We’re working on a proof of concept setup using Octopack and Octotools together with Visual Studio and TFS in order to implement continuous integration/deployment.
We got Octopack working nicely and Octotools too is working however, we’ve hit a small niggle in that Octotools creates releases which deploy code to the C:\Octopus\Applications folder - which isn’t ideal as we run our websites from other drives on the web server eg, D, E or F drives.
Thanks for reaching out! All Octo.exe does is invoking the deployment process you’ve setup for your project on the web UI. By default the deployments will go to C:\Octopus…. If you want to change this path you’re gonna have to enable the feature Custom installation Directory on the package deployment step of your deployment process.
Once you’ve done this, the next time you create a new release and deploy it with Octo.exe it will deploy your code to the path you chose.
Thanks for your reply, so based on what you’re saying a fully automated Continuous Integration/Deployment setup with Visual Studio, TFS and Octopus Deploy isn’t possible as manual intervention is required in first setting up the variables within the project before invoking Octotools, right?
The deployment process is something that, on an ideal scenario, you’re only gonna have to setup once from the Web UI and later on you’ll just invoke it from your CI build process. Creating variables is also something you’re only gonna have to do only the first time. As for populating these variables you’ll face 2 scenarios:
Non-Prompt Variables - These are created from the web UI and can be configured so their values are set depending on the Environment/machine/role/step they are running on.
Prompt Variables - These can be set using Octo.exe’s –variable parameter for CI builds or they can be setup manually when deploying a release from the web UI.
So yeah, after the first setup its is totally possible to have fully automated CI deployments using TFS.
