Kudu is an open-source engine behind Git deployments to Azure. It gives us basic access to the file system through the command line or PowerShell, all from the comfort of a web browser. It also powers the way we deploy to Umbraco Cloud sites.
To access Kudu, you will have to be an admin on the project.
Kudu is available for each environment on your Umbraco Cloud project. You can find the link by clicking the environment name in the Umbraco Cloud portal. When you are prompted to log in, use your Umbraco Cloud credentials.
The power tools can be used for various things, we often refer to the tools in our troubleshooting guides.
Larger sites can often have more than 299 items in various folders and by default, you can only view 299 files/folders.
This number can be increased by doing the following:
Go to your Kudu site.
Open the browser developer tools (F12).
Type window.localStorage['maxViewItems'] = 999 in the Console where 999 will be the new limit. This can be set to anything you like.
Hit Enter.
Navigate back into the folder you want to view the files in.
You should now be able to view the folders/files up to the limit you've set it to.
If you refresh the page, the limit will go back to the standard 299.
Kudu is not a tool meant for adding and removing files on your project. This should always be done via Git (Local to Cloud) and the Deploy engine(Cloud to Cloud).
We recommend that you only use Kudu when you are following one of our guides.
If you are running Deploy 4+, we recommend you generate Umbraco Deploy Artifact (UDA) files from the Deploy Dashboard instead of KUDU. For more information, see the Deploy Dashboard.
Sometimes our guides require you to generate UDA files for your project's metadata. Every time you create something in the backoffice on your Umbraco Cloud project, UDA files will be generated.
Generating UDA files manually ensures that you have everything you need to deploy successfully from one environment to another.
When you create something in the backoffice of your Umbraco Cloud project and hit save, a UDA file will be generated.
The UDA file contains metadata and detailed information about the type that was created.
Here's an example of what a UDA file looks like for a Blog Page:
This UDA file represents a Document Type with the name Blog. All dependencies for the document type are listed in the file and metadata like AllowedAtRoot and Icon.
UDA files are generated for the following types:
Data types
Data type containers
Dictionary items
Document types
Document type container
Languages
Macros
Media types
Member types
Relation types
Templates
Follow these steps to generate UDA files:
Access Kudu.
Navigate to CMD under the Debug console menu.
In the file structure, navigate to site/wwwroot/umbraco/Deploy.
Type the following command in the CMD console: echo > deploy-export
The Deploy engine will generate UDA files for all the types in your project.
When it's done, you'll end up with a deploy-complete marker.
Run an extraction, making sure you can get a deploy-complete marker - see Run an extraction article.
Generating UDA files manually might sometimes end up giving you collision errors on your environments due to duplicates. This can be resolved by following our Structure Error documentation.
Find general information about Kudu and how to access the tool in the Power tools article.
When you clone down your Umbraco Cloud project to your local machine, you can see all the project files in the folder you specify when cloning down the project. Sometimes, you might also want to view the files you have on your Umbraco Cloud environments - perhaps to make sure that everything is in sync or if you suspect that a deployment or extraction hasn't gone as planned.
In Kudu, you can view your project files, if you navigate to CMD under the Debug console menu. Here you'll find a file structure. All your project files are under the /site folder.
The three highlighted folders are used the most when visiting Kudu:
The deployments folder: This folder contains log files for the deployments and extractions that have been run on the environment.
The repository folder: This is your Git repository. You'll find a clone of your site's structure files in the/wwwroot folder. Changes are pushed to and pulled from the /repository/ folder when working locally.
The wwwroot folder: This folder contains your site's structure files. These are the files used to run the site in the environment.
/wwwroot/ contains the files used to show your website to the world. When you push changes from your local machine, they are pushed to the Git repository (/repository/), and when this finishes successfully the changes are copied into the live site.
Find general information about Kudu and how to access the tool in the Power tools article.
If you are running Deploy 4+, we recommend you run extractions from the Deploy Dashboard instead of KUDU. For more information, see the article.
When you deploy from one environment to another on your Umbraco Cloud project, the files from the Git repository are merged into the files used on the site. The Deploy engine then runs an extraction. This means that the files on the disk will be deserialized into the database in the Cloud environment.
Run an extraction following these steps:
Access Kudu.
Navigate to CMD under the Debug console menu.
In the file structure, navigate to site/wwwroot/umbraco/Deploy.
When using Umbraco 7 or 8, you need to navigate to site/wwwroot/data folder.
The /Deploy folder contains:
Revision folder containing all your project's UDA files.
deploy-marker indicating the state of the latest extraction (deploy-complete or deploy-failed).
deploy.log containing logs from the latest extraction.
While in this folder, type the following command in the CMD console: echo > deploy. This will initiate extraction of the environment.
While the extraction is running, the deploy-marker will change its name to deploy-progress.
The extraction will end in one of two possible outcomes:
deploy-complete: The extraction succeeded and your environment is in good shape.
deploy-failed: The extraction failed - open the file, to see the error message. The same error message will be shown on your environment in the Umbraco Cloud Portal.
Sometimes, you might encounter a deploy-marker called deploy. This usually means that extraction cannot run and you need to restart your environment for the extraction to run.
Sometimes, you might also need to run this extraction locally. This can be done by following the above steps using Command Prompt (CMD) on your local machine and navigating to the /umbraco/data folder in your local project folder.
Find general information about Kudu and how to access the tool in the article.
