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Cover image for Nuke: Deploy ASP. NET Web App to Azure
Raul Naupari
Raul Naupari

Posted on • Originally published at blog.raulnq.com

Nuke: Deploy ASP. NET Web App to Azure

#dotnet #azure #nuke #ci

In this post, we will explore the benefits of Nuke and its most common features as we deploy a web app to Azure. Our goal is to achieve a flexible, maintainable, automated build process.

Nuke is an open source, cross-platform build automation solution for .NET projects. Nuke prides itself on its simplicity and extensibility that makes build automation approachable for everyone.

Today, tools like Continuous Integration Servers perform the same job. So, why should we move the build process from CI Servers to Nuke and use them as simple runners?

  • Reduce Vendor Lock-In: Switching from one CI platform to another requires a significant effort.

  • Democratize DevOps: If something breaks or a developer adds a feature that needs changes in the build process, progress halts until the build manager is available.

  • Reduce Mismatch: Occasionally, a change affects the code and the build process. When you move the feature to the development branch, you must to remember to update the related build process.

  • Simplify Debugging: When things go wrong on a CI server with custom logic, you can't set breakpoints, you can't access environmental differences, logging options are limited, and you often have to wait a long time to see the results of any changes.

Concepts

Target

A target is something that must happen. A collection of targets defines your build process. They are similar to the build steps in your CI server.

Target Restore => _ => _
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        DotNetRestore(s => s
            .SetProjectFile(Solution));
    });
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Parameters

A parameter is a value provided by the command line.

[Parameter("Configuration to build - Default is 'Debug' (local) or 'Release' (server)")]
readonly Configuration Configuration = IsLocalBuild ? Configuration.Debug : Configuration.Release;
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Dependencies

A dependency specifies which targets need to run first.

Target Compile => _ => _
    .DependsOn(Restore)
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        DotNetBuild(s => s
            .SetProjectFile(Solution)
            .SetConfiguration(Configuration)
            .EnableNoRestore());
    });
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Code

Let's start by installing Nuke:

dotnet tool install Nuke.GlobalTool --global
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Then, in the same directory as your solution, run:

 nuke :setup
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Nuke will start asking questions to set up your build project:

NUKE Global Tool version 6.0.1 (Windows,.NETCoreApp,Version=v3.1)
How should the build project be named?
¬  _build
Where should the build project be located?
¬  ./build
Which NUKE version should be used?
¬  6.0.3 (latest release)
Which solution should be the default?
¬  nuke-sandbox-app.sln
Do you need help getting started with a basic build?
¬  No, I can do this myself...
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At this point, Nuke will add a new project named _build to your solution. Find the Build.cs file and open it. Add the following namespaces to access all dotnet commands:

using Nuke.Common.Tools.DotNet;
using static Nuke.Common.Tools.DotNet.DotNetTasks;
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Delete all the targets and replace them with the following code:

Target Restore => _ => _
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        DotNetRestore(s => s
            .SetProjectFile(Solution));
    });

Target Compile => _ => _
    .DependsOn(Restore)
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        DotNetBuild(s => s
            .SetProjectFile(Solution)
            .SetConfiguration(Configuration)
            .EnableNoRestore());
    });
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Open a console in the same directory as your solution and run:

nuke Compile
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╬════════════
║ Restore
╬═══
​
09:23:21 [INF] > "C:\Program Files\dotnet\dotnet.exe" restore D:\Source\Github\nuke-sandbox\nuke-sandbox-app.sln
09:23:21 [DBG]   Determining projects to restore...
09:23:22 [DBG]   Restored D:\Source\Github\nuke-sandbox\nuke-sandbox-app\nuke-sandbox-app.csproj (in 87 ms).
​
╬════════════
║ Compile
╬═══
​
09:23:22 [INF] > "C:\Program Files\dotnet\dotnet.exe" build D:\Source\Github\nuke-sandbox\nuke-sandbox-app.sln --configuration Debug --no-restore
09:23:22 [DBG] Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 17.1.0+ae57d105c for .NET
09:23:22 [DBG] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
09:23:22 [DBG]
09:23:25 [DBG]   nuke-sandbox-app -> D:\Source\Github\nuke-sandbox\nuke-sandbox-app\bin\Debug\net6.0\nuke-sandbox-app.dll
09:23:26 [DBG]
09:23:26 [DBG] Build succeeded.
09:23:26 [DBG]     0 Warning(s)
09:23:26 [DBG]     0 Error(s)
09:23:26 [DBG]
09:23:26 [DBG] Time Elapsed 00:00:03.33
​
═══════════════════════════════════════
Target             Status      Duration
───────────────────────────────────────
Restore            Succeeded     < 1sec
Compile            Succeeded       0:03
───────────────────────────────────────
Total                              0:04
═══════════════════════════════════════
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Congratulations, you are compiling your solution with Nuke. To deploy the web app to Azure, we will use the Kudu's zip API. We must create a target to run the dotnet publish command and another to zip the results. Add two AbsolutePath variables to store the results of these commands:

AbsolutePath OutputDirectory => RootDirectory / "output";

AbsolutePath ArtifactDirectory => RootDirectory / "artifact";
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And add the following targets:

Target Clean => _ => _
    .Before(Restore)
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        EnsureCleanDirectory(OutputDirectory);
        EnsureCleanDirectory(ArtifactDirectory);
    });

Target Publish => _ => _
    .DependsOn(Compile)
    .DependsOn(Clean)
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        DotNetPublish(s => s
            .SetProject(Solution)
            .SetConfiguration(Configuration)
            .SetOutput(OutputDirectory)
            .EnableNoRestore()
            .SetNoBuild(true));
    });

Target Zip => _ => _
    .DependsOn(Publish)
    .Executes(() =>
    {
        ZipFile.CreateFromDirectory(OutputDirectory, ArtifactDirectory / "deployment.zip");
    });
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Run the nuke command and check the output and artifact folders:

nuke Zip
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Let's move to the final step and add three parameters:

[Parameter()]
public string WebAppUser;

[Parameter()]
public string WebAppPassword;

[Parameter]
public string WebAppName;
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And copy this target:

Target Deploy => _ => _
    .DependsOn(Zip)
    .Requires(() => WebAppUser)
    .Requires(() => WebAppPassword)
    .Requires(() => WebAppName)
    .Executes(async () =>
    {
        var base64Auth = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.Default.GetBytes($"{WebAppUser}:{WebAppPassword}"));
        using (var memStream = new MemoryStream(File.ReadAllBytes(ArtifactDirectory / "deployment.zip")))
        {
            memStream.Position = 0;
            var content = new StreamContent(memStream);
            var httpClient = new HttpClient();
            httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new System.Net.Http.Headers.AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", base64Auth);
            var requestUrl = $"https://{WebAppName}.scm.azurewebsites.net/api/zipdeploy";
            var response = await httpClient.PostAsync(requestUrl, content);

            if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
            {
                Assert.Fail("Deployment returned status code: " + response.StatusCode);
            }

        }
    });
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To get the user and password, go to the Azure portal and find the Deployment Center option:

Image description

For the user, use the last part after the backslash. Run the help command to see all the available options:

nuke --help
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NUKE Execution Engine version 6.0.3 (Windows,.NETCoreApp,Version=v6.0)
​
Targets (with their direct dependencies):

  Restore
  Compile (default)    -> Restore
  Clean
  Publish              -> Compile, Clean
  Zip                  -> Publish
  Deploy               -> Zip

Parameters:

  --configuration         Configuration to build - Default is 'Debug' (local) or
                          'Release' (server).
  --web-app-password      <no description>
  --web-app-user          <no description>
  --web-app-name          <no description>

  --continue              Indicates to continue a previously failed build attempt.
  --help                  Shows the help text for this build assembly.
  --host                  Host for execution. Default is 'automatic'.
  --no-logo               Disables displaying the NUKE logo.
  --plan                  Shows the execution plan (HTML).
  --profile               Defines the profiles to load.
  --root                  Root directory during build execution.
  --skip                  List of targets to be skipped. Empty list skips all
                          dependencies.
  --target                List of targets to be invoked. Default is 'Compile'.
  --verbosity             Logging verbosity during build execution. Default is
                          'Normal'.
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Run the following command:

nuke Deploy --web-app-password <pasword> --web-app-name nuke-sandbox-app --web-app-user '$nuke-sandbox-app'
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Go to your site to see the web app running. Finally, to see your build process in a nice dependency graph, run the following command:

nuke --plan
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Image description

You can find the solution here. Thank you, and happy coding.

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