UPDATE (April 16, 2018): Elastic Beanstalk deployment 1st class support is now added. Please check documentation. Scripted deployment described in this article will still work, but we encourage to use our new Elastic Beanstalk deployment provider.

Appveyor does not support AWS Elastic Beanstalk deployment out of the box right now. However it can be automated in Appveyor with help of some scripting. Here is small guide based on this support forum discussion.

• In the root folder of your web application create text file named awsdeploy.txt.

• Add the following to awsdeploy.txt:

  Template = ElasticBeanstalk
  Container.ApplicationHealthcheckPath = /healthcheck
  

• Add AWSAccessKeyId as environment variable and AWSSecretKey as secure environment variable.
• Set Package Web Applications for XCopy deployment in build stage.

• Set the following as a deployment script:

  $packageweb = $artifacts.values | Where-Object { $_.path -like '*WebApplication1.zip' }
  $exe = "C:\Program Files (x86)\AWS Tools\Deployment Tool\awsdeploy.exe"
  &$exe -r "-DDeploymentPackage=$($packageweb.path)" "-DEnvironment.Name=MyAppWeb-test123" "-DApplication.Name=MyAppWeb123" "-DRegion=eu-west-1" "-DAWSAccessKey=$env:AWSAccessKeyId" "-DAWSSecretKey=$env:AWSSecretKey" "C:\projects\WebApplication1\awsdeploy.txt"
  

Note that this script assumes that application was already deployed at least once to Beanstalk, otherwise you need to replace -r switch with -w for single first deployment.

Here is an example YAML (only relevant parts):

environment:
  AWSAccessKeyId: AKIAIODIUCY3ETD6TEST
  AWSSecretKey:
    secure: LEvzbXpiLkWVvswonFHnAYV9ZS6fEFL3wswjTcIQ6ZXC5j1nynd6N0Bs/VFtest
build:
  publish_wap_xcopy: true
deploy_script:
- ps: |
    $packageweb = $artifacts.values | Where-Object { $_.path -like '*WebApplication1.zip' }
    $exe = "C:\Program Files (x86)\AWS Tools\Deployment Tool\awsdeploy.exe"
    &$exe -r "-DDeploymentPackage=$($packageweb.path)" "-DEnvironment.Name=MyAppWeb-test123" "-DApplication.Name=MyAppWeb123" "-DRegion=eu-west-1" "-DAWSAccessKey=$env:AWSAccessKeyId" "-DAWSSecretKey=$env:AWSSecretKey" "C:\projects\WebApplication1\awsdeploy.txt"

Here is an example web application folder structure:

Directory of C:\Projects\WebApplication1

09/15/2016  02:48 AM    <DIR>          .
09/15/2016  02:48 AM    <DIR>          ..
07/17/2016  12:34 PM               505 .gitattributes
07/17/2016  12:34 PM             2,858 .gitignore
09/15/2016  02:40 AM                80 awsdeploy.txt
08/30/2016  03:22 PM    <DIR>          WebApplication1
07/21/2016  06:51 PM             1,012 WebApplication1.sln

Enjoy!

AppVeyor runs every build on a clean virtual machine. Virtual machine state is not preserved between builds which means every build downloads sources, installs NuGet packages, Node.js modules, Ruby gems or pulls dependencies. Build cache allows you to preserve contents of selected directories and files between project builds.

AppVeyor was the first hosted CI to introduce a build cache and over the time it became a very popular build tool and important infrastructure component. There were some limitations though, such as maximum cache entry size of 500 MB and intermittent save/restore lags due to ever changing networking conditions.

Increasing requirements from larger customers running builds with “heavy” dependencies made us to re-visit cache architecture and thus the new and updated build cache was born! The new build cache lives close to build worker VMs, it’s fast and offers virtually unlimited possibilities for scale and has lower update/restore times.

Cache size

With the introduction of the new cache we are also changing the way it’s metered.

The total size of build cache is limited per account and depends on the plan:

It’s a hard quota which means the build will fail while trying to upload cache item exceeding the quota. The maximum size of a single cache entry cannot be larger than the size of cache.

Cache speed vs size

The new cache uses 7z to compress/uncompress files before transferring them to the cache storage. We chose 7z over built-in .NET compression library because it’s generally faster, produces smaller archives and works with hidden files out-of-the-box.

While compressing cache item, by default AppVeyor uses 7z with zip algorithm and compression level 1 (“Fastest”) thus producing archive faster, but with larger size (-tzip -mx=1 args). However, you can change compression behavior of 7z by providing your own command line args in APPVEYOR_CACHE_ENTRY_ZIP_ARGS environment variable. For example, to enable LZMA compression method with the highest possible compression ratio set this variable to -t7z -m0=lzma -mx=9.

Availability

The new build cache is currently in beta. It’s automatically enabled for all new accounts.

We are rolling out new cache to existing accounts in batches while observing performance. If you want participate in beta sooner or noticed any issues with the build cache please let us know.

Best regards,
AppVeyor team

Follow us on Twitter: @appveyor

Dear customers,

We have great news! Today we moved all open-source and most private accounts to a new build environment hosted at RackSpace.

For open-source projects that means their builds will start and run faster and private projects may notice better performance as well.

Virtual machines in the new environment have 2 CPU cores and up to 4 GB of RAM. The new public IP address for that environment is 74.205.54.20 - you may need to update your firewalls.

We are still going to maintain Google Compute Engine (GCE) environment for selected accounts and as a backup build cloud. If your private builds were previously running on GCE they will remain there.

Some open-source projects may experience issues while building on a new environment. Due to implementation differences between GCE and Hyper-V platforms we have separate build worker images for GCE and Hyper-V environments, so there might be minor discrepancies in installed software. Please report any issues you notice - your help with fixing those issues is much appreciated.

We have a good reason for this move as some customers already reported 10x performance increase!

We would love to hear your feedback!

Best regards,
AppVeyor team

Follow us on Twitter: @appveyor

Sometimes your deployment requirements cannot fit into AppVeyor built-in deployment providers such as FTP, Web Deploy, S3 and others, for example, you are deploying to Elastic Beanstalk, or you have to recycle application pool during the deployment.

You can write a script doing custom deployment job, however this script can be run only on build worker VM during the build. “Environments” do not support custom scripts and there is no “Script” provider. This is because “Environment” deployments run on a shared background worker severs where potentially insecure custom scripting is not allowed.

This article demonstrates how you can simulate “Script” environment with regular builds and deploy project artifacts to any environment with your own custom script.

Solution overview

The basic idea is having two AppVeyor projects:

• Main project - this is your main project running tests and producing artifacts.
• Deployment project - helper project downloading artifacts from specific build of “Main project” and deploying them with your custom script. Here, to “deploy” the build of “Main project” you could either manually run new build of deployment project from UI or use AppVeyor API.

Deployment project

The “core” of deployment project is PowerShell script downloading artifacts. The script uses AppVeyor API to find specific build and download its artifacts. Artifacts are downloaded to the root of build directory (%APPVEYOR_BUILD_FOLDER%).

The following environment variables must be set for script to work:

• api_token - AppVeyor REST API authentication token. Can be found/generated on this page.
• deploy_project - project slug to download artifacts from. Project slug can be seen in the project URL.
• deploy_version - build version to deploy. If not specified artifacts from the most recent version will be downloaded.
• deploy_artifact - file name or deployment name of artifact to download. If not specified all artifacts will be downloaded.

These environment variables can be set on Environment tab of deployment project settings or in appveyor.yml:

environment:
  api_token:
    secure: ABC123==
  deploy_project: my-web
  deploy_version: ''            # download artifacts from latest build if no version specified
  deploy_artifact: ''           # download all artifacts if empty

To download artifacts add the following PS script into “Before deploy” section of your project settings or before_deploy scripts of appveyor.yml:

before_deploy:
  - ps: iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/appveyor/ci/master/scripts/deploy.ps1'))

Your own deployment logic can be put under deploy_script section, for example:

deploy_script:
  - command stopping app pool
  - '"C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe" -verb:sync -source:package="%webdeploy_package%" -dest:auto,ComputerName="%webdeploy_server%",UserName="%webdeploy_username%",Password="%webdeploy_password%",AuthType="Basic" -setParam:"IIS Web Application Name"="%webdeploy_site%" -allowUntrusted'
  - ...
  - command starting app pool

Add these to disable automatic build and test phases:

build: off
test: off

Setup notifications if required:

notifications:
  - provider: <provider_1>
    settings: ...

Complete appveyor.yml example:

environment:
  # AppVeyor API token for your account, project, version and artifact(s) to download
  api_token:
    secure: ABC123==
  deploy_project: my-web
  deploy_version: ''            # download artifacts from latest build if no version specified
  deploy_artifact: ''           # download all artifacts if empty

  # deployment-specific settings
  # we are going to deploy using Web Deploy, so...
  webdeploy_package: '%appveyor_build_folder%\MyWebApp.zip'
  webdeploy_server: https://test.scm.azurewebsites.net:443/msdeploy.axd?site=test
  webdeploy_site: test
  webdeploy_username: $test
  webdeploy_password:
    secure: AAABBBCCC123==

# download project artifacts
before_deploy:
  - ps: iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/appveyor/ci/master/scripts/deploy.ps1'))

# here is your own custom deployment code
deploy_script:
  - '"C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe" -verb:sync -source:package="%webdeploy_package%" -dest:auto,ComputerName="%webdeploy_server%",UserName="%webdeploy_username%",Password="%webdeploy_password%",AuthType="Basic" -setParam:"IIS Web Application Name"="%webdeploy_site%" -allowUntrusted'

# notifications
notifications:
  - provider: <provider_1>
    settings: ...

# disable build and test pahses
build: off
test: off

deploy.yml

If main and deployment projects share the same repository (most probably they do) you can put YAML deployment settings to a separate deploy.yml file, next to appveyor.yml and then set “Custom configuration .yml file name” on General tab to deploy.yml. To disable automatic triggering of deployment project on webhook you can either remove its webhook from repository or set branch filter to some non-existent branch, for example:

branches:
  only:
    - deployment-project

Main project

Main project is the project creating application packages and uploading them to build artifacts. With artifacts in place you can call deployment project (either manually or via API) to download and deploy artifacts.

To start a new build of deployment project during the build use Start-AppveyorBuild cmdlet:

environment:
  api_token:
    secure: ABC123==

deploy_script:
  - ps: Start-AppveyorBuild -ApiKey $env:api_token -ProjectSlug deploy-project -EnvironmentVariables @{ "deploy_version" = $env:appveyor_build_version }

Enjoy!

Follow us on Twitter: @appveyor

Great news for AppVeyor customers! We’ve finally managed to run Visual Studio 2015 image on Pro environment!

If you are on a paid plan use Visual Studio 2015 image (“OS” setting on Environment tab of project settings or os: Visual Studio 2015 in appveyor.yml).

It still takes around 40-50 seconds before build starts - this is the time required to boot up build worker VM with Visual Studio 2015 image. But everything is going on Pro environment and build start time is quite predictable there. We hope it’s acceptable trade-off between performance and convenience.

Those customer accounts that were moved to a “new” faster OSS environment where Visual Studio 2015 is installed on build workers by default can be moved back to Pro environment, so make sure you switch your builds to use Visual Studio 2015 image.