Publish an ASP.NET site

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Before you start

• A Raff Keep ASP.NET server that is Installed, with Raff Guardian on. On an Install only server, see Publish without Raff Guardian.
• Permission to manage the server (vm.manage) and to open its console.
• Visual Studio, or a GitHub repository with your app.

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Steps

1

Check where Web Deploy answers from

Open the server’s page under Keep and click the Apps tab. The Publishing card shows Web Deploy (port 8172):

• From your addresses: …: the addresses you listed at setup.
• From anywhere: any address, each site still protected by its own login.
• Closed: nobody can publish. This is the case when you listed no addresses at setup.

To change it, click Change, choose Only your addresses or From anywhere in Where should Web Deploy answer from?, and click Save. GitHub Actions and other build machines publish from changing addresses, so they need From anywhere. Raff Guardian blocks addresses that keep failing to sign in.

2

Download the publish profile

On the Overview tab, Your sites lists each site with its state, its domains and its Publishing login, such as publish-site1. Click Publish profile on the site.Raff Guardian makes a new password for the site’s publishing login, and your browser saves a .publishsettings file. The row then says “Saved. Import it in Visual Studio (Publish, Import Profile). An older profile of this site no longer works.” Raff emails your project’s members that a new publish profile was made.

3

Publish from Visual Studio

In Visual Studio, open Publish, choose Import Profile and pick the file. Click Publish.The first time, Visual Studio asks you to trust the server’s Web Deploy certificate. Once a site’s domain has its Let’s Encrypt certificate, Web Deploy uses that certificate and Visual Studio trusts it without asking.

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Verify

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Publish from GitHub Actions

1. Set Web Deploy to From anywhere (step 1 above). The dialog reminds you when it is not.
2. In Your sites, open the site’s … menu and click Set up GitHub Actions. The dialog, such as Publish site2 from GitHub Actions, lists four secrets to add to your repository, each with a copy button: WEBDEPLOY_URL, WEBDEPLOY_SITE, WEBDEPLOY_USER and WEBDEPLOY_PASSWORD. The password is the one in your publish profile (userPWD).
3. Add the file the dialog shows as .github/workflows/deploy.yml (Copy the file), and set dotnet-version to the .NET version your app targets. It looks like this:

name: Publish
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v4
        with:
          dotnet-version: '10.0.x'
      - run: >
          dotnet publish -c Release
          -p:WebPublishMethod=MSDeploy
          -p:MSDeployServiceURL=${{ secrets.WEBDEPLOY_URL }}
          -p:DeployIisAppPath="${{ secrets.WEBDEPLOY_SITE }}"
          -p:UserName=${{ secrets.WEBDEPLOY_USER }}
          -p:Password=${{ secrets.WEBDEPLOY_PASSWORD }}
          -p:AuthType=Basic
          -p:AllowUntrustedCertificate=true
          -p:SkipExtraFilesOnServer=true

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Publish without Raff Guardian

• Server: the Publish with Web Deploy address from your logins, https://<address>:8172/msdeploy.axd.
• Site: Default Web Site for site 1, site2, site3 and so on for the others.
• User name and password: your admin login and its password.

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Next steps