Hi all; When I go to push my site from staging to production, I often need to run a SQL script to update the database schema. So is there a way to: Take the site offline Run the SQL script Swap from staging to production Test the production site Make the site online thanks - dave

Hi, App Offline file should help! You may read more details here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/app-offline?view=aspnetcore-8.0

How do I take my App Service offline, test the new app, then go online?

David Thielen 2,421

Hi all;

When I go to push my site from staging to production, I often need to run a SQL script to update the database schema. So is there a way to:

Take the site offline
Run the SQL script
Swap from staging to production
Test the production site
Make the site online

thanks - dave

1 answer

Manu Philip 17,021 Reputation points MVP

2024-05-16T15:02:24.11+00:00

Hi,

App Offline file should help!

You may read more details here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/app-offline?view=aspnetcore-8.0
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David Thielen 2,421 Reputation points

2024-05-16T15:21:13.62+00:00

@Manu Philip thank you. Three follow-on questions for this:

What's the easiest way to push an app_offline.htm file up to the service?

How do I stop the swap from staging to production from moving the file to staging thereby taking production online?

With app_offline.htm in the root, is there a url where that is ignored and the testers can hit the application?

thanks - dave

Manu Philip 17,021 Reputation points MVP

2024-05-17T07:04:55.2366667+00:00

@David Thielen

You can drop the app_offline.htm into your /site/wwwroot via FTP

Probably, the details in this url will help: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/deploy-staging-slots?tabs=portal

app_offline.htm blocks all requests for dynamic pages in the application by sending back the content of the file (for example: you might want to have a “site under construction” or “down for maintenance” message).

David Thielen 2,421 Reputation points

2024-05-18T21:04:35.3+00:00

@Manu Philip So there's no way for testers to get to the actual site, but have all external access go to app_offline.htm? That's the biggie I want - we once had a serious bug when we pushed to production that did not occur on staging. So I want to test against that.

thanks - dave

Manu Philip 17,021 Reputation points MVP

2024-05-21T03:40:34.2033333+00:00

The purpose of app_offline.htm is take the production environment offline and enables us to test the application in staging environment. So, make sure that the production and staging environment are perfectly matching in all aspects to avoid such issues.

David Thielen 2,421 Reputation points

2024-05-21T15:17:27.1466667+00:00

@Manu Philip That's good advice. Unfortunately even the best people occasionally make mistakes. The biggest problem we hit was Azure auto-updated some libraries - only on production.

Anyways, if there's no way to do this, there's no way to do this. thanks
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How do I take my App Service offline, test the new app, then go online?

1 answer