Automated website deployment with PowerShell and SmartFTP

by Shannon Deminick 2. September 2010 07:56

SmartFTP is a fantastic FTP application which handles syncing files very effectively. This means that when you upload your entire website, SmartFTP will automatically detect changes and only upload what is required (instead of overwriting all of the files like some FTP applications do). For each project at TheFARM we have build scripts which run and create a time stamped ZIP package for each deployment environment with all of the necessary files formatted appropriately for each. Our deployment process then involves unzipping the contents of this file, opening up SmartFTP, connecting to the deployment destination and transfering all of the deployment files up (which SmartFTP synchronizes for us).

I thought it would be much more efficient if we automated this process. So we did some investigation and it turns out the SmartFTP conveniently has an API! So we decided to see if we could write a PowerShell script to use the SmartFTP api to automagically transfer/sync all of our deployment files in our Zip package to the necessary FTP site and with a bit of trial and error we managed to do it! Now, I’m not PowerShell expert or anything, and in fact this was my very first PowerShell script ever written so I’m sure this could all be done a bit better, but it works! I’m not going to go into detail about the SmartFTP api or how to write PowerShell stuff because this script will work with some basic requirements:

  • You need both PowerShell and SmartFTP installed
  • Currently this only supports the standard FTP protocol, but if you need SFTP, etc… you can just change the $fav variable’s ‘Protocol’ property
  • The parameters, in this order are:
    • destination
      • the IP address, or host of your FTP server
    • user
      • the username used to login to the FTP server
    • password
      • the password used to login to the FTP server
    • path
      • The FTP path of where you want your files to go on your FTP server
    • port
      • The FTP port to use, default is 21
    • source
      • The source folder to copy to the FTP site, if not specified, uses the current directory that the PowerShell script is run from

Example usage:

FTPSync.ps1 123.123.123.123 MyUserName MyPassword 21 “C:\MyWebsiteFolder” “/websites/MyWebsite”

or you can just double click on the ps1 file and it will prompt you for these details.

So without further adieu, here’s the script!

#requires -version 2.0 # Define inputs param ( [parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $dest, [parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $user, [parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $pass, [parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [ValidatePattern('\d+')] [int] $port = 21, [parameter(Mandatory=$false)] [ValidateScript({ Test-Path -Path $_ -PathType Container })] [string] $source, [parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [ValidatePattern('\/+')] [string] $path ) # get current folder $currFolder = (Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath; # set current folder [Environment]::CurrentDirectory=$currFolder; # if the source isn't set, then use the current folder if ($source = "") { $source = $currFolder; } Write-Host "------------------------------------------------------" -foregroundcolor yellow -backgroundcolor black Write-Host("{0, -20}{1,20}" -f "Destination", $dest); Write-Host("{0, -20}{1,20}" -f "User", $user); Write-Host("{0, -20}{1,20}" -f "Pass", "********"); Write-Host("{0, -20}{1,20}" -f "Port", $port); Write-Host ""; Write-Host "Source:"; Write-Host $source; Write-Host ""; Write-Host "Path"; Write-Host $path; Write-Host "------------------------------------------------------" -foregroundcolor yellow -backgroundcolor black # Create application $smartFTP = New-Object -comObject SmartFTP.Application; $smartFTP.Visible = [bool]0; $smartFTP.CloseAll(); # create temp favorite item $fav = $smartFTP.CreateObject("sfFavorites.FavoriteItem"); $fav.Name = $user + " @ " + $dest + " (temp favorite by cmdInterface)"; # 1 = FTP standard protocol $fav.Protocol = 1; $fav.Host = $dest; $fav.Port = $port; $fav.Path = $path; $fav.Username = $user; $fav.Password = $pass; # forces it not to be saved $fav.Virtual = "true"; # Add temporary favorite to SmartFTPs FavoriteManager $favMgr = $smartFTP.FavoritesManager; $rootFolder = $favMgr.RootFolder; $rootFolder.AddItem($fav); # Get the transfer queue $queue = $smartFTP.TransferQueue; # stop the queue if it isn't already if ($queue.State -ne 1) { $queue.Stop(); } # Stopped = 1 # clear the queue foreach($item in $queue.Items) { $queue.RemoveItem($item); } # set the thread count for the queue $queue.MaxWorkers = 20; #enable logging $queue.Log = "true"; $queue.LogFolder = $currFolder + "\\LOG"; # create new transfer item $newItem = $smartFTP.CreateObject("sfTransferQueue.TransferQueueItem"); # set the item as a folder and copy operation, $newItem.type = 2; #FOLDER = 2 $newItem.Operation = 1; #COPY = 1 # Set the source $newItem.Source.type = 1; #LOCAL = 1 $newItem.Source.Path = $source; # Set the destination $newItem.Destination.type = 2; #REMOTE = 2 $newItem.Destination.Path = $path; $newItem.Destination.FavoriteIdAsString = $fav.IdAsString; #links up to our connection favorite # and finally add it $queue.AddItemTail($newItem); Write-Host "STARTING" -foregroundcolor yellow -backgroundcolor black; $queue.Start(); while ($queue.Items.Count -ne 0) { Write-Host "Processing...bytes transfered: " $queue.TransferredBytes; Start-Sleep -s 2; #wait 2 seconds } # store the total bytes $totalBytes = $queue.TransferredBytes; # cleanup smartftp app $queue.Quit(); $smartFTP.Exit(); # parse logs # regex to find "[DATE/TIME] STOR FILENAME # which indicates a file transfer $regex = new-object System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("\[[\w\-\:]*?\]\sSTOR\s(.+?)\[",,[System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions]::SingleLine); $totalFiles = 0; Write-Host "Files Transfered" -foregroundcolor cyan -backgroundcolor black Get-ChildItem $queue.LogFolder -include *.log -Recurse | foreach ($_) { $currFile = Get-Content $_.fullname; $match = $regex.Matches($currFile); if ($match.Count -gt 0) { foreach($m in $match) { Write-Host $m.Groups[1]; } $totalFiles++; } remove-item $_.fullname -Force -Recurse ; } Write-Host "COMPLETED (total bytes: " $totalBytes ", total files: )" $totalFiles -foregroundcolor cyan -backgroundcolor black; "------------------------------------------------------" # cleanup COM Remove-Variable smartFTP

Comments

9/2/2010 10:50:31 AM #

Have you considered using MS Deploy to push the changes out instead of relying on FTP? That way in can set permissions and configure the DB as well. Or you could sync from your staging server direct to prod.

Chad Australia

9/2/2010 10:58:26 AM #

We've 'thought' about it... just haven't actually  put the time to R&D it and implement it.
Because we use CruiseControl to do our builds from Subversion which also takes into account bringing files in from Flash vs .Net repositories, it's all somewhat custom.

I guess we'd keep this process but then configure the msbuild scripts to create a web deploy package, then somehow give the dev's a way to execute a script to run the web deploy... plus we'll need to install the service on our servers, etc...

I think the real reason why we haven't implemented anything with web deploy yet is cuz it'll be a bit of work to get implemented.

... looks like i should just use this link:

blogs.iis.net/.../...y-msbuild-and-powershell.aspx

ShannonDeminick Australia

9/2/2010 11:27:11 AM #

Was hoping you guys would build it so I wouldn't have to build my own :)

FYI you don't _have_ to have MSDeploy installed on the end server, it's possible to run it in such a way that it will 'inject' itself onto the destination server. Obviously you need the appropriate permissions.

Chad Australia

9/2/2010 11:46:18 AM #

haha! well, i've just started looking at it but everything seems to say that you need IIS 7 management services, etc... installed on there. I think creating the actual package may be easy enough.
Maybe i'll get something going next week :)

ShannonDeminick Australia