Using VSTS Release Management, how can I modify the configuration of an Azure Web App for each environment?

Question

I'm using Visual Studio Team Services and I'm trying to set up Release Management to allow automated deployments for our Azure Web App to multiple environments. I would like the same source to be deployed to each environment, but with modified configuration settings.

I was hoping that I could create a single Build for my application, and then modify the configuration at deployment time for each environment. I'm aware that this can be done for appSettings and connectionStrings (either through Tokenization, or even managing those settings via the Azure portal), but I'd like to be able to make more general changes to the web.config file. For example, I want to be able to:

• Update 'simple' settings such as appSettings/connectionStrings
• Update multiple attributes on elements (like httpErrors)
• Insert or rewrite sections of the config file itself (for example to add IIS rewrite rules, or to remove unwanted HTTP handlers for production)

Currently we achieve this by using config file transformations and separate publish profiles for each environment (manual deployment). I can't see a way to re-use this if I want a single release pipeline.

I'm hoping someone can help point me in the right direction. I'm also happy to accept alternative solutions - ultimately I just want to be able to deploy the same source (e.g. from the same commit in source control) to multiple environments, with different configuration, while keeping some kind of flow from dev, to test, to eventually production.

Answer 1

You can use Tokenization Task to update the files base on the environment variables.

More similar extensions: Replace Tokens and Colin's ALM Corner Build & Release Tools.