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I am still trying to get my head around MSBuild things. Currently I am fiddling around with deploying via powershell script using the generated scripts from the PackageWeb-Nuget-Package (video demo). I have been trying that out for a few days now and it seemed to work. But "suddenly" the connection string in the generated web.config is tokenized and instead of the connection string in question I see

connectionString="$(ReplacableToken_DefaultConnection-Web.config Connection String_0)

I wrote "suddenly" because I could not link this (for me new) behaviour to anything I had done in the previous hours.

So to sum it up: The deployment from package is working fine, also the correct config transformation is being applied, but I end up with this tokenized connection string.

I realize that I can fix this if I insert

<AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>false</AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>

into a PropertyGroup (I just put it into the generated targets-file that the Nuget-Package creates)

However I really dislike this, having to insert this additional value into each project that might need it; especially because I did not know I need this adjustment in the first place. Yesterday it worked and I did not have this extra line inserted into any projects- or targets-file.

So I was hoping that maybe someone knows an extra switch, trick or setting that might have an additional influence on how that is working, too.

DrCopyPaste
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  • This is old, but would you plz share your findings on how you did it without specifying this loooooog property in .*proj file? – Ostati Jan 30 '14 at 19:21
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    @Ostati To be honest, I did not "solve" that at any point - the property `AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false` is still part of my deployment process; though I have not run into any problems with that, besides esthetically, I would also still be very interested if this can be circumvented in any way. – DrCopyPaste Jan 31 '14 at 08:13
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    @Ostati To add to that, the primary thing that I disliked about this was having to modify each project ('s proj-file) for that; however you do not have to do that, you can pass properties as parameters to `msbuild` - that way you override already existing properties in your proj-files or add new ones that you need (just like `AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings`) hope this helps you ;) (example: http://stackoverflow.com/a/6052146/2186023) – DrCopyPaste Jan 31 '14 at 08:34
  • @DrCopyPaste I am trying to use `AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings` and `DisableAllVSGeneratedMSDeployParameter` for publishing Web Deploy Packages from Visual Studio 2013. Where exactly do you put these? In the `csproj` file? I've tried that and it gives an error. – Heinrich Oct 29 '15 at 04:23
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    @Heinrich I am actually calling msbuild directly and override properties with that cmd like [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/6052146/2186023); you should however also be able to [use those parameters in your project file directly](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465342%28v=vs.100%29.aspx). You need to watch out if those parameters are altered in a later stage, for example passed in command line will override (augment) properties known from the project file. – DrCopyPaste Oct 30 '15 at 09:16
  • @DrCopyPaste It didn't work when I put it directly in the project file, it would create an error on build. I put it in the publish settings file `.pubxml` that is created in `Project Folder/Properties/PublishProfiles` when you create a profile in the Publish->Web Deploy Package dialog. There wasn't an error after putting it there. – Heinrich Oct 30 '15 at 16:38

3 Answers3

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Microsoft is using auto parameterization by default. This includes het connectionstrings. You can disable this by adding this to the project file.

<AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>false</AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>

For disabling all transforms you can add this as described here.

<TransformWebConfigEnabled>false</TransformWebConfigEnabled>

For disable all the parameters for a deployment package: <DisableAllVSGeneratedMSDeployParameter>true</DisableAllVSGeneratedMSDeployParameter>

LockTar
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1

Now that my company has been using TFS's "Release Manager" tool, which works off of a single build, we don't use web.config transforms anymore and instead use MS WebDeploy's parameters.xml method for swapping out values for different environments. However, I ran into the issue of the 'auto-gen'd' conn string mentioned above. Below is one work around for it.

If you're using parameters.xml files in your project, if you give your parameter the same name as the auto-gen'd one for your connection string, it works.

So below I have a 'DBConnectionNameHere' (what would be my example connectionStrings 'name' in the web.config) and then I just append "-Web.config Connection String" to the name. Now instead of the auto-gen'd conn string overriding my own in the parameters.xml file it will work and just add an extra and harmless 'parameterEntry' child tag.

For example: 

<parameter name="DbConnectionNameHere-Web.config Connection String" defaultValue="#{TokenHereOrActualValue}#">

  <parameterEntry kind="XmlFile" scope="\\web.config$" 
match="/configuration/connectionStrings/add[@name='DbConnectionNameHere']/@connectionString" />

</parameter>

Hope that helps someone!

Chris

Chris
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I've noted that things like $(ReplacableToken_ seem to happen randomly when publishing and was able to fix the situation by doing a cleanup before rebuilding and republishing. However, since you cannot really know unless you always manually check the web.config after publishing, I've also added

<AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>false</AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings>

to the web service project in question.

John Smith
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