Azure DevOps Release Pipeline Web.Config Edit

Question

I know that when creating a release pipeline in Azure DevOps you can have the web.config of an app updated with variables from the pipeline and that works great for all the appSettings values.

But, during the release pipeline I'd like to update a different section of the web.config, specifically the sessionState provider node. I've tried a few plugins for the release pipeline like Config Transform by Magic Chunks but the problem is it needs you to specify the path of the configuration file to edit but by the time it gets to the release pipeline the source files are in a zip archive. Somehow the normal transformations of the appSettings are able to work off the unzipped version but I can't get other transformations to happen after the file is unzipped.

I know you can make changes in the build pipeline but there are reasons we want to do it in the release pipeline.

Anyone know a way to make changes to the web.config outside of the appSettings grouping in a release pipeline for an Azure App Service?

Hi,@Nick Olsen What is your test result? Can you share it with us :) — Hugh Lin

Shayki Abramczyk Shayki Abramczyk · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-03T12:23:23

You can use PowerShell to do the transformation within the zip file.

For example, I have this node in the web.config:

<configuration>
  <sessionstate 
      mode="__mode__"
      cookieless="false" 
      timeout="20" 
      sqlconnectionstring="data source=127.0.0.1;user id=<user id>;password=<password>"
      server="127.0.0.1" 
      port="42424" 
  />
</configuration>

I use this script:

# cd to the agent artifcats direcory (where the zip file exist)
cd $env:Agent_ReleaseDirectory
$fileToEdit = "web.config"

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.IO.Compression.FileSystem");
# Open zip and find the particular file (assumes only one inside the Zip file)
$zipfileName = dir -filter '*.zip'
$zip =  [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::Open($zipfileName.FullName,"Update")

$configFile = $zip.Entries.Where({$_.name -like $fileToEdit})

# Read the contents of the file
$desiredFile = [System.IO.StreamReader]($configFile).Open()
$text = $desiredFile.ReadToEnd()
$desiredFile.Close()
$desiredFile.Dispose()
$text = $text -replace  '__mode__',"stateserver"
#update file with new content
$desiredFile = [System.IO.StreamWriter]($configFile).Open()
$desiredFile.BaseStream.SetLength(0)

# Insert the $text to the file and close
$desiredFile.Write($text)
$desiredFile.Flush()
$desiredFile.Close()

# Write the changes and close the zip file
$zip.Dispose()

Before:

After (inside the zip file, without unzip and re-zip):

Azure DevOps Release Pipeline Web.Config Edit

2 Answers