I am using visualstudio.com Teams Services to build and deploy an ASP.NET website to two Azure VMs.
I have a build which on completion triggers a release to my two servers in a deployment group. When you configure a Deployment Group for Visual Studio Team Services you create an agent that by default runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM.
If I publish my build artifacts to Azure (the server option) then everything works fine and deployment succeeds to both my VMS. However when using a file-drop I get the following error:
The artifact directory does not exist:
\\MACHINE1\drop\RRStore\20170517.20. It can happen if the password of
the account NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM is changed recently and is not updated
for the agent.
This is basically saying MACHINE2 cannot access \\MACHINE1\drop due to permissions. In windows I can bring up this folder just fine, but since the agent is running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM it cannot access it.
I want to use a filedrop because my website is about 250MB (although in the meantime I am using the 'publish to server' option and deploying via team services.)
I am unclear how to give permissions to the file drop though as the agent is running as SYSTEM. I am running as a WORKGROUP and giving permissions to 'Everyone' does not seem to work.
What is the correct way to configure access to a VSTS drop folder so that the deployment agent can access it?
Few possible options:
Set up a domain (I tried doing this but then I need a new network interface and it sounds klunky)
Continue using teamservices to deploy the artifacts (or reduce the website size!)
Save to a storage account, but again I'm not sure how to configure that.
Run as a different user account
I have similar problems when deploying with VSTS. Instead I chose to:
Run VSTS agent on the deployment group VM as a local user with limited access.
Impersonate the account on the deployment group VM to test its access to the drop folder.
Save/cache a different credential to access the drop folder if applicable.
(So the sensitive information stays on the VM.)
The cached credentials can be a different local user account created on the drop server just for this purpose.
Grant the local user access to various parts of the file system explicitly to limit access permission of this VSTS agent service runner account.
This should work in most cases. In fact, this same way is used in my VSTS, Jenkins and TFS instances. This should prevent you from setting up a domain to solve this problem.
This may not be the best practice, but at least it should get you started in the right direction.
Related
Our pipeline mounts some SQL Server .mdf files as LocalDBs in order to run some tests.
After switching the pipeline from windows-2019 to windows-2022, our tests requiring the DB generate the following errors:
Database 'xxxxxxxxxxx' cannot be upgraded because it is read-only, has read-only files or the user does not have permissions to modify some of the files. Make the database or files writeable, and rerun recovery
The .mdf files are not read-only databases and mount fine locally.
I have tried recursively turning off the read-only flags on the directory in case the 2022 version of Windows is setting the build directories with different defaults and that has not helped. Any suggestions for why this might have happened / a fix?
Azure DevOps Pipeline accesses file via service account, we should check the service account permission and ensure it has enough permission.
If you are using MS hosted agent, it accesses the file via this account test Build Service(Org name), we need open project settings->Repositories->select the repo and check the service account test Build Service ({Org name}) permission, and also check the Pipeline->Settings
If you are using self-hosted agent and access local file, you should check the file permission. Just make sure the service account has the writable permission to the files.
Select the local file->Properties->Security, the service account name should be Administrators (Agent service name\Administrators) or Users (Agent service name\Users who has the correct permissions granted).
Just try to set file permissions of the .mdf to writable for BUILTIN\Users or service account.
I have two web servers and one service server and a database server and all these servers are domain joined. And I have set my private build agent from VSTS from where I can build my artifacts and based on build configuration. And all my DEV,QA and STAGING environments are setup on those servers.
My problem is i am looking for a way using PowerShell Desired state configuration such a way that based on the environment artifacts (DEV,QA and STAGING) the scripts has to copy the artifacts to specific location on those "TWO web-servers" and ensure the website is configured correctly with all the required permissions where these artifacts are used to host IIS website and perform the delete and creation action of particular windows service on "SERVICE service" and should also perform the migration activities on "DATABASE server" for particular database. since I have separated database for each individual environment.
Any kind of help or suggestion would be appreciated. thank you.
My suggestions are:
Don't use DSC for deployment (i.e. deploy applications or databases)
Use DSC for configuration (e.g. install IIS)
Install the VSTS Agent on each server in Deployment Groups mode, running as a service with local administrator privileges
Use the IIS Deploy Tasks designed for Deployment Groups
Use the Powershell Task to manage the Windows Services (tip. help *-Service)
We are trying to setup Release (continuous deployment) from our VSTS in the cloud. After the build is done, the Hosted Agent VS2017 tries to deploy the artifacts to the target server.
Firstly, it failed because our firewall blocked the target server from receiving the artifact (a .zip containing all the stuff). In fact, if I connect to the server via RDP and try to download the artifact from a browser, it's blocked.
Our security team temporarily disabled this firewall rule, and it worked (this also means the hosted agent has line of sight for the target server). Now, they don't want this rule off, they would like to know what is the User Account that tries to download/publish the artifact from the hosted agent, so they would allow the download of the .zip only for that specific user. I'm not sure if it's the same account which runs the service in the Host Agent, or if it's Network Service (therefore the own target server credentials), os some other account.
How do I know what user account should be granted rights in our firewall to download anything?
Use the Windows Machine File Copy task, you can provide a username/password to use for copying the files.
However, it uses RoboCopy over SMB to copy the files. As a result, it's probably going to be safer to set up a private agent within your network that has line-of-sight to the target servers, rather than opening up holes in your firewall a whole slew of ports.
I've checked that the TeamCity user has access to the network share in question.
All packages from the public NuGet feed are found correctly while packages available on the network share are not.
We use the network share when building via Visual Studio with the exact same path without a problem.
I've tried using "file://ratchet/NuGetRepository" but that doesn't make a difference.
TeamCity log entries and screenshot of the build step configuration shown below:
NuGet command: E:\BuildAgent01\plugins\nuget-agent\bin\JetBrains.TeamCity.NuGetRunner.exe E:\BuildAgent01\tools\NuGet.CommandLine.DEFAULT.nupkg\tools\NuGet.exe restore E:\BuildAgent01\work\95323b7041b60513\MySolution.sln -Source https://nuget.org/api/v2/ -Source \\ratchet\NuGetRepository\
Was able to solve this by specifying the fully qualified name of the network share, e.g. \\ratchet.hq.local\NuGetRepository.
Since the accepted answer did not provide a solution for my setup, I'd like to post what did allow TeamCity to access my network share.
First, a very important note: TeamCity Build Agent may either run as a Windows service or directly in command prompt. For my machine, this had the following consequences:
When run as a Windows service, the build agent was logged in as LocalSystem. For our network share, my machine's credentials were not given permissions.
Note: while this SO thread indicates that the network share can be configured to allow the machine's LocalSystem account to have permission, this was NOT an option for me.
When run in command prompt, the build agent will use the security context of whoever runs it (for me, it was my domain user). Again, for our network share, all domain users are given permissions.
The quick solution was to simply run the build agent in command prompt and call it a day; however, I did really want to run the build agent as a Windows service, since I think it is a cleaner approach.
Here's my solution:
First, I needed to grant my domain user the privilege to log on as a service. This is needed to run the service with my domain user's security context. I navigated to User Rights Assignment within Local Security Policy:
Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment
Next, I added my domain user to the Log on as a servcie setting. For this, I made sure to include the domain with my user name.
Now that my domain user's security context can be used when starting a service, I navigated to Services (services.msc), located TeamCity Build Agent, and edit its properties:
Now, when relaunching the TeamCity Build Agent Windows service, it would be able to access the network share since it was using the security context of my domain user. I can now access the Nuget repository on our shared drive and keep the build agent running in the background.
You can include the package sources in NuGet.targets file. Just find the commented lines and add your path.
<PackageSource Include="https://nuget.org/api/v2/" />
<PackageSource Include="\\ratchet\NuGetRepository\" />
My build agents are not starting after I change the properties credentials to the domain account from the network service. I done this because the network service account cannot write to my drop folder.
Each time I add the network service to the drop folder share, it appears then disappears.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb778394.aspx I followed this but some steps are different, i have xp and it doesn't show the share tab so i go through security tab
So I guess I'm asking two questions here;
Agents are not starting after changing credentials.
Network service not able to write to the drop folder.
Thanks in advance
Yes, Network Service won't have permissions to write to a drop location. That's pretty standard. You need to be using a domain account.
The TFS Build Service will need to run as a domain user so it can write to the drop location.
The domain account for the build agent will need to be in the TFS Project Collection group for build service accounts (internal to TFS). I can't remember what it's actually called but you need to be a collection administrator to update it.
The domain account will also need some login as batch/service permissions but that should be done automatically when you reconfigure the service. Do you use the TFS Admin console to reconfigure the agent or did you just set the credentials on the service? (You should use the TFS Admin console).