Configure Test Controller for Visual Studio Team Services and MTM - azure

I am trying to configure Visual Studio Team Services with a Test Controller so I can use Azure VM's for my Lab Management.
I have created a new Azure VM (Windows Server 2012 R2) and installed the Test Controller on it. I've run the Test Controller Configuration tool and connected it to my Visual Studio Team Services Default Collection. The configuration tool doesn't show any errors and informs me that the controller is correctly configured.
On my local development machine I've launched MTM to create a new standard environment for the Azure VM. However, when I switch to the Controllers tab, I can see my TFSController but it is shown as offline with the following message:
'The test controller is currently unavailable. Ask your administrators
to connect to the test controller machine, launch the test controller
configuration tool, and re-configure ith with the correct Team
Foundation Server and team project collection. Alternatively, look at
the events in event viewer of the test controller machine to identify
the problem. Once the problem is resolved, click Refresh'.
The event log on the VM running the test controller doesn't show any errors. I've tried re-configuring the controller configuration with several combinations of credentials (local account, the username/password for the account that I use to logon to the VM and the same for the lab service account).
What am I doing wrong? Do I need to do something else because the Test Controller is running on an Azure VM?

It is not posible to connect a Test Controller/Agent to Azure DevOps or TFS 2018+. This is deprecated and a new solution using Azure Pipelines has been created.
You can then run tests directly from the Azure Test Plans page.
Find the full docs here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/test/run-automated-tests-from-test-hub?view=vsts

Are you using same account on both controller and agent?
Use an account having admin rights on VM and proper access rights to the Visual Studio Team Services, to configure test controller and use same account to configure test agent.
That might work!!!!
Also ensure that Controller is running when you try to connect via agent.

Related

Is Azure Automation DSC at all suitable for configuring client machines (not servers)?

I am trying to create a DSC configuration for a developer workstation and facing difficulties.
A developer machine has a well defined owner - the developer who is going to get it. Some configurations tightly coupled to the owner account:
It should be added to the Sql Server as a login account in sysadmin role.
Visual Studio extensions that I want every developer to have must be installed from a session started by the owner account (not the SYSTEM account used to apply the DSC configurations)
The TFS workspaces must be associated with the owner account.
It is unclear to me how Azure Automation DSC can allow for such coupling. Sometimes just the account name is needed (to configure Sql Server), but sometimes the resource must be run as the owner, i.e. the owner credentials are needed. Unless there is a way for a DSC resource to run as the workstation owner without knowing owner's credentials.
In short, it seems to me that Azure Automation DSC cannot be used to configure developer machines. And I am not even talking about shortage of out of the box and tested DSC resources like:
Installing Visual Studio
Installing Visual Studio Extensions
Configuring Visual Studio Source Control to use TFS
Configuring TFS workspaces
I'd suggest having a look at Azure DevTest Labs for this kind of scenario of provisioning and customising developer machines.

Give Azure Build Agent Write Permission to VM Folder

I have two azure entities I'm trying to connect, a build agent running my nuget deployments and a VM (Windows Server 2012 R2) on which I'm trying to set up symbol hosting using SymStore.
From this page I am told to Grant full control permission to the build agent service account. How do I go about doing this? In the Publish Symbols build step, I can enter a URL to store the symbols, but I have no way of logging the build agent into the VM as the user that I've given full control permission to.
This setup is actually not possible; from the SymSrv docs: writes to an http-based symbol store are not possible.
It appears that the SymStore has to be on the same machine as the Azure build agent to give it full control permission. I happened to discover that NuGet will let me publish .pdbs, so I'm going to try that route instead.

Cannot set deployment from source control for Azure App Service

Am trying to setup deployment from source control for Azure App Service. Am facing errors in the same. The error that am receiving is:
Cannot create build definition as no hosted build controller could be found.
Am trying to configure this via "Visual Studio Online" option by clicking "Setup deployment from source control" in a slot of Azure App Service.
There are two issues in your question:
For the New Portal, it can only show the projects with Git Version Control. If you project is using Team Foundation Version Control(TFVC), it cannot be listed. You can refer to this question for deteails: Azure Functions deployment source Visual Studio Team Service project.
For the Classic Portal, I can get the same issue with you and it is caused by the failure when create a XAML build definition. When you create a XAML build definition from VS directly, you should get a similar error message:
I have help you submit a feedback on Microsoft Connect Page, you can track the detailed information here: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/2699963
Update:
According to the information in Microsoft Connect Page, there is no Hosted Build Controller for new VSTS account. So you need to setup your own on-premise build controller to fix the issue for Classic Portal.

Deploy to Azure Web App Virtual Application with Visual Studio Online Source Control Integration

We have an Azure Web App that we have Source Control integration setup with Visual Studio Online via the built in Azure functionality. This, of course, creates a build definition in our Visual Studio Online account. We have had this configured and it has worked just fine for deploying our website by queuing a build.
Our ultimate configuration is to actually create a Virtual Application and use the build to deploy to the Virtual Application instead of the web app site root.
So, we created the Virtual Application in the portal. See screenshot:
Our trouble comes in that we can't get the build definition to actually deploy to this virtual application. The build either fails or the files still end up in the site\wwwroot folder.
Our azure web app name is: inyoforum(staging)
We've tried numerous variations of the following MSBuild arguments:
/p:DeployIisAppPath="inyoforum__Staging/Forum"
/p:DeployIisAppPath="inyoforum__Staging\Forum"
/p:DeployIisAppPath="inyoforum(staging)/Forum"
/p:DeployIisAppPath="inyoforum(staging)\Forum"
We even tried other variations. We tried using a publish profile instead. We can get a publish from our local Visual Studio application to the virtual application, but we've been unable to do it from the build definition.
Any suggestions on other things to try?
You can create a publish profile to publish the website to virtual app and specify the profile in MSBuild Arguments. Steps like following:
Create a publish profile according to the instruction here: Deploying multiple virtual directories to a single Azure Website.
Check in the publish profile.
Create a new build definition and enter following strings in MSBuild arguments:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile=xxxx.pubxml
Queue a new build with the definition, the web app will be deployed to virtual app.
You can also install MSDeploy Package Sync task and use it to deploy to virtual app. Please refer to this article for details: CUSTOM DEPLOY TASK TO DEPLOY VIRTUAL APPLICATIONS TO AZURE
I had this same problem and found virtual directories are not supported by MSDeploy PowerShell scripts. So I created a custom deployment task to support this use case. Give it try -
https://dotnetcatch.com/2016/03/22/vsts-release-custom-deploy-task-to-deploy-virtual-applications-to-azure/

Can anyone give guidance on installing TFS Build on a Windows Azure Role

We have TFS 2010 working on-premise in a domain environment.
I want to add a Build Service which will be hosted in a multi-instance Azure service wherein the build agent runs in the cloud. It will have access to SourceControl from on-prem TFS probably through Service Bus. I would prefer to do this without using a VM Role if possible.
The most likely topology as per Understanding a Team Foundation BuildSystem is either the 'Multiple-machine System' or 'Multiple-machine system with multiple controllers'
Has anyone done this specific type of deployment, how?
Could the Build Agent be made to run in a Web or Worker role?
For the tfs preview it can be done using the vm role: http://bartwullems.blogspot.com/2011/10/running-your-build-server-on-azure.html

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