My Question: How can I run a deployment script from the TFS 2010 build template on a remote system that has only a MSTest agent running?
I know this can be done by activating the Deployment section in the test settings configuration file, but this is not flexible enough. At night a build runs. When the build is successful, a deployment script is placed at a drop location. The drop location is date, project and build definition specific. These parameters are available in the TFS build template we use.
I do not have Lab Management available, just a physical server. I would rather not spoil the physical server with an additional build agent to only do the deployment. The MSTest agent is apparently capable of running deployment scripts, but how do I use that functionality from the TFS build workflow. For example, can I use the RunDeploymentScript activity without having Lab Management?
PSExec is a great tool for running scripts on remote computers. I use this in Team Deploy that allows you to install MSIs on remote computers from Team Build. You can also run PowerShell on remote computers but it is a little more complicated to set up. Another option is to use MSDeploy. There is a command option that you can run any command on a remote computer. I usually use an InvokeProcess activity to call a PowerShell script on the build server. From the PowerShell script I have called MSDeploy to run a remote PowerShell script on a target server. It sounds bad but worked good.
You can't run the RunDeploymentScript on the target machine. You can use a modified template to deploy to a physical environemnt. Here is a good post on doing this.. The options I mentioned above do not need any agent on it. You can use the ExecuteRemoteTestRun lab management activity without Lab Management to run the MTM Tests with the Test Agent with a Test Controller that is registered to the project collection (Test Manager).
Let me know if you have any questions on any of these options.
Related
I currently have an on-premises TFS 2017, a TFS build and a test that fails on the build agent but not when running locally. I heard about historical debugging but I couldn't find instructions on how to enable it on a TFS build, if that's even possible.
Is it possible to configure my build so that it generates an intellitrace file for me to debug the test run afterwards?
For intellitrace which related to the old testsettings file and could add some variables to configure this.
You could also manually enable such option in the VS on your build agent.
Also find a link mentioned it seems also work with Msbuild arguments. Even not documented anywhere in Msbuild command doc. I wonder whether IntelliTrace is still running even though it's not explicitly specified to do so
However, looks like you just want to find the root cause why your tests failed on tfs build even it passed locally.
To narrow down the issue, suggest you directly remote to your build agent. Instead of through TFS build, manually build your project, run the tests in the Visual Studio on build agent.
It will come out whether it's an environment issue. You must make sure it's the same environment for build agent and your local.
TFS is just using build service account to invoke msbuild/vstest command in build agent to run build/test.
Also make sure build service account have appropriately permission if your tests required some permission.
I have a windows service project that has a Build ready and now needs to be installed at the target machine and run. There is no task in TFS Releases that allows that to happen. What are my options other than writing a custom PowerShell script?
For the current approach, you need to install the build and deployment agents on a set of proxy servers in an agent pool and drive deployments to remote target servers.
The simplest way is using remote powershell task to achieve the installation. Details about the task please take a look at Deploy: PowerShell on Target Machines
In the near future, you could also use Agent-based deployment in Release Management. For this, you can install the agent on each of your target servers directly, and then drive rolling deployment to those servers. More details please refer this blog: Agent-based deployment in Release Management
You can do this easily with Team Build.
You use the "Copy" task on the Release tab to send the files to the machine that you want, and then run a remote PowerShell to do the installation.
You can even deploy the same Windows service to 10 machines using "Machine Groups".
I'm just getting started with Jenkins and I have a few doubts that must be silly, but I'm stuck at it.
After I build my project Jenkins save the build file in some specific path?
Using Ranorex for automation test, is it better to put my files locally on the server or push them to a repository?
Note: I just start tried to use this, at this moment I can check for changes at BitBucket, build the file, build the Ranorex test and run the test.
Jenkins is quite a versatile application that allows system setup to specific needs and requirements of the test project. So i'd say go with the way that seems most logical/easiest. It's kind of a learning process as well so you will be able to understand the working flow of Jenkins itself.
But to answer your 2 questions:
1) By build files i believe you mean the test reports? - For this I actually use the Jenkins UserContent folder. This requires the "Copy to slave" plugin to be installed. With this you will get an additional Post-build Action where you can specify the files that will be copied over to the UserContent folder. But don't forget to specify a common layout for the naming of report files through the Ranorex run parameters ("/rf"). The UserContent folder actually acts as a web server and you can directly link the URLs for email reports. (eg. "http://Jenkins-server.com/UserContent/Regression-Client-Test-#1.html")
2) This totally depends on the system setup. But i can give you an example on how our system is currently set up. So we have Jenkins which runs on a Linux machine. It is only used to manage and run the tests and the actual machine does not include the automation test project. Then we have the test machine which runs on Windows and holds the actual automation tests. This machine is connected to Jenkins through the Slave functionality. So basically when someone starts a test job Jenkins from the Linux machine sends a command to the slave to start the automated tests. When the test run has finished post-build actions take over and copy the report files from the Slave machine to the Linux machines UserContent folder.
Now when talking about the test project management. It's a good idea to use a gir repository which will add another layer of somewhat "security". But if you have a small team (or you are the only test developer) then there is no actual need for it. You just copy the project to the test machine to a specified folder whenever needed/updated and you are ready to run it.
Regards,
Martin
The project I am on is using TFS Build in conjunction with Web Deploy to handle the deployments of the web site and service to the servers. We also have a windows service that needs to be deployed to the server as well.
My question is: Is there a way to deploy the Windows Service to the Web Server from the TFS Build server?
The other issue I have is that the service needs to be stopped before it can be deployed. I have tried to modify the Build Configuration file, but could not manage to get it to work.
Thanks.
Options:
If you install TFSBuildagent service on the web server and grant the user which runs the service Admin rights on the web server, then you can create a new build definition just for the deployment/installation. This is fairly simple and straight forward, but this would only work when you have limited number of web servers (who wants to install TFS BUild agent on all 2000 servers) and only work in the non-prod environment. This is how we are doing it for non-prod deployments, I have created a build definition which is just for deployment, which takes care of all the things like stopping services etc.
If the user which runs the TFSBuild Service on the build server have enough rights on the web server then you can use psexec or powershell to run your commands remotely. Read the below links: 1. PSEXEC
Powershell Remote commands
What did you do to stop the service in your build configuration file? Does the user have enough rights?
There is no inbuilt activity/process which can help you run scripts on remote machines in TFS build workflow.
Step 1 for you is to identify how you are going to run scripts on the remote machine, as mentioned above you can either use PSEXEC or Powershell (though running PowerShell on remote computers may be a little more complicated to set up).
Step2, write the actual scripts to do the work, stop services, install MSI etc.
Step3, Edit your current build defintion - create a new custom activity or make use of InvokeProcess activity from within your build definition to invoke the script that you have created in Step 2. InvokeProcess Activity
I have created a lightly customized TFS build process template and also appropriate TFS build definition. It builds fine on the TFS build server.
Is there any way I can allow developers to reuse the same build process XAML and definition to do full builds on their local machines? Maybe there is some utility which can be run with TFS build process XAML files?
I really would like to avoid maintaining a separate copy of the build script for full local rebuilds.
The build templates can only be run by the TFS build service. Without installing that on each developers machine, that might not be the best idea.
An alternative is to setup a share on the developments machine and grant access to the TFS Build account (the one that TFSBuildServiceHost.exe runs on the server as). Then the developer can Queue a build and get the Server to Drop the files onto their machine.
The downside to this is you need a lot of builds to be run on the Agents.