Deploying the DSS to Azure App Service
The Azure App Service is a Microsoft service for hosting web applications. See Microsoft: App Service Overview for details.
Note:
- Because the location of the published content is in App_Data\Content, it's recommended that you configure the DSS code deployment to the Web App so that it does not update App_Data at this time. We are working on alternate content pathing methods for Azure Web App and will update the steps below to reflect these changes, shortly.
- Forms Builder pages are not supported within an Azure Web App deployment.
- The instructions below assume that you have rights to create an App Service in an Azure subscription.
To deploy the DSS to Azure App Service:
- Install a CMS instance.
- After installation of the CMS instance, open the solution file located at [Drive]:\[path-to-cms-instance]\site\dss_preview in Visual Studio.
- In Visual Studio, use the Solution Explorer to navigate to the App_Data folder of the project.
- Right click App_Data and select Add > New Folder.
- Name the new folder Content. This folder will be the replication target in Kudu.
- In Visual Studio, expand the Web.Config node, and open Web.Debug.Config for editing.
- Change the PageFileslocation key value to the following: .\App_Data\Content. This location is where the CMS replication target will replicate its content.
- Save Web.Debug.Config.
- Copy the above configuration to the Web.Release.Config file.
- Right click on the VS project and select Publish....
- Select Create New.
- Click Publish.
- In the Create App Service dialog, create a new Azure resource group and an Azure service plan for the test application. (For this test, you can just accept the default names.)
- Click Create to publish the site in Visual Studio. This action creates the Azure applications for you and may take a few minutes.
- Open a browser and go to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com).
- Search for the new App Service with the Azure search-by-name feature.
- Choose the Credentials area and enter a username and password for replication. Keep these values on hand, as you will need them for configuration later.
- Go back to the App Service Overview page in Azure. There, you can see the full user name which will be in ResourceGroup\UserID format:
- In the CMS, configure replication for the appropriate publishing target. See Replicating Content for details.
- Add a new FTP SSL replication target.
- Configure your server and user/password information similar to the capture below.
Important: Ensure that the Root Path value is site/wwwroot/app_data/Content and that you have enabled the following FTP/SSL Options in Advanced Settings:
- Implicit Mode on TLS/SSL
- Passive Mode
- Allow private certificates
- In the CMS, publish content to the publishing target that you just configured.
- Navigate to the Azure App Service and request a resource.