Replicate VS2008 "Publish Web Site" from command line

This "magic" combination does what you're looking for. )It only took two days to get the right combination for my project.) The key is to include the _CopyWebApplication target and the ResolveReferences target.

msbuild "/t:_CopyWebApplication;ResolveReferences;publish" /p:OutDir="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[appname]\bin\" /p:WebProjectOutputDir="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[appname]" c:\directory\[appname].csproj    

I think you are looking for the AspNetCompiler task

<Target Name="PublishToIIS" DependsOnTargets="Publish">
    <AspNetCompiler    
            VirtualPath="$(IISVirtualPath)"
            TargetPath="$(IISTargetPath)"
            PhysicalPath="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)/trunk/InternalAppCS/Web.UI/"
            Force="true"
            Debug="$(IISDebug)"
     />

</Target>

The following command duplicates the Publish Web Site dialog with default settings.

Command for Publish Web Site with Default Settings

aspnet_compiler -nologo -v / -p "C:\WebSite1" -u "C:\TargetPath"

Reference

1) See Community Content titled You want Publish a site but you have not Visual Studio then... at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/20yh9f1b(classic).aspx.

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 > Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 > Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt
• Microsoft .NET Framework SDK v2.0 > SDK Command Prompt

2) See "ASP.NET Compilation Tool (Aspnet_compiler.exe)" at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229863.aspx.

3) Following excerpt from Walkthrough: Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application Using XCOPY at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f735abw9.aspx

As an alternative to using the XCOPY command-line tool, which is supported by all versions of the .NET Framework, you can use the new .NET Framework 2.0 tool located at %SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\version 2 or later\Aspnet_compiler.exe to compile and deploy your Web application. For more information, see ASP.NET Compilation Tool (Aspnet_compiler.exe).

4) Following excerpt from How to: Precompile ASP.NET Web Sites for Deployment at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms227976.aspx.

If your Web site is not an Internet Information Services (IIS) application and therefore has no entry in the IIS metabase, used the following value for the -v switch.

aspnet_compiler -p physicalOrRelativePath -v / targetPath

In this case, the physicalOrRelativePath parameter refers to the fully qualified directory path in which the Web site files are located, or a path relative to the current directory. The period (.) operator is allowed in the physicalOrRelativePath parameter. The -v switch specifies a root that the compiler will use to resolve application-root references (for example, with the tilde (~) operator). When you specify the value of / for the -v switch the compiler will resolve the paths using the physical path as the root.