Alow bin\Web.config to override Web.config

[jez9999]

One major issue I continually have with ASP.NET is the inability to perform XDT transformations on my Web.config file when I debug. I want to hit F5 and get an XDT transformation that inserts config values appropriate for my debugging setup. It seems to me that a good way to do this would be for the web server to first search for bin\Web.config, which could be the output location for the base Web.config with XDT transformations applied (from a base Web.Debug.config file). If it finds that file, it uses it, otherwise it falls back to the base Web.config. Could this be implemented? Then we could press F5, VS does the XDT transformation for our Web.Debug.config, writes it to the bin directory, and the web server uses that when we're debugging.

[muratg]

@vijayrkn should this be moved to websdk repo?

[RudeySH]

Seconding this. SlowCheetah, which provides transformations during debug for App.config files, has proven to be immensely popular. Web applications should get this functionality too, one way or another.

One thing though, you mention XSLT but I think you mean XDT. Ah, I see you've edited it.

[vijayrkn]

+@BillHiebert

@muratg - This will have to go to the developer community since this is a VS feature request for F5 experience.

[jez9999]

@vijayrkn What if it were just implemented in the web server, though? It needn't be baked in to Visual Studio because an extension like SlowCheetah could do the transform and output it to the bin directory; the main problem is the web server not looking for bin\Web.config and using that instead of the base Web.config.

[Tratcher]

Note only IIS reads the Web.Config, not ASP.NET Core. That makes this a Windows feature request. @shirhatti

[jez9999]

@Tratcher Is it recommended that a different mechanism be used for configuring a web app in ASP.NET core, then?

[davidfowl]

@jez9999 ASP.NET Core is mostly code based configuration. There are some things you can set in configuration (like logger settings) but there's no transform step. It would be good to understand what problems you are trying to solve here.

[jez9999]

@davidfowl Things like transforming connection strings, passwords, IP addresses, etc. for the local developer machine setup. I am used to using config transforms for this for example when you publish your web application to a live or staging server.

[davidfowl]

OK I see, you just want to provide general configuration. ASP.NET Core's templates have appsettings.{Environment}.json configuration files. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/environments?view=aspnetcore-2.1 for more details on environments in general.

This really has nothing to do with the webserver but instead is just a deployment gesture (also storing settings in configuration is bad because you don't want secrets in source control).

See this doc for the recommended flow for secrets in production and development https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/security/app-secrets?view=aspnetcore-2.1&tabs=macos

[jez9999]

What I do is exclude my debugging settings files from source control and use transforms to insert the secrets for production ones, so I'm not actually storing secrets in source control.

[aspnet-hello]

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