There are some updates to the Deployment Framework and log4net story that I've been meaning to release for quite some time. After this, I'll focus my deployment efforts on BizTalk 2006 (didn't I say that last release?)

Below are a list of revisions. On this blog's home page under "Downloads", you will find an updated full download (with sample), as well as updated "Core" and "Tools" downloads.  "Core" contains only the deployment framework itself and can be used for upgrades of existing projects.  "Tools" contains source for all utilities used by the framework.  Be sure to put a fresh copy of BizTalk.NAnt.Tasks.dll in your nant\bin directory. 

• Update to the log4net.Ext.Serializable library.  Note that the "Tools" download now has variants of this library for both log4net 1.2.0 and 1.2.9, though the sample is built against 1.2.9.  The important change here is that the original version of the library had a threading bug...as a result, the usage pattern for the library has changed somewhat.  Now, an instance of log4net.helpers.PropertiesCollectionEx is declared (as an orchestration variable), and an expression shape at the top of your orchestration will do something like below (notice logProps is passed to all logging calls so as to preserve context despite thread changes across dehydrations.)  See the sample for additional detail.

  logger = log4net.Ext.Serializable.SLogManager.
     GetLogger(@"BizTalkSample",log4net.helpers.CallersTypeName.Name);
  ...
  logProps.Set("InstanceId",TopLevelOrch(Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes.InstanceId));
  logger.Debug(logProps,"Received top level request...");               
                 

• Update to the SSOSettingsFileReader class to include an "Update" method.  Likewise, an additional custom NAnt task called "updatessoconfigitem" that allows you to add or update config items within an SSO affiliate application.  What is the use case for this?  Suppose you have a piece of information that you a) don't want to store in SettingsFileGenerator.xls (perhaps because you can't manage that file securely) and b) you need access to at run time.  (For instance, it might be an Oracle username/password.)  You could ask an operator/admin for this information at deployment time using SetEnvUI.exe/InstallWizard.xml (from the deployment framework) -- and then in your project-specific NAnt file do this:

     <target name="customSSO" if="${property::exists('serverDeploy') and serverDeploy}">
        <updatessoconfigitem ssoitemname="databaseUserName" ssoitemvalue="${sys.env.databaseUserName}"/>
        <updatessoconfigitem ssoitemname="databasePassword" ssoitemvalue="${sys.env.databasePassword}"/>
     </target>            
        

  At runtime, you can simply use SSOSettingsFileReader to retrieve this information.  Note that this example checks for whether we are doing a server deployment - so in this case, we would have the development environment values in SettingsFileGenerator.xls. 

• Added a small utility called SSONameValueDump to the tools download to view current name/value pairs of an SSO affiliate application (if you have appropriate permissions.)
• Update to the <controlbiztalkports> custom NAnt task to allow Send Port Groups to be shared across projects.  That is, Send Port Groups will only be removed if they no longer contain Send Ports (and putting new Send Ports into an already-existing Send Port Group will happen automatically.)
• XmlPreprocess will be run against log4net configuration files, if you are using log4net. This allows you to use SettingsFileGenerator.xls to control logging levels for different physical environments.
• SetEnvUI.exe no longer defaults to "last directory" when doing a file browse, to avoid confusion between applications when managing multiple BizTalk application installs.
• If you use ElementTunnel, you will find that the xpath file will be reversed automatically for unescape operations (thanks to Frank de Groot for that update!)
• Fix: When deploying HTTP/SOAP infrastructure, file system permissions granted to the specified application pool account.
• Fix: The "quick update" target (updateOrchestrations) now respects true/false properties for includeSchemas, includeTransforms, etc. (A menu option in Visual Studio is created for this target when you use the MakeBizTalkExternalTools script. The target updates orchestrations, components, schemas, and transforms (see Flanders' post on this) Using this as part of your normal edit/run/debug cycle is a must for productivity…)
• Fix: Handle multiple assemblies (of one artifact type) correctly in more cases, including where we are not deploying to the management database (i.e. gac deployment only.)

Download: Full Sample, Framework Core, Tools Source