How to deploy .NET Core 6 web app to GoDaddy?

Question

I have a simple .NET Core 6 web app, and I have GoDaddy's Windows Hosting Deluxe package. It uses Plesk to manage the sites.

GoDaddy does support .NET Core 6

It appears the only way to get files into Plesk in an automated way is to use FTP. So on github I have this deploy script:

name: 🚀 Deploy website via FTPS
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
permissions:
  contents: write
jobs:
  web-deploy:
      name: 🎉 Deploy
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
      - name: 🚚 Get latest code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        
      - name: Setup .NET Core SDK ${{ matrix.dotnet-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v3
        with:
          dotnet-version: ${{ matrix.dotnet-version }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: dotnet restore
      - name: Build
        run: dotnet build --configuration Release --no-restore

      - name: 📂 Upload files via FTPS
        uses: SamKirkland/[email protected]
        with:
          server: my-real-domain.com
          username: ${{ secrets.FTP_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASSWORD }}
          local-dir: ./bin/Release/net6.0/
          server-dir: ./
          protocol: ftps
          dangerous-clean-slate: true
          exclude: |
            .cspell.json
            package.json
            package-lock.json

That builds everything just fine, and then uploads the contents of ./bin/Release/net6.0/ to my instance of Plesk on GoDaddy.

But, I just get a big red "403 - Forbidden: Access is denied" error on my site. What am I doing wrong here? Am I uploading the wrong files, or is there something else entirely that I'm missing?

Answer 1

Sorry to answer my own question, but this was a fairly simple fix someone might run into in the future.

I needed to run dotnet publish instead of dotnet build!

Then I just need to upload the contents of the ./bin/Release/net6.0/publish/ folder.

It works now. Here's my working deploy script

```yaml
name: 🚀 Deploy website via FTPS
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
permissions:
  contents: write
jobs:
  web-deploy:
      name: 🎉 Deploy
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest
      steps:
      - name: 🚚 Get latest code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        
      - name: Setup .NET Core SDK ${{ matrix.dotnet-version }}
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v3
        with:
          dotnet-version: ${{ matrix.dotnet-version }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: dotnet restore
      - name: Build
        run: dotnet publish --configuration Release --no-restore

      - name: 📂 Upload files via FTPS
        uses: SamKirkland/[email protected]
        with:
          server: my-real-domain.com
          username: ${{ secrets.FTP_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASSWORD }}
          local-dir: ./bin/Release/net6.0/publish/
          server-dir: ./
          protocol: ftps
          dangerous-clean-slate: true
          exclude: |
            .cspell.json
            package.json
            package-lock.json