Scope
Languages: .NET
Objects: All
DBMS: All
Interface: Win
Introduction
The purpose of this document is helping you to perform a Deployment of a .NET Win 2 or 3-tier application via HTTP.
For this, we have a tool that will make the work easier: GeneXus .NET Publication Assistant.
Description
To access the tool, we must go to the Execution: Build -> Run (F5) window and click on the Publish button.
Once you have generated the application exe, the methodology is quite simple:
1) From the Execution window, you select the exe corresponding to the Deployment and click on the Publish button.
2) Then, in GeneXus .NET Publication Assistant, you edit the Deployment preferences:
Application name: name to be given to the application; by default, it is the description of the selected main.
Client installation folder: folder where the application will be installed in the client; by default, it will be added at the end of the selected folder: GxPrograms\Application name.
Shortcut Icon: icon to be assigned to the exe; it will be ModelPath\GXPUB\gxappstart\net.ico, the icon distributed by default (*).
Shortcut for unistall: you specify if you want to add a direct access to the application Unistall.
Publication URL: URL from which the Deployment will be performed; by default, it will be, http://server/app, where server is the name of the PC where the Deployment is being performed and app is the name of the exe.
Physical path: directory where the application is located in the server; by default, it it is ModelPath\Publication.
Application files: files making up the application; by default, they are loaded from the model bin directory.
(*): the GXPUB is created under the model directory on pressing Publish.
On pressing Publish, the GXPUB directory is created under the model directory. All the files required to keep control of the application new versions will be stored in this directory.
3) Once the Deployment preferences have been established, you press Publish.
At this point:
- The GXPUB directory is created under the model directory. All the entered preferences are stored in this directory and all the files required to build the deployment are copied to this directory.
- The application files located in the model bin are copied to the Physical path. An appname_manifest.xml file is also copied. It will be used to know whether there are new application versions to be installed.
- A virtual directory is created with the same name as the application, pointing at the physical path.
- The application to be used in the client to perform all the application installations and updates is built. Its sources remain in \GXPUB\gxappstart.
- If no error occurs, the URL to be accessed to perform the installation will remain in GeneXus .NET Publication Assistant Output . This URL is built based on the previously specified Publication URL.
4) Put the URL in a browser of the client PC.
5) Install the Application.
6) The application is successfully installed in the client, ready for execution.
Each time you execute the application in the client, the appname_manifest.xml file located in the client will be compared with the appname_manifest.xmlfile located in the server and, if differences are found, you will be asked if you want to download the update:
Considerations
The same applies for 3-tier applications.
Requirements:
- Microsoft Windows® 2000, Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows Server 2003
- .NET Framework 1.1
- Setup security to be able to execute http://server/App/Setup/NoTouchDeploymentStub.exe.
- Internet Information Services
- Microsoft Visual J# 1.1
Comment: the requirements are shown in the install.html file. You access this file the moment you perform the installation.
Examples
Comments & Collaboration
Interesting links
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/updaterv2.asp