Build environment

Every build runs on a fresh virtual machine which is not shared with other builds and the state of which is not preserved between consequent builds. After the build is finished its virtual machine is decommissioned.

Build clouds

AppVeyor runs builds on two build clouds:

  • Hyper-V
  • Google Compute Engine (GCE)

Hyper-V

Hyper-V cloud is a primary build cloud hosted in LiquidWeb’s Lansing, Michigan data center. It is a pool of pre-heated virtual machines, so, generally, builds start faster on Hyper-V cloud.

Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine (GCE) cloud is a secondary build cloud running in Google Cloud “Central US” zone. Builds are routed to GCE cloud when they use a custom build worker image not available on Hyper-V cloud. GCE cloud is also used as a failover solution for Hyper-V cloud.

It usually takes a build around 3-4 minutes to start on GCE environment as this is the time required to provision and boot up build virtual machine.

Private build cloud

There might be build scenarios that cannot be covered by AppVeyor build workers. For example, some proprietary software should be pre-installed to support your builds or you need more powerful build VMs or private network access.

AppVeyor allows running builds on your own cloud:

  • Hyper-V server (on-premise or hosted)
  • Docker server (on-premise or hosted)
  • Azure virtual machines
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • Google Compute Engine (GCE)

In this scenario AppVeyor service provides UI, orchestration, artifacts storage and NuGet feeds while AppVeyor build agents run on your virtual machines. Private build clouds can be enabled upon request. Please let us know if you are interested.

Build VM configurations

Build cloud / configurationCPUMemoryNested virtualization
Hyper-V2 cores6 GB-
Hyper-V "4-cores"4 cores7 GBEnabled
GCE2 cores7.5 GB-

IP addresses

IP addresses assigned to build VMs in Google data center (us-central1 region):

104.197.110.30
104.197.145.181

IP addresses assigned to build VMs in LiquidWeb data center (Lansing, MI):

67.225.164.38
67.225.164.41
67.225.164.53
67.225.164.54
67.225.164.96
67.225.164.101
67.225.164.102
67.225.164.136
67.225.165.19
67.225.165.66
67.225.165.168
67.225.165.171
67.225.165.175
67.225.165.183
67.225.165.185
67.225.165.193
67.225.165.198
67.225.165.200
67.225.165.215

IP addresses assigned to build VMs in AWS data center (US West (Oregon) region):

34.208.156.238
34.209.164.53
34.216.199.18
52.43.29.82
52.89.56.249
54.200.227.141

IP addresses assigned to build VMs in Azure data center (West US region):

13.83.108.89

IP addresses of AppVeyor macOS VMs:

162.221.92.98
199.38.85.75
199.38.81.89
199.102.237.23

IP address of AppVeyor Cloud in Azure data center (West US region) - when deploying with “Environments”:

138.91.141.243

The full list of IP addresses is maintained in a JSON file that can be used in automation scenarios.

Build worker images

Build worker image is a template used to provision a virtual machine for your build. Physical implementation of the template depends on the build cloud platform and can be a master VHD for Hyper-V and Azure, snapshot or image for GCE or AWS.

AppVeyor provides these “standard” build worker images:

  • Windows images:
    • Visual Studio 2022
    • Visual Studio 2019
    • Visual Studio 2017
    • Visual Studio 2015
    • Visual Studio 2013
  • Linux images:
    • Ubuntu or Ubuntu1804 - Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)
    • Ubuntu1604 - Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus)
    • Ubuntu2004 - Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
  • macOS images:
    • macos - macOS 10.15 “Catalina”
    • macos-mojave - macOS 10.14 “Mojave”

Below you can find the list of pre-installed software for all images.

Choosing image for your builds

If the build configuration does not specify build worker image then Visual Studio 2015 image is used.

You can select a different image on AppVeyor UI (“Environment” tab of project settings) or in appveyor.yml:

image: Visual Studio 2019

to build on Linux:

image: Ubuntu

or to build on macOS:

image: macOS

Please note that appveyor.yml has precedence over UI settings, so when appveyor.yml exists the image should be specified in YAML, not on UI.

Using multiple images for the same build

image is first class dimension for build matrix, therefore the following YAML configuration will work (and will create 6 build jobs):

image:
  - Visual Studio 2019
  - Ubuntu
  - macOS
environment:
  matrix:
    - MY_VAR: value1
    - MY_VAR: value2

Also for some combinations it makes sense to use APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE “tweak” environment variable, so this configuration will also work (and will create 3 build jobs):

environment:
  matrix:
    - APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: Visual Studio 2019
      MY_VAR: value1
    - APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: Ubuntu
      MY_VAR: value3
    - APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: macOS
      MY_VAR: value4

Image updates

AppVeyor team regularly (once in 2-3 weeks) updates build worker images by installing new or updating existing software.

The history of build worker image updates can be found here.

Before rolling out an image update we perform its extensive testing. However, not all usage scenarios can be covered by our automated tests and sometimes even a smallest change in the image can break someone’s build. If that happened - no worries - you’re covered! We provide an access to “last good” versions of build worker images from previous update:

  • Windows “previous” images:
    • Previous Visual Studio 2022
    • Previous Visual Studio 2019
    • Previous Visual Studio 2017
    • Previous Visual Studio 2015
    • Previous Visual Studio 2013
  • Linux “previous” images:
    • Previous Ubuntu, which is the same as Previous Ubuntu1804
    • Previous Ubuntu1804
    • Previous Ubuntu1604
  • macOS “previous” images:
    • Previous macOS
    • Previous macOS-Mojave

You can use those images to unblock your builds while we are working together with you to understand the root cause and do a fix by the next image update.

Pre-installed software

The following pages contain the up-to-date list of software pre-installed on build worker VMs:

Did you know that you can edit this page on GitHub and send us a Pull Request?