Blog of an IT Guy

So we now have this very cool LightSwitch HTML app, with new Security Management and Tile screens. So big question is, how do we get this deployed and working successfully in the cloud. Well quite simple really. We’ll use Microsoft Azure as our provider for this section. Other providers won’t be much different than how you normally deploy. You do need to at least read this section as I show you how to deploy so the Security Management works.

Expectation is that you have an Azure account already or you’ll get a trial.

1. Log into your Azure Portal
2. Provision a new website with a database
3. Grab the connection strings that are provided
4. Now lets go to our solution in Visual Studio
5. Change your Solution Configuration to Release
6. Right click on your database project, properties
7. Change the Target platform to be Windows Azure SQL Database
8. Also, load up your PostDeployment1.sql script
9. Now go ahead and do a fresh build
10. Make sure you have your SecurityAdmin setup in your Web.config
11. Right click on your LsCoreProject
12. Select Publish
13. In the Wizard
14. Application type: Complete Application
15. Application Server Configuration: Windows Azure
16. Subscription: Select your subscription

    Quick note, Azure and Visual Studio seem to have issues at times. If you get an Unhandled Exception of type ‘System.InvalidOperationException’, it is not the end of the world. Close the exception. Open up, in Visual Studio, the Server Explorer. Expand Windows Azure, then expand Web Sites. You’ll be prompted to Log in. Enter your credentials and log in. Issue resolved. Restart your publish process.

17. Service Type: Web Site
18. Service Configuration, URL: lscoreprojectdemo
19. Security Settings, Administrator: Configure to your liking
20. Security Settings, HTTPS: Your preference
21. Data Connections, Database conx: Should prepopulate
22. Data Connections, Attached Sources: Here is the secret sauce!
23. Assumptions are you are still using the same Admin security account
24. If not scroll the text in the input box and change them. These credentials are not SQL credentials, but the Security Administrator account within your LightSwitch application.
25. Remember we used as an example User: LeaveMeAlone
26. You also need to remove the localhost:{port} and use your Azure URL
27. Once you’ve done that, move to the summary
28. Press publish and wait for the magic!

    Not to bad eh?

    Now load up your application with your Azure URL
    Go ahead and login with your LightSwitch Security Administration account credentials or register a new account

    Didn’t work?

    Azure has been flakey with LightSwitch apps. I have found that it does not seem to install the default Security Administration user that you predefined for deployment. That is until you create some other account. This is where the self register page takes care of this. Go ahead and navigate to /register.aspx of your URL and register yourself. As you see you will only get the one tile. That’s good. Security is working. Go ahead and log out and log back in now with the LightSwitch Security Administration account you had setup pre-deployment. You should see the Admin tile now. That’s good. Go ahead and create your accounts, etc. as needed. I have also seen this issue happen on standard IIS deployments. Why… Good question.

Next… Lets wrap it up

Here are the topics and their logical order:

1. Create the project
2. Add external CSS
3. Add external scripts
4. Update the default.htm
5. Add LogIn/LogOut/Register/ChangePassword
6. Create the security data source
7. Screens for permissions
8. Screens for role management
9. Screens for user management
10. Tables for tile menus
11. Screens for icon management
12. Screens for menu management
13. Create a tile menu screen
14. Create a database project
15. — You
16. Wrap up