I have set the option on my VS2013 solution "Enable Nuget Package Restore" and its not restoring nuget packages on a build server. Plenty of missing references errors to System.Web.Mvc and so on...
Everything is fine on hosted TFS - but I'm running into issues with a secondary CI server using TeamCity. I don't have visual studio installed on the build server by choice.
I'd like to know how do I enable package restore on the build server.
I don't want the packages in source control and I'd like to avoid hosting my own nuget feed for the System.Web.Mvc etc..
Cheers!
I came across similar issue some time back, was able to resolve this by updating RestorePackages condition value to True in Nuget.Targets file.
Related
I am attempting to create my first ever agent build using on my my asp.net mvc projects. The agent is on my own computer. Everything appears to work fine up until after the nuget restore.
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It is telling me that my System.Web.MVC assembly could not be located. Since this is of course my first build I am unsure of what to do or what could cause this issue especially since it builds fine locally in VS.
Any help would be greatly appreciated:
TFS Version: 16.122.27102.1
You can follow steps below to locate the cause of the issue and resolve it:
1.The Nuget 4.3.0 you're using is too old. Instead you should use recommended 5.7.0. (Modify your Use Nuget Task)
2.Check log of your restore step.
The missing System.Web.MVC comes from Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc nuget package, so you should make sure this package is actually downloaded/installed. And make sure the hintPath in your csproj is correct compared to the installation path of the nuget package.
Also make sure you're restoring for whole solution instead of one specific project.
Check whether you added packages folder into source control. The packages folder in SolutionDir should not be added into source control! It will affect the restore stop.
3.Check MSBuild arguments of Build task, you can share the arguments and build logs here if convenient.
I used NuGet to add CastleWindsor to a project. Eveything works ok.
When I check it into tfs, I get the following message.
Unable to find version '3.3.3' of package 'Castle.Core'.
Any idea how I can get the build server to get the new version of Castle.Core?
First just as Dave commented, please check if you have add the nuget install task in your build definition and before your build task.
Also make sure you are using the right version of Nuget. For example, if you already use V3.0 and the config file are still point to V2.0. You will get this error.
Moreover, double check if the packages can be restored successfully on you dev PC and build agent manually, you can also compare the nuget.config file on your TFS server and dev PCs to see if there is any difference between them. The nuget.config file locates at "%APPDATA%\NuGet\NuGet.Config".
TFS2012 does not restore the nuget packages automatically, you need to add a build step to call the nuget command to restore the nuget packages. Refer to this link for details: Package Restore with Team Foundation Build.
With TFS 2013 and later, packages are automatically restored by
default during build, provided that you're using a Team Build Template
for Team Foundation Server 2013 or later.
If you're using a previous version of build templates (such as in a
project that's been migrated from earlier versions of TFS), you'll
need to also migrate those build templates to TFS 2013. This
essentially means recreating the custom parts of the Build Templates
using the appropriate template for your source control (TFVC or Git).
For earlier version of TFS, you can simply include a build step to
invoke command-line restore as described earlier.
From this article -
"However, there are cases where it’s not actually a person who’s doing the building and who therefore can’t provide consent this way. (And where Visual Studio isn’t even installed.) The prototypical example is a build server. In that case, NuGet will also look for an environment variable called EnableNuGetPackageRestore. To enable package restore for scenarios where the Visual Studio option is not practical, set this variable to true."
How does TFS even know how to call nuget? Do I install the nuget exe?
As you've stated in a comment, "Enable NuGet Package Restore" is no longer the recommended method for accomplishing this. The NuGet docs explain it best. Basically, because that method is integrated into MSBuild, packages that extend the build will be downloaded too late. While I'm not sure what packages do this currently it appears that there are big plans for the future of NuGet (the new ASP.NET vNext custom CLR implementation is one example of where it's headed).
The good news is that the alternative is really easy to set up. If you're in VS, you literally do nothing (unless you've disabled the automatic package restore in the past). If you have a build server you just have to make some small changes to your .proj file. If you're not familiar with MSBuild it may seem challenging but it's really quite simple. The secret is this chunk of code:
<Target Name="RestorePackages">
<Exec Command=""$(ToolsHome)NuGet\NuGet.exe" restore "%(Solution.Identity)"" />
</Target>
Again, the details are in the docs (this one specifically). If you have any questions don't be afraid to reach out: the SO community is here to help!
How does TFS even know how to call nuget? Do I install the nuget exe?
No, you should enable package restore for the solution which can be done from the context menu for the solution file in the solution explorer. This will add a folder named .nuget to your solution and in this folder you will find NuGet.exe.
If you add the solution to source control and build it on a build server the NuGet.exe executable will be used by the NuGet msbuild targets to restore packages from NuGet as part of the build.
So you do not need to install NuGet on the build server - it becomes part of your project and is placed under version control.
If you set your solutions to restore NuGet packages, and then on the build server with the build account, open vs and set Allow NuGet to download missing packages during build in Visual Studio. Your builds should restore packages ok.
I am trying to get the most basic configuration of TFS 2012 up and running.
So far I installed the TFS server using the simplest option (the 1st option in the installer - the one that comes with a bundled SQL express),
I configured the build service (1 controller, 1 agent, both on the TFS machine).
My project consists of 2 parts: a C#/silverlight part, and a C++ part.
After adding the silverlight prerequisites the C# project builds correctly.
However I can't get the C++ project to build.
I guess I am missing a prerequisite since I am getting the following errors:
C:\Builds\1\proj1\Client\src\Code\Client\proj\main (VC11).vcxproj
(19): The imported project "C:\Program Files
(x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\v110\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" was
not found. Confirm that the path in the declaration is
correct, and that the file exists on disk.
Indeed, the TFS server does not have a "C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp" folder (while my dev machine has one).
I installed the windows SDK, but that didn't help.
I saw on some posts that I need to install VS 2012 on the build machine. Is that correct? will VS express do?
I have been banging my head on this for the last 2 days, and any help would be appreciated.
Installing Visual Studio on your build server seems like a strange thing to do, but having been around the TFS block a bit, I have found it to be the simplest way to manage build servers.
You can copy the files manually from your dev machine to your build server, but if an update to visual studio comes out, you will need to figure out what has changed and make sure you update all those files too. These files typically include Targets files and associated dlls.
Also with all the extensions and packages that are available now, it is just easier to load Visual Studio on your build server and install the required packages than try to work out what is needed to replicate the functionality.
This was made very clear to me recently when Microsoft released ASP.Net and Web Tools 2012.2. This altered the publishing pipeline for Web Sites and Web Projects and I needed to use this in my TFS build. It was so much easier to just be able to log onto my build server, load Visual Studio and download the new update.
I would definitely support installing Visual Studio on your build server.
I have a website, a windows service, and some shared class libraries in a single Visual Studio solution. I use Octopack on both the website and windows service, and on my machine these builds work as expected.
When using the TFS Build Server, the website nuget package is generated as expected, but the windows service nuget package contains all files from the website, as well as the service. E.g. it includes the _PublishedWebsites folder as well.
This is because TFS uses a single location to build projects.
What is the best way around this?
I know this question has since been closed, but I cam across this issue and solved it in a different way.
My solution is compromised of a number of websites and windows services and had the same issue of the OctoPack created nuget packages including all the solution assemblies from the 'pooled' output folder when building with Team Build. The reason the nuget packages get all the assemblies is OctoPack uses the outdir msbuild argument as the location to include assemblies from.
The way I got around it was to use the msbuild argument GenerateProjectSpecificOutputFolder=true. This instructs Team build to create a folder for each project in your output folder in the same way Visual Studio uses the bin folders under each project when building locally.
My build definition msbuild arguments looks like:
/p:GenerateProjectSpecificOutputFolder=true;RunOctoPack=true;OctoPackPublishPackageToFileShare=\\<NugetServer>
I currently just push the packages onto a shared folder but the OctoPackPublishPackageToHttp and OctoPackPublishApiKey parameters can also be used.
The benefit of this solution over the one above is you don't need to specify the files to include the nuget package.
Hope this helps someone.
I ended up using this nuget package to ensure the console app built to a seperate directory on the TFS server.
https://nuget.org/packages/PublishedApplications/2.1.0.0
I then had to specify in the nuspec file, which files should be included for the console app. e.g
This works and I can now deploy using Octopus deploy.
The downside of this apporach is that the PublishedApplications build only works on the TFS build server, so I can't build the project locally in release mode. Still looking on how to overcome this.