Tools: Team Foundation Server 2012
NuGet: 3.0
Powershell: 3.0
I would like to know how to put build related files onto the build server during the build process.
We have a CI Build that runs on check in, so unless we want the build firing every time we update our nuget.config or a powershell script we need to store them someplace else.
I can put them in a separate team project, and add them to our Working folders, but then again TFS will launch a build whenever we make a change to our build files. We don't want that.
Is there no way to host some build files into TFS and download them into the build server during build that does NOT cause a new build to fire if you change those files?
If I change a PS1 file, we don't want the build running because of that.
When checking them in you can add: ***NO_CI*** to the comment, and CI builds will not trigger.
Other than that, you can fire off a Powershell script by customizing the XAML and adding an Invoke process task to call powershell.exe and passing the powershell script you do keep in source control.
From there you can either use OneGet or Download-File to fetch and install anything you need.
Related
I am trying an automated build process in Azure DevOps for Salesforce. whenever a change is pushed to the repository, my build is triggered and it is working fine and pushing the changes to the related sandbox. Here is the proof for the same
Success Build Process.
The configuration of the build is Build configuration.
The build is working fine as expected. I now want to create a release which will push this change to a different environment, and I don't want this to be automated, hence the option of creating the release. The build path to the ant file in my release is exactly as it should be but I am getting this error. Release Error.
The release configuration is Release configuration
My Repository folder structure is: Folder structure. and my build.xml is within the deploy folder.
I don't know what I am doing wrong but the release is always failing and giving me the error which says:
Error: Not found antBuildFile: D:\a\r1\a\deploy\build.xml
Not found antBuildFile: D:\a\r1\a\deploy\build.xml
Based on the first image (Success Build Process), seems that you already have deployed your changes on that sandbox. Working with metadata deployment in Salesforce is different from java and .net, keep in mind that you already have the "executables", all those XML are already the code that you will change on the environment.
The second point is that on release you are in another agent, Buil and Release pipelines runs have their own lifecycle, so the code existing at the Build pipeline is not available until you send it on "drop" artifact, see Publish Build Artifacts task documentation. So that use copy task to put build.xml on publish folder, then you'll be able to use it on Release pipeline.
When you are executing ant go the /deploy folder and execute your command or check for your ant version using ant -version command.
We are using VSTS for CI and CD in my team, we got over 40 repositories which are separated projects. but all of them have to run the same PowerShell script in one of their Build steps.
the PowerShell file is bigger too big to be kept as the inline script, so we need to save it inside a file. obviously, I got a copy of the PowerShell file in each repository.
Problem:
Now whenever I need to update the script, then I end up to update it in every repository, which is over 40 at the moment.
I think there should be a better approach. Is there any way that I can put my script in one single repo (a repo dedicated to holding the script) then I use it within each build, therefore we I need to update it I only need to update it once.
There are a few options.
My general recommendation is to publish the script as a package (NuGet or otherwise) and restore it during your application builds. This allows consumers to stay "pinned" to a known-good, known-working version, and update on a schedule that works for them.
Another option is to add a submodule to each repository that requires the script dependency, then initialize the submodule during the build process.
A third option is to turn the shared script into a VSTS build task or extension. This is extensively documented and easily located so I won't belabor the point by including instructions for doing that here.
You can add a git repository to store your powershell file.
Then add a build step to get you file from that repository during build and use it.
I need to execute a command line utility from a package that is downloaded as part of nuget package restore in the TFS build process.
On my local computer that is stored in c:\users\me.nuget*
I've tried every permutation of that on TFS without success. I've also tried \mydir\packages with no success as well.
The biggest problem is that I have to run the package restore step before being able to see any sort of feedback from the log. That's some slow debugging.
Any ideas? Thanks ahead.
With the latest nuget/msbuild the packages folder is held under the active user's profile directory, so an appropriate Powershell command is
Get-ChildItem $(UserProfile)\.nuget\packages
This currently evaluates on the VSTS 2017 Hosted build agent to C:\Users\VssAdministrator\.nuget\packages but by using the variable you are insulated from any changes made.
Just an addition to #Paul Hatcher's answer:
I also faced the same problem in Azure DevOps build pipeline where a specific package and nuget packages directory could not be found.
It is a Xamarin.Forms app based on a .net standard library where no packages folder exists. I later noticed in build logs that the packages are restored to nuget folder under user's profile. However this particular case is not documented on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/build/variables?view=vsts#agent-variables.
That means #Paul Hatcher's answer is also valid if you try to reference nuget package folder directly from your build pipeline. This ($(UserProfile).nuget\packages) should actually be a (standard) predefined build variable.
The Nuget package cache folder is in C:\Users\buildguest.nuget\packages, but it will be cleaned after build if you are using Hosted build server.
The simple way to verify:
Add NuGet restore or .Net Core Restore build step to restore packages
Add PowerShell build step to list files in C:\Users\buildguest.nuget\packages
Code:
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users\buildguest\.nuget\packages
Queue build and check the PowerShell step log (the packages’ will be listed in the log)
Remove/disable NuGet restore or .Net Core Restore build step > Save build definition
Queue build
The build will be failed, because the path does not exist.
So, the packages need to be restored before build solution/project if aren’t existing. You can add packages to source control and map to build agent to deal with the issue of too long time takes to restore packages.
We're using an on-prem VCS and CI pipeline, and don't have plans to switch to VSTS right now. However, I'd be very interested in running cloud-based load-tests against our app as part of our CI pipeline. In order to do this, I'd have to be able to programmatically upload the loadtest script and invoke it from VSTS.
Is this possible?
Yes, it is possible, the workflow like this:
1.Create a valid loadtest file. You can use the load test file from an earlier run through Visual Studio for this.
2.Create a location to upload the file(s). This location is a drop folder on Azure Blob and is below referred to as "TestDrop".
3.Upload the loadtest file and any other files required for the run, this includes the webtest files, settings file, etc. to this location or "TestDrop".
4.Create a Test Run using the Testdrop from the previous step as all the files required for a run are now available at the drop location.
5.Start the run.
6.Once finished, download the results to your local machine. This will be a gzip file. Uncompress it to get the results file.
7.Use Visual Studio to view the downloaded results.
More information, you can refer to this article, which contains samples.
I have used the
/p:GenerateProjectSpecificOutputFolder=True for creating build for each and every project in my solution and now i wanted to customerize the folder structure on my needs. How can we achieve this?
enter image description here
If you are using XAML build, you can customize Binaries folder in TFS Team Build by modifying the build process template. Adding CreateDirectory Activity and FindMatchingFiles activity are necessary, following this blog for more details.
If you use the new build system, that will be much easier to manage artifacts. With task Publish Build Artifacts, you can specify contents in the task, also you can add as many Publish Build Artifacts task as you want to manage artifacts. More details, check http://www.codewrecks.com/blog/index.php/2015/06/30/manage-artifacts-with-tfs-build-vnext/
Alternatively you can extend your build definition with a PowerShell script at different points within the build:
Pre-build
Post-build
Pre-test
Post-test
Note I am using the TfvcTemplate.12.xaml template. This is the build template that comes with TFS 2013.