Can't get my EC2 Windows Server 2008 (Web stack) instance to receive publishings of my website

Question

I installed a fresh AMI for EC2 (http://aws.amazon.com/amis/Microsoft/5147732567196848) and have installed Web deploy 2.1 on it.

The web deploy 2.1 service is running for real as

netstat -an

Shows 8172 is being listened on by the Web Deployment Agent Service.

But, when I try to deploy to this site using Project->right-click->Publish (via web deploy) I receive the following error message

------ Build started: Project: Cir.Web, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------
  Cir.Web -> C:\Projects\CrazyInsaneRobot\Source\Cir.Web\bin\Cir.Web.dll
------ Publish started: Project: Cir.Web, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------
Transformed Web.config using Web.Debug.config into obj\Debug\TransformWebConfig\transformed\Web.config.
Auto ConnectionString Transformed Views\Web.config into obj\Debug\CSAutoParameterize\transformed\Views\Web.config.
Auto ConnectionString Transformed obj\Debug\TransformWebConfig\transformed\Web.config into obj\Debug\CSAutoParameterize\transformed\Web.config.
Copying all files to temporary location below for package/publish:
obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp.
Start Web Deploy Publish the Application/package to https://ec2-175-41-170-198.ap-southeast-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8172/msdeploy.axd?site=Default%20Web%20Site ...
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3847,5): Warning : Retrying the sync because a socket error (10054) occurred.  
Retrying operation 'Serialization' on object sitemanifest (sourcePath). Attempt 1 of 10.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3847,5): Warning : Retrying the sync because a socket error (10054) occurred.  
Retrying operation 'Serialization' on object sitemanifest (sourcePath). Attempt 2 of 

...
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3847,5): Warning : Retrying the sync because a socket error (10054) occurred.  
Retrying operation 'Serialization' on object sitemanifest (sourcePath). Attempt 10 of 10.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3847,5): Error : Web deployment task failed.(Could not complete the request to remote agent URL 'https://ec2-175-41-170-198.ap-southeast-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8172/msdeploy.axd?site=Default Web Site'.)
This error indicates that you cannot connect to the server. Make sure the service URL is correct, firewall and network settings on this computer and on the server computer are configured properly, and the appropriate services have been started on the server.
Error details:
Could not complete the request to remote agent URL 'https://ec2-175-41-170-198.ap-southeast-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8172/msdeploy.axd?site=Default Web Site'.
The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.
Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
Publish failed to deploy.
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
========== Publish: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 skipped ==========

My firewall on the EC2 instance has been turned off. And my AWS firewall settings are

which are the recommended settings.

Other notes/thoughts:

• My Web Deploy Error log in the windows error log is completely empty
• I've used web deploy before using a different AMI in the past and succeeded without problems.

If anyone has any suggestions about how to debug this, I would be so ever grateful!

Answer 1

I contact Microsoft directly about this problem and they had an immediate answer for me.

From MS guy:

It looks like your Web Management Service not contactable. I have seen this before when the certificate for the service is invalid. Can you run the attached script on your server?

1. Start a PowerShell prompt elevated
2. Run set-executionpolicy unrestricted –force
3. Run .\00_Certificate.ps1
4. Net stop wmsvc
5. Net start wmsvc

Does this fix the problem?

---

The script he is referring to is available here

Answer 2

This error can also occur when you specify the end point in the wrong format.

For example when selecting to publish an application Visual Studio gives examples of the end point format such as https://RemoteServer:8172/MsDeploy.axd

Turns out it actually wanted this without the http prefix e.g. 0.0.0.0:8172/MsDeploy.axd

If you get an error about certificates after this you just need to check the box allow untrusted certificates in the publish screen.

Agrahahah!

Answer 3

I had this same problem with Web Deploy when it was installed by the Web Platform Installer. After manually uninstalling and reinstalling Web Deploy directly (NOT using Web PI) it worked fine...

Answer 4

Some very helpful answers for an error message with many causes. I had this error and it turned out that the "IIS Web site/application" name used for the destination server was wrong.

So, causes for this could include:

• Bad username or password
• Incorrect web site name for destination (In Visual Studio, this is set on the Package/Publish Web tab of a web project's properties)
• SSL cert for web management (for example if your server was sysprepped after IIS was installed)

Answer 5

I get the same error when i tried to deploy a website.

In the EventViewer (Windows Logs/System) i had an error log, that the log file of the Web Management Service could not be created ("Unable to create log file D:\Logfiles\WMSVC\W3SVC1\u_ex131126.log. Make sure that the logging directory is correct and this computer has write access to that directory.".

I just removed the readonly flag of the log folder and all worked fine again.