Can Azure do some web.config transform logic?

Question

I have a Windows Azure website.

In my web.release.config file I have a connection string that points to a live database.

This project is open source and published on Github

I do not want my published web.release.config file to have the live database connection.

Is there a way to store a setting in Azure so it transforms this value into the web.config?

I see that I can store appsettings in Azure but I'm not sure what my connectionstring should look like in the web.config

<connectionStrings>    
  <add name="RavenDB" connectionString="RavenDBKey" />  
</connectionStrings>  
<appSettings>     
  <add key="RavenDBKey" value="Url=http://localhost:8080;Database=DinnerPartyDB" />  
</appSettings>

Answer 1

In your web.config, you can set the connection string to any value you want. Typically, it will be some local DB for development. e.g.

  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="foo" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=foo;Integrated Security=SSPI" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>

Then in the portal, in the configure tab, you add a connection string entry with a matching name (foo), and set the value to what it needs to be.

Answer 2

The configure option only allows to add appsettings not connection strings. 

My connection string is not to a SQL Azure database too, its a URL over at RavenHQ.com

Answer 3

Ah right, forgot about that. There is indeed an issue with the portal right now that it doesn't allow adding connection strings manually. It only includes the ones that are linked to the site using the portal, but clearly that won't work with an external database.

Let me investigate some more and get back to you.

Answer 4

Thanks, look forward to it

Answer 5

Can you give an example of what the connection string config section looks like in your case (when it's fully configured to run)? Does it include a providerName? Or does Raven ignore the provider?

Answer 6

It looks like this:

<add name="RavenDB" connectionString="Url=https://1.ravenhq.com/databases/DinnerParty-DinnerPartyDB; ApiKey=765c840c-129f-4j26-b3h0-994dec2b2d22" />

Answer 7

Here is a hacky temporary workaround that may work, assuming that RavenDB completely ignores the providerName.

Instead of using connection strings in the portal, add an AppSetting with name SQLCONNSTR_RavenDB, and set the value to your connection string.

This may or may not work, and is just a temporary hack to try to unblock this until we figure out the right way to do this.

Answer 8

Bingo!

That seems to work.

Thanks for the help.

Can you tweet/reply here when this issue is fixed?

Answer 9

Great!

Yes, we can use this thread to follow up on changes related to this.

Answer 10

Actually we have a problem. I've been amending the setting and its created a ConnectionString now but every time I change the setting the connection string is being appended which now breaks my site. 

Below is a screenshot with commented out api keys

UPDATE: I created a new setting called RavenDB1, modified my source to use RavenDB1 and all was ok. 

Answer 11

That's bizarre. You could also delete the RavenDB setting and recreate it. I would hope that it would work as well.

Note that we never actually modify the physical web.config file. Instead, we modify the config system at runtime to surface the new values. So there is no risk of corrupting the web.config file on the server. You should be able to see this by looking at the files over FTP.

Answer 12

Deleting it does not change the connection strings! They stay as they were. Adding the setting back in with the same name then appends the existing connection string.

I see the web.config is not touched.

Answer 13

Ah yes, I am able to repro this now, there the code is clearly getting confused by the use of the SQLCONNSTR_ prefixed appsetting. Well, this was just a hacky workaround that I wasn't sure would work well.

We need to fix the original problem to let you directly add your connection string in the portal.

Answer 14

Any update on this, David?

---

Seth D. Webster

Answer 15

The Azure portal is going to add support to add arbitrary connection strings, which should resolve this. It's hard to be sure about the date, but hopefully it'll be in about a month.

Seth, are you also running into this relating to using RavenDB, or is your situation different?

Answer 16

Seth, note that this is now available in the portal. See my post for details!

David