We use TFS 2015 on premise. Where are the TFS 2015 custom build tasks stored? or how can I download a existing build task?
I know you can download the build tasks from github. But this is not what I am looking for.
They're stored internally in the database. The easiest way to "extract them" is to install a local agent, create a build definition that targets that agent and add the task you want.
Queue the build and the agent will download the task and will store them in a subfolder under the Agent's working directory called "Tasks". Grab the contents from there.
You'll be able to push the task using the tfx build tasks upload command.
If you're downloading tasks from VSTS for installation to a onpremise TFS server, you may need to get access to a specific task version, as the service may be ahead and may have other dependencies which have not been deployed to the TFS server.
Another thing to note is that when downloading a task from VSTS, it may have the preview flag set to true in it's task.json, these tasks can be uploaded, but will be invisible in TFS, before uploading them you should remove the reference to "preview": true from the task.json completely.
Related
I tried to copy task extension on azure pipeline: $vmFolder="c:/users/[username]/desktop and also tried
$vmFolder="c:/users/public/desktop but still my artefacts are deployed inside c:/azagent/work/ location. If anyone has an idea, please explain me the process step by step.
Could you provide a little more detail about what you're trying to achieve?
My feeling is that there may be a confussion about what is an Agent (C:\azagent\work is the work directory in a machine where you, very likely, have installed an Agent) and the Machine where you want to deploy your code to run.
Bests.
When you publish the build artifacts in Azure DevOps, for the location you could only choose "Server" or a UNC file share.
Artifact publish location argument:
Azure Pipelines/TFS (TFS 2018 RTM and older: Artifact type: Server)
is the best and simplest choice in most cases. This choice causes the
artifacts to be stored in Azure Pipelines or TFS. But if you're
using a private Windows agent, you've got the option to drop to a
UNC file share.
More details please refer our official doc -- Artifacts in Azure Pipelines
The remaining alternative is to add a download artifacts task in the end of pipeline to download your published artifacts to your Destination directory.
I've done Build for my code in TFS 2015. Now i'm configuring CD, my tasks would be
Take Backup of existing release code
Deploy build artifact to my server
Rollback task if deployment fails
I'm struck with Task 1 : Take backup of exiting release code.
I would prefer using PowerShell task as suggested over here, as my my release server path differs with different an ID {mulitple paths with multiple Id's]
How to take code backup in TFS 2015 during Release Management/Pipeline
Indeed, Backing up existing release code on the server is really a tricky issue, if your release server path differs with different an ID. It seems we have to create several task to back up release code from different release server path or we have to write the scripts(PS, Batch) to back up those release code.
To resolve this question, I would like provide a workaround, you can check if it works for you. The tasks would be:
Deploy build artifact to the server.
Use Copy task to back up the build artifact to the local folder of the TFS server machine with condition Only when all previous tasks have succeeded.
Deploy backup artifact to the server with condition Only when all previous tasks failed (Also check the option Clear Target Folder under the Advanced tab).
Some explanations for tasks 2 and task 3:
Task2: This steps is use to back up the release code of the last successful deployment, and save it to the local folder on the server.
Task3: This steps is used to deploy the back up the release code to overwrite the release code that failed to deploy before, if the previous deployment task failed.
Hope this helps.
I am trying understand how to really use PowerShell in TFS. I would like to add a release step to create a work item task, to tell our release management team they require to approve a release.
Our company has many team projects and I want this to be available as a module that can be used by any project. The process I am using to use this is I am adding an artifact for the TFS project that we store our generic item.
It is under $\BuildSupport, for this example, I create a build for my project under $\WEB. I am also creating the release Under $\Web as well. I create my new release definition, I add my Build artifact.
I then add a Team foundation Version Control Artifact to $\BuildSupport Source alias is "BuildSupport".
I then add a environment step called TEST PRODUCTION and add PowerShell task where the script path is: $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/BuildSupport/Main/BuildTools/TFSBuildScripts/CreateWorkItem.ps1
My issue is that when creating a new release it asks every time for me to choose the artifact version based the changeset for BuildSupport.
I don't want to have everyone do this every time is there a better way?
There isn’t the way to queue a new release without specify the version of TFVC artifacts. I submit a user voice here: Default version of artifacts when queue new release.
The workaround is that:
You can create a task group for each team projects, then add this task group to related release definitions. (you need to update the task group if there are updates)
Create or open a release definition
Add PowerShell task and configure it (e.g. Type: Inline Script, Arguments: [necessary arguments], Inline Script: [powershell script] etc…). You also can specify the PowerShell file in the Shared folder (Map BuildSupport to shared folder, then current version is the "default" version when queue release)
Right click this task > Create Task Group
After that you can add this Task Group to other release definitions directly.
Another way is that you can create a build/release task extension, then install it for necessary team project, after that you can add that custom build/release task to build/release definition. For this way, you just need to update the extension if there is the update.
I am using VSTS Release management to deploy artifacts to IIS websites. I have several Web applications and web services to be deployed. So, i am trying to figure out what sort of tasks that best fits my situation.
I have created a build definition with Visual Studio Build Task for projects as this one:
which works fine but i need to add a task for copying the artifacts Under IIS Website Directory.
The other approach is to use IIS web deployment as a task in Release definition, so I created the build definition as:
However, it expects a Publish Profile (the build fails because it can't find it). I don't need to create a publish profile for each project in the application because this would be too much work.
Is there is a workaround for that or what is preferred approach for this?
You can update your build definition to generate a web deployment package and upload it to artifacts. And then in Release Management, add a task to run "projectname.deploy.cmd" in the deployment package to deploy it to your IIS server. Refer to this link for details: How to: Install a Deployment Package Using the deploy.cmd File Created by Visual Studio.
And you can also enable FTP Publishing on your IIS server and add a task in your release to publish the artifacts via FTP. You may need this task:
FTP Uploader.
My Continuous Delivery with TFS / VSTS – Server Configuration and Application Deployment with Release Management blog post (with reference to some previous posts) has all the details you need for deploying your artefacts to target nodes using Windows Machine File Copy tasks then use PowerShell on Target Machines tasks to get them in to correct locations and to do token replacement and anything else that's required.
I would recommend using PowerShell DSC so that IIS is properly configured before deployment but that's not required. Where possible for web apps I favour keeping things very simple by creating artefacts that contain all the web files that are needed for a particular folder and then just using plain xcopy for the deployment.
If you need more control you can also use my MSDeploy VSTS extension to deploy a MSDeploy package
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rschiefer.MSDeployAllTheThings
https://dotnetcatch.com/2016/04/20/msdeployallthethings-vststfs-extension-is-public/
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?
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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.