Visual Studio offers some built-in deployment features that require Frontpage Server Extensions to be installed on the web server:
- publishing of ASP.NET applications,
- publishing of Windows applications accessible through ClickOnce.
Right now, I deploy such applications manually by copying the relevant files with a WebDAV client.
It's not a lot of work, but it feels like I'm doing unnecessary work, since there's already a built-in feature of Visual Studio that would do this automatically for me.
On the other hand, I have a strong gut feeling that warns me against doing so: Right now, I have a good understanding of which protocols can be used to access the server, which users can do so, and which parts of the server they can access. Since I don't understand everything that the "magic CGIs" of the Frontpage Server Extensions are doing, I fear that I might accidentally open some security hole due to lack of knowledge.
As a .NET developer, what is your take on this? Did I miss some obvious advantage/disadvantage? Or is there even some established "best practice" in the community w.r.t. using the Frontpage Server Extensions for .NET web servers?
You don't have to use Frontpage extensions anymore, you can use MSDeploy. Rejoice!
Edit: Also see this blog post about doing continuous integration with MSDeploy.