VSTS msdeploy.exe error: ERROR_USER_NOT_AUTHORIZED_FOR_CONTENTPATH

Question

I'm trying to create a release definition inside VSTS to deploy my ASP.NET Core 2.0 app on my production server.

I'm using the MSDeployAllTheThings extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rschiefer.MSDeployAllTheThings

I'm able to deploy inside Visual Studio using the same configuration...

VSTS Config (not working)

VSTS Error

Visual Studio Config (working)

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Do you guys have any ideas how to do that?

Answer 1

I had the same problem with deployment to smarterasp.net and was able to setup things for Web Deploy:

1. Your Dotnet Build task could create deployment package with necessary files like [YourProject].deploy.cmd, [YourProject].zip and etc. For this you could use next Arguments in your Build Task:

--configuration $(BuildConfiguration) /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)\"

2. Add "Batch script" task and set path to your [YourProject].deploy.cmd in Path field and also in your Arguments:

/y /m:$(SmarterAspNet.PublishUrl) -AllowUntrusted /u:$(SmarterAspNet.UserName) /p:$(SmarterAspNet.Password) /a:Basic "-setParam:name='IIS Web Application Name',value='$(SmarterAspNet.SiteName)'" -enableRule:AppOffline

With this two main DevOps tasks I was able to deploy my app to smarterasp.net

About MSDeployAllTheThings task: I removed it because it is not needed for me anymore

Answer 2

Not familiar with smarterasp.net. But this should be an issue with that site.

If you run the same msdeploy command from your local machine manually, you will get the same error message. We didn't see this error when use the same command to deploy to some other host instead of smarterasp.net. And if you add "-verbose" in the command, you will get a more detailed information which indicates that the command failed to adding the virtual path:

When you deploy your project from VS, it use the manifest file and source folder directly rather than "package" method. So you'd either contact smarterasp.net for help or use the same deploy method as Visual Studio or some other deploy method like FTP.