Summary

The article provides instructions on how to retrieve source code from an Azure App Service using FTP after the author's laptop hard drive failure.

Abstract

The author of the article, who has experienced a hard drive failure, shares a method to download source code from an Azure App Service. This is particularly useful for those who have not kept their code under source control and directly publish updates from Visual Studio to Azure. The process involves logging into the Azure portal, obtaining the publish profile for the app service, extracting FTP credentials from the profile, and using an FTP client like FileZilla to download the source code from the Azure server. The article emphasizes the importance of having a backup of one's work and provides a step-by-step guide to recover source code from Azure in the absence of local backups.

Opinions

The author admits to previously not using source control, which is a risky practice.
There is an underlying tone of relief and satisfaction in finding a solution to recover the source code from Azure.
The author suggests that readers consider using source control to avoid such situations.
The article implies that it is common for developers to rely on a single machine for their work, which can be risky.
The author encourages readers to become Medium members if they find the article helpful, indicating a desire to be supported as a content creator.

How To Download Your Source Code From Azure App Service

If you are like me you most likely have all of your eggs in one basket. For example, I have one laptop that is my daily driver. That laptop has everything I need on it including all the repositories that I contribute to. Well, the hard drive in my laptop decided to die the other day and I was not able to get my source code to one particular project that I have spend a lot of time on. The project I am speaking of is an API that I am running in Azure.

This API is one that I did not have under source control. I would make changes/update the code and then directly publish to Azure from visual studio. I thought I had lost all of the work I had put into building the API and would have to start from scratch but I found a way to download my source code from Azure.

Work Flow

So, before I show you how to download your source code from Azure, let me show you the workflow. The workflow is short and sweet:

FTP into azure app service.
Download the source code.

FTP into Azure App Service

First, log in to your Azure portal and click on the app service that you are wanting the source code for.

The app service dashboard in the Azure Portal.

Next, you need to download the publish profile. The publish profile is going to contain all of the credentials needed for you to FTP into the app service and download your source code. Click “Get Publish Profile” to download your publish profile.

Click the “Get Publish Profile” button to download the credentials needed to FTP into the app service.

Getting The FTP Credentials

Open the publish profile with the editor of your choice and view its contents. We need to extract three things from this file.

The Publish Url
The User Name
The Password

Here are what those three items will look like:

Lets Actually FTP Into The App Service Now.

Now that we have our FTP credentials, lets go ahead and login so we can download that source code. I am going to use FileZilla Client in this tutorial. Keep in mind that you are welcome to use whatever program you would like in order to FTP into the app service.

Please note, you will only use the domain part of your publish profile. Your login credentials will look like this:

Host: waws-prod-909.ftp.azurewebsites.windows.net

Username: MyApi\$MyApi

Password: hRP32a78gnqtmhQldHriA42YxXNd20G0NhjwxLTlXkjrFxPB37xy545n

After you put in your credential, click connect:

After you connect, it is time to download your source code. Just expand the “site” directory and right click the “repository” folder to download it.

Now, navigate to the repository folder and you will see your source code!

That is it. You now have the source code of your project back in your possession. If you have any questions or comments, just leave them below and I will respond to them ASAP.

Cheers (:

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