Running Visual Studio Web Server as Part of a CI Build

I wanted to get our WatiN acceptance tests to run as part of a CC.Net build.  It was a bit harder than I thought to get the web server up and running before the tests ran so I thought I'd document the steps.

 

1. Get WebDev.WebHost.dll and WebDev.WebServer2.exe into you solution folder somewhere (I chose SharedLibs\WebServer)
   
2. Create a batch file (startserver.bat) that has the line:

   start 
      SharedLibs\WebServer\WebDev.WebServer2.exe 
      /port:3699 /path:%~dp0MyProject.Web

3. Download the Async exec task from here.  Add it to your solution structure.  I put it in SharedLibs\MSBuild.
   
4. Add a reference to the AsyncExec task to your ms build file:

   <UsingTask 
        AssemblyFile="SharedLibs\MSBuild\AsyncExec.dll" 
        TaskName="AsyncExec.AsyncExec" />

5. Execute and kill the server in the msbuild file like this:

       <AsyncExec Command="startserver.bat" />
           
       <Exec ... tests .../> 
   
       <Exec Command="taskkill /F /IM WebDev.WebServer2.exe" 
            IgnoreExitCode="true" />

Notes:

• Another method might have been to get an IIS site running, but all the tests were set up for local developers to run with the built-in server.
• The Async exec task is needed as the built-in msbuild task never returns
• The kill command kills all webdev instances.  This was OK for my solution but may not be for yours!