0.%BUILD_NUMBER% --deployto Dev --server %OCTO_SERVER% --apiKey %OCTO_API%

Time to automate this using Jenkins

create a new jenkins job
create an octopus project with Deploy Nuget package
- make sure the NuGet Package ID matches the one in nuspec file
- setup the IIS properties if you want octopus to deploy it as IIS site
attach the project git repository to jenkins job
create build commands using the commands above like this:
add parameters correctly on the jenkins project (tick This project is parameterized)

Deploy static IIS site using Jenkins and Octopus