umbraco deployment in azure websites and sql azure

Question

I am new to umbraco and I tried to create an application using it . I created an empty mvc application in visual studio 2013 and add UmbracoCms nuget package( Version 7.1.4). When I ran the app it asked for installation and is successfully installed in a local SQL CE database.

I added the required Controller ( inheriting SurfaceController) and the model required in my partial view . The project compiled and the page worked fine.

Now I need to deploy this site to Microsoft azurewebsites. When I publish the site from visual studio publish option(I specify the website name, sql azure db name and credentials ) to azure the whole publish process gets successfully done. When I browse the site it goes the page that reads "Looks like there's still work to do" and when I click the "Set up your new website" button it goes to the login page "http://XXXXX.azurewebsites.net/umbraco#/login/false". I don't have the credentials since this is a new deployment and I also tried the local one but it did not work either. I believe that the sql azure db is not setup for this. I was of the opinion that when I run the site it willl take me to the installation page . But it did not.

Any help on this would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Since you installed umbraco locally with SQL CE the web.config gets updated with the current version (its an appSetting) and a connection string. When you then deploy that to Azure it will look like the site is already setup. Now, I don't know if you included the SQL CE database in your deployment package because with that the site would work (with the credentials you choose locally). But ideally you'd want to set it up with a SQL azure database. To do this you can "reset" the umbracoDbDsn connection string in web.config and remove the version in appSettings. Doing that will make Umbraco start the installation when deployed to azure.

In the umbraco installer you simply choose Customize to get the dialog that always you to enter a connection string for SQL azure.