AppHarbor is an interesting service that can deploy and host an Asp.Net application really easy. They use the slogan “Azure done right”. I’m still in an experimental mode with it. But it passed my “if I cannot get this going in less than 1 hour I’ll skip it”- test easily. Azure didn’t.
The pricing is also a pleasant detail : no cost at all for a single server instance. So for trying out stuff it’s really ideal. Oh, and deploy is as easy as a Git commit and push. *happy face*
Here’s an example as how you can use it to host an Umbraco 5 alpha:
1. Get your Umbraco website running locally
1.1 Download and extract an Umbraco prebuilt web application of your choice (nightly / alpha or whatever is available) (Alpha 3)
You should even be able use the full Umbraco project – as AppHarbor has a automatic build process. Would be cool if someone tried it. I went the easy path and only used the pre-built nightly to get going quickly.
1.2 Run the Umbraco site in WebMatrix (right click the extracted folder and choose “open as a website in WebMatrix) go through the installation and choose the SQL CE database option as it requires no extra configuration. You can use a full SQL database if you need, AppHarbor has such as an add on.
You can do the Umbraco site installation online at AppHarbor, but that is not recommended as you will miss the possibility to work with the site locally and only push to the running site when you are ready to deploy your changes.
2. Create a local Git repository
2.1 Download and install Git Extensions
2.2 Right click the folder and click Git extensions -> Browse.
2.3 In the Git Explorer click Initialize Repository. Let it initialize.
2.4 Click commit to make an “initial commit”. It looks into the folders and lists all non-committed files in a list (all of the files at this first commit).
2.5 Click Stage All (the green double arrow) to add all files to the list of files to commit.
2.6 Add a commit message for example “Initial commit”
2.7 Click Commit. Now you commited all files to your local repository.
3. First deploy to AppHarbor
3.1 Create an account at AppHarbor
3.2 Login and create an application (it’s free until you require the application to run on multiple server instances.
3.3 Go to the settings page for your application and check the checkbox “Allow write-access to file system” and click update. Umbraco needs to be able to write to the file system.
3.4 Go back to the start page for your application to see the “Getting started” instructions. We don’t need all the steps as we already taken care of some of them.
3.5 In Git Extensions browser – click “Git Bash” in the toolbar to open a command window.
3.6 In the command window enter the following commands from the AppHarbor instruction page (copy paste using the context menu is easiest) to configurate your user and a necessary buffer setting (this you only need to do once for your repo) :
git config –global user.name {yourname} (or use your full name)
git config –global user.email {your email}
git config –global http.postBuffer 52428800
3.7 Now follow the last steps in the AppHarbor instructions, enter in your command window:
git remote add appharbor {your appharbor repository path}
git push appharbor master
Git will ask you for your AppHarbor password, and then the push process will start uploading files.
After some time (there’s quite a lot of files) you will get a message saying “Queuing build of master”. That’s good news – AppHarbor will now build the application for you and automatically deploy and host it. That is often a quick process and you will then be able to access your site – check out the url on your application page:
Application URL’s
http://myumbracosite.apphb.com
Deploying changes – this is the coolest part
Now you have two copies of your Umbraco web site. One locally and one on AppHarbor. When you need to change something you’ll do that locally and then deploy the changes to AppHarbor just by using Git commit and push.
Let’s say you added some razor templates, css’es and javascripts and you like to deploy them.
4.1 Right click your local Umbraco site folder and click Git extensions > Commit. The Git will find out which files you have changed and show them in the same list as you had before your first commit.
4.2 Click Stage all
4.3 Add a commit message “New changes to my css” and click commit. Now you committed to your local repository.
4.4 Go to the Git Extensions explorer and open the Git Bash window again.
4.5 Write
git push appharbor master
enter your password when prompted.
Git will upload the changes and AppHarbor starts a new Build process. A few moments later the updated site is live!
(If you like to omit the database from the commit you will need to add it to the gitignore file.)
Commit and push from the UI – no need to open the command prompt
Open the menuitem “Remote repositorys” in Git Ext, open the “AppHarbor” remote. Add your password to the url, so it says https://myname:mypassword@appharbor.com/mysite.git. Then go to the tab “default pull behaviour” (yeah I know, it says Pull but it goes for Push as well.) Set your AppHarbor as the default “Remote repository” click Save. Then you can use the “Commit and Push” button in the UI.
