One of the first things I check when troubleshooting ASP.NET applications is the debug flag in the web.config.
For this, I’ve written the following function that use the [xml] accelerator to cast the web.config file contents as an xmlDocument and use PowerShell’s dot notation to get the debug flag value, or use the .NET methods of the dom document to set the debug flag value:
function SetWebConfigDebugFlag {
PARAM(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true, ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
[string]$IISsitename,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
[ValidateSet(‘True’, ‘False’)]
$DebugFlag = $false
)
$mersite= Get-Website -Name $IISsitename
$appPath = $mersite.physicalPath + "\web.config"
$config = [xml](Get-Content -Path $appPath)
try {
if (($config.SelectSingleNode(‘configuration/system.web/compilation’)) -eq $null) {
$compilation = $config.CreateElement(‘compilation’)
$sw = $config.SelectSingleNode(‘configuration/system.web’)
[void] $sw.AppendChild($compilation)
}
if ($config.SelectSingleNode(‘configuration/system.web/compilation/debug’) -eq $null) {
$compilation = $config.SelectSingleNode(‘configuration/system.web/compilation’)
$compilation.SetAttribute(‘debug’, ($DebugFlag.ToString()).ToLower())
} else {
$config.configuration.‘system.web’.compilation.debug = $DebugFlag
}
$config.Save($appPath)
if($?) {
$Result = ‘Success’
$ThisDebugFlag = $DebugFlag
} else {
$Result = ‘Error saving the config file’
$ThisDebugFlag = ""
}
}
catch {
$Result = $appPath.Exception.Message
if ($Result -eq ‘You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.’) {
$Result = "Configuration does not contain a ‘system.web’ section"
$ThisDebugFlag = ""
}
}
New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{‘Path’=$appPath; ‘DebugFlag’=$ThisDebugFlag; ‘Result’=$Result }
}
#Calling the above function by passing iissitename and Debugflag params.
SetWebConfigDebugFlag -IISsitename "iissitename" -DebugFlag 'True'
