# CI/CD for .NET framework web jobs

At the moment, there’s a weird in-between. If you want to run a background job that is _continuous_ and/or requires vnet integration, you might have to use a web job. Even more so, if you’re having to run .NET Framework, your best best is to run a v1 web job, not v2, [not v3](https://github.com/Azure/azure-webjobs-sdk/issues/2186). As the Azure team is pushing heavily adopting .NET Core, the Web Job SDK is moving along with it.

My weird issue
--------------

I wanted to move a .NET Framework 4.7 Windows Service to Azure using a Web Job. It had to trigger several little functions on a timer, fairly frequently (as often as every 5 seconds for some). This background job also had interact with IaaS services and therefore connect to a vnet.

So, I solved it by creating a .NET Framework Web Job using File -> New Project -> Web Job. This is assuming you have the Azure Developer Pack installed to Visual Studio. From here, I created a _continuous_ web job and installed the [web job extensions](https://github.com/Azure/azure-webjobs-sdk-extensions) that I could use a `TimerTrigger`.

The pipeline
------------

The hard part was creating the CI/CD pipeline. Turns out that the new, short, sweet `.csproj` don’t play nice with the older v1 web job tooling.

### Going back in time

There’s this [old blog post](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/enabling-command-line-or-continuous-delivery-of-azure-webjobs/) that has a lot of good information on how the older web jobs were configured before. I didn’t have to follow a lot of it, because well, I was using Azure DevOps with the built-in tasks to deploy the web job.

The main takeaways:

*   For continuous web jobs, enable ‘Always On’ the app service
*   Ensure you the `Microsoft.Web.WebJobs.Publish` NuGet package installed on your web job project
*   Ensure you’re publishing with the right _MsBuild_ properties (see pipeline section below)
*   There’s an [open issue](https://github.com/Azure/azure-webjobs-sdk/issues/1635) that shed’s some light if you want to make a web job work with the new `.csproj` as seen by .NET Framework 4.7 and above. If you don't do this, your web deploy package will be empty.
*   You’re going to need a `webjob-publish-settings.json` file under the _Properties_ folder of the project.
    
        <PropertyGroup>
            <IsWebJobProject>true</IsWebJobProject>
            <WebJobName>$(AssemblyName)</WebJobName>
            <WebJobType>Continuous</WebJobType>
        </PropertyGroup>
        
    

### The tasks

First, build the solution with the following MSBuild arguments. They should be the same you would use to create a Web Deploy package for traditional Windows-based App Service deployments

    - task: VSBuild@1
      displayName: 'Build Solution'
      inputs:
        solution: '**\*.sln'
        msbuildArgs: '/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)/"'
        platform: 'Any CPU'
        configuration: 'Debug'
    

Then, when you’re wanting to deploy, use the older `AzureRmWebAppDeployment@4` task. (Assuming, you published the zip as a build artifact).

    - task: AzureRmWebAppDeployment@4
      displayName: 'Deploy Web Job'
      inputs:
        azureSubscription: 'my-subscription-service-connection'
        WebAppName: 'azapp-myapp-dev-001'
        package: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/**/MyWebJob.zip'
    

That’s it! I didn’t really cover how to create the web job on Azure.