Download Publish profile from Visual Studio 2017: .Net Core quick posts

You can find my all .Net core posts here.

In the current post, we will see how to download the publishSettings file from Visual Studio 2017.

What is PublishSettings file?

• Whenever you deploy your applications or services on Azure App Service, all the details of your deployment is stored in the Publish profile, this is nothing but the .publishSettings file
• You can use this file whenever you want to deploy your application or service on same services.
• This is an XML file with all the information like
  • Server Name
  • Username
  • Subscription ID and name
  • ServiceManagementUrl
  • Password of the Web host (As of now, it is Azure)
  • Management Certificate

   

• It also contains a management certificate which can be used to authenticate Windows Azure Service Management API requests

   

So, if you create an application or services directly on Azure App Service then you need to download the Publish profile from Azure portal.

But you can download Publish Profile(.publishSettings file) directly from the Visual Studio 2017.

For this, click on View tab -> Cloud Explorer:

Connect with your Azure subscription and select your app service for which you require Publish profile.

Right-click on the App service, here you would be able to see Download Publish Profile link:

Once you click on this link, it will download .publishSettings file. You can use this file when you want to Publish your application for the same App Service.

At the time of Publish, right click on the solution -> Click on Publish -> Select Import Profile:

Click on Publish -> Upload .publishSettings file here. This will be very useful for your future deployments for the same App service.

Security Note: Publish settings files contain a management certificate that is encoded, but not encrypted. If malicious users access your publish settings file, they might be able to edit, create, and delete your Azure services. As a security best practice, save the file to a location in your Downloads or Documents folder and then delete it after using

Hope it helps.