AppVeyor Server is a downloadable version of hosted AppVeyor CI service that can be installed on your own server. AppVeyor Server can be installed on Windows, Linux and macOS and is integrated with popular source control providers such as GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Kiln, Gitea or generic Git/Mercurial/SVN repo. Out-of-the-box AppVeyor is able to run builds as processes, or inside Docker containers or Hyper-V/Azure/GCE/AWS virtual machines. With affordable cloud-friendly licensing, AppVeyor Server can be scaled from a simple build server for your team to a powerful multi-cloud CI/CD solution for your entire organization.
If you are a Windows developer you probably have Windows 10 on your desktop already. Windows 10 version 1809 (October 2018 Update) or later is the best option, especially if you are going to run Docker builds. Build 1803 (April 2018 Update) is also OK though it’s missing some great Docker features such as running containers with process isolation.
AppVeyor Server can be installed on Windows Server 2016 or above. We strongly recommend the latest Windows Server 2019 (version 1809) for your CI/CD server, expecially if you are going to run Docker builds. Windows Server 2019 has base Docker images with the smallest footprint, can run Linux Containers On Windows (LCOW) and has the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature - a must for any team developing for multiple platforms.
If you are going to deploy your AppVeyor Server in a cloud we recommend Azure, as their VMs have nested virtualization enabled and as such allow Hyper-V and LCOW. On AWS there is i3.metal instance on which Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V could be deployed. GCP, unfortunately, does not yet support nested virtualization for Windows in their VMs.
AppVeyor Server was tested on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 only, but, potentially, can be installed on any Linux distro supported by .NET Core.
AppVeyor Server is so lightweight that it feels perfectly fine on $10/month DigitalOcean droplet or other “cheap” Linux VM in any cloud.
Git is only required if you are planning to run “process” builds. For Docker builds AppVeyor base image has Git/Mercurial/Subversion pre-installed. Also, Git would be required to clone appveyor/build-images repository if you are going to customize ours or build your own Docker/Azure/AWS/GCP images.
Docker is not required, but recommended! AppVeyor has 1st-class integration with Docker EE on Windows Server, Docker Desktop for Windows (aka Docker CE) on Windows 10 and Docker CE on Linux.
AppVeyor Server can be installed on Windows 10 or above and Windows Server 2016 or above.
Install Chocolatey package manager if not already installed.
Run the following command:
choco install appveyor-server
Once the Chocolatey package installation completes, the AppVeyor Web interface will be opened in a new browser window to continue with AppVeyor configuration.
Download AppVeyor Server MSI installer and run it.
Once the installation complete AppVeyor Web interface will be opened in a new browser window to continue with AppVeyor configuration.
Download the latest AppVeyor Server Debian package using the following command:
curl -L https://www.appveyor.com/downloads/appveyor/appveyor-server.deb -o appveyor-server_7.0.3212_amd64.deb
Install AppVeyor Server by running:
sudo dpkg -i appveyor-server_7.0.3212_amd64.deb
Verify the installed version by running:
/opt/appveyor/server/appveyor version
Once the installation is complete, open a web browser and navigate to http://<server_ip> or http://<server_ip>:8050 (if port 80 is already taken by another app) to continue with AppVeyor configuration.
AppVeyor Server can be installed on macOS 10.13 “High Sierra” and later versions.
Install Homebrew package manager if not already installed.
Add AppVeyor tap repo, install AppVeyor Server formulae and start the service:
brew tap appveyor/brew
brew install appveyor-server
brew services start appveyor-server
Once AppVeyor service is started open http://localhost:8050 in your browser to continue AppVeyor setup.
In AppVeyor you are starting from creating a New project. While adding a project you will be offered to connect AppVeyor to your source control system. Multiple Projects can be connected to the same repository - they all can have different configurations and versioning scheme. Every project adds a new webhook to the connected repository.
Build is a run of specific project. “New build” button or a call to a project webhook triggers a new build. Build configuration could vary on commit’s branch or tag.
Builds are logical container for build jobs. Every build has at least one job, but build matrix can produce builds with multiple jobs running in parallel or as workflow.
Click New build or make a push to project repository to start a new build.
Out-of-the-box AppVeyor is configured to run every build job as a new system process. The build flow in that process is controlled by AppVeyor Build Agent and starts with repository cloning. Process is the simplest form of builds isolation. It’s the easiest way to get started with AppVeyor as it relies on the software/tools/libraries that most probably already installed on your Desktop or build server. However, “process” isolation does not follow “clean environment” principle which assumes the build does not have “harmful” steps (like disk formating or reboots) and finishes with clean-up code (like deleting test database or removing temp files).
AppVeyor build job has a pre-defined pipeline like Clone → Install → Build → Test → Package → Deploy → Finalize, but, of course, each step in that flow could be enabled/disabled, customized or completely replaced with your own script. A job is a minimal building block for complex CI/CI workflows modeled with build matrices where jobs could wait for other jobs, combined into groups and run in parallel.
To run builds inside Docker containers Docker engine must be installed on AppVeyor Server or remote machine (TODO: give more information about AppVeyor Host Agent).
On Linux you install Docker CE (Docker installation guide for Ubuntu).
On Windows you can choose between Docker Enterprise Edition (Docker EE) or Docker Desktop for Windows (which includes Docker CE with tools). Docker EE is a typical approach for Windows Server and with Windows Server 2019 and Hyper-V enabled you can configure LCOW to run Windows and Linux containers in a single build (for example, .NET Fremework tests using Redis or MySQL). However, Docker Desktop for Windows which is usually installed on Windows 10 (but could also be installed on Windows Server) in addition to LCOW gives “Linux containers” mode where containers run inside “MobyLinux” Hyper-V VM. MobyLinux VM gives you “pure” Docker on Linux experience, but once switched to Linux containers you can’t run Windows containers at the same time.
AppVeyor instantly supports all Docker engines in all modes on any platform!
You can use these handful scripts for unattended Docker installation:
To run your build in Docker container open AppVeyor project settings and click Environment tab. Select Docker in Build cloud dropdown. Save project settings.
Every build job will be run in a fresh container which is immediately disposed on job completion. Docker containers give you clean, isolated and safe environments to run your tests and do any experimenting.
Build cloud in AppVeyor is an abstraction which allows to choose where and how the build job is executed. Build clouds implementations for Process, Docker and various clouds basically have two methods like “Provision worker” and “Decommission worker”. By selecting the cloud in build configuration you route builds to a specific local or remote worker provisioner.
Docker builds can either be run with AppVeyor-provided images or any image from any repository. AppVeyor images have a “minimal” set of pre-installed tools (like Git to clone the repo and PowerShell Core), but more important they have AppVeyor Build Agent installed and set as an “entrypoint” to support build job pipeline.
You can find the tags of all AppVeyor images on Docker Hub.
For Linux there is only one image based on Ubuntu 18.04 and for Windows there are “lightweight” nanoserver images and more “heavy” and full-featured windowsservercore images.
Upon installation of AppVeyor Server there are two “Windows” and “Linux” images are configured in Docker cloud settings on Windows and only “Linux” image on Linux.
Out-of-the-box Docker cloud in AppVeyor is configured to run Windows builds on nanoserver-based image (so, no .NET Framework or Chocolatey there) - it’s pulled faster giving you smoother first-time experience. Though it could take some time depending on VM specs/network, so be patient :) You can update the image at any time to servercore-based or your own (more on this later).
Now, to run a build in any image open project settings, navigate to Environment and add docker_image environment variable with full image name as a value, for example:
docker_image: node:10
There is a difference between the build running with agent-less image versus build running with AppVeyor image. In agent-less container only the following parts of build configuration will be executed:
What if you need to pull the lates version of image on every build run? Add the following environment variable:
docker_pull: always
Proceed to the next section to know how to build complex CI/CD workflows with services, parallel and sequential jobs.
Configuring the build on UI is good for the start and probably enough for most of the projects, but for more sophisitcated scenarios you should move build configuration to a YAML file.
There could be multiple real-world scenarios solved:
To get the taste of YAML configuration check-in .appveyor.yml file with the following contents to the root of project repository:
build_cloud: docker
environment:
matrix:
- job_name: Node.js 8 tests
docker_image: node:8
- job_name: Node.js 12 tests
docker_image: node:12
for:
-
matrix:
only:
- job_name: Node.js 8 tests
test_script:
- node --version
- npm --version
-
matrix:
only:
- job_name: Node.js 12 tests
test_script:
- node --version
- npm --version
Here we declared two jobs - one for running tests inside node:8 container and another inside node:12. Both jobs will be run in parallel and display node and npm versions.
Now, let’s say our tests depend on Redis, so we have to add 3rd container running Redis:
build_cloud: docker
environment:
matrix:
- job_name: Node.js 8 tests
job_group: tests
docker_image: node:8
- job_name: Node.js 12 tests
job_group: tests
docker_image: node:12
- job_name: redis
docker_image: redis
job_allow_cancellation: true
for:
-
matrix:
only:
- job_group: tests
test_script:
- node --version
- npm --version
Some new things here:
job_group variable we grouped both tests into tests group and then defined a common test script below.redis - this is going to be a network alias that can be used to connect Redis service from other containers. All containers in a build get their network aliases assigned as a job_name value converted to a slug. For example, in the example above container with Node 8 tests will have network alias node-js-8-tests.job_allow_cancellation: true to redis job we are telling AppVeyor that it’s OK to cancel that job when all other jobs are succeeded/failed. job_allow_cancellation attribute could be added to any job, not just service-like containers like Redis, MySQL, ElasticSearch. For example, it could be another Node.js container doing some polling in a loop during the entire build.Fan-in/-out and jobs chaining:
build_cloud: docker
environment:
matrix:
- job_name: Build
docker_image: alpine
- job_name: Tests A
job_group: tests
job_depends_on: Build
docker_image: node:12
- job_name: Tests B
job_group: tests
job_depends_on: Build
docker_image: node:12
- job_name: Package
job_depends_on: tests
- job_name: Deploy
job_depends_on: Package
# The rest is cut for brevity
...
The entire .appveyor.yml can be downloaded here.
Here we can see a new job attribute job_depends_on that tells AppVeyor to start a job when preceding job or a group are finished. You can provide a comma-separated list of job or group names in job_depends_on value.
There is a common “bin” directory available inside all containers of the same build. It’s mapped as /appveyor/bin in Linux containers and C:\appveyor\bin in Windows containers. The files copied to that folder are visible to all containers within the build. “Bin” directory can be used as a communication and synchronization tool in complex builds. For example, one job could build a solution and put compiled program into bin folder. Then other containers could start tests in binaries from “bin” folder and, finally, another job could take the binaries and upload them as artifacts.
By default, all containers (except the ones with docker_image attribute and without build_script or test_script sections) will be checking out repository contents as a a first step. To disable repository cloning on job start add clone: off to job definition:
...
-
matrix:
only:
- job_group: tests
clone: off
test_script:
- node --version
- npm --version
...
You can customize AppVeyor build agent image with your custom software/tools and then run Docker builds in it.
The following example takes appveyor/build-image:minimal-windowsservercore-ltsc2019 as the base image with Chocolatey and AppVeyor Build Agent pre-installed and additionally installs JDK 11 and Maven.
Create Dockerfile with the following contents:
FROM appveyor/build-image:minimal-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
RUN choco install -y jdk11 && \
choco install -y maven
That’s it! Now from the same directory run docker build to build the image tagged as my-company/my-custom-image:
docker build -t my-company/my-custom-image .
Login to AppVeyor, navigate to Account → Build environment, open Docker cloud settings and update Windows “Docker image” to my-company/my-custom-image.
You can connect both hosted and on-premise AppVeyor to your own Azure subscription to allow AppVeyor instantiating build VMs in it. It has a lot of benefits like having ability to customize your build image, select desired VM size, set custom build timeout and many others.
To simplify setup process we created a script which provisions necessary Azure resources, runs Hashicorp Packer to create a basic build image (based on Windows Server 2019), and puts all AppVeyor configuration together. After running that script you immediately will be able to start builds on Azure (and optionally customize your Azure build environment later).
Skip this step if you are connecting hosted AppVeyor to your Azure subscription, as its URL (https://ci.appveyor.com) is always available from the Internet.
For AppVeyor Server you need to ensure that build worker VMs can establish a connection to AppVeyor server. Therefore, it’s public URL should be resolvable with public DNS and listen on HTTPS port 443 (or HTTP port 80, though clear HTTP is not recommended nowadays). You can change the URL and set up SSL (AppVeyor Server has built-in free Let's Encrypt and custom certificates support) at system/settings.
Install Packer with Chocolatey (skip if Packer already installed):
choco install packer
Ensure to restart your command line shell or run refreshenv so packer command is available.
If you do not use Chocolatey, install directly from Packer website. In this case ensure that path to packer command is set correctly and it can be called from the command line shell.
Install Azure PowerShell module (skip if Azure PowerShell already installed):
Install-Module -Name Az -AllowClobber
Clone appveyor/build-images repository (we assume Git is installed):
git clone https://github.com/appveyor/build-images.git
Switch to the cloned folder:
cd .\build-images
Default build worker image will be created with the most essential software installed. You can check it by exploring minimal-windows-server.json file. If you need to run your own software installation scripts on top of it, simple copy them to scripts\Windows\custom-scripts. Note that it should be a PowerShell scripts.
If you are in PowerShell session run:
.\connect-to-azure.ps1
If you are in CMD session run:
powershell .\connect-to-azure.ps1
Script will ask to enter required information and make a few selections. It is the recommended way of running this script for the first time. However if you prefer script to run without any interactions, you can pass all required parameters to it:
.\connect-to-azure.ps1 -appveyor_api_key <appveyor_account_api_key> -appveyor_url <appveyor_url> -azure_location <azure_location> -azure_vm_size <azure_vm_size> -skip_disclaimer -use_current_azure_login
Note that scipt expects short notation for both -azure_location and -azure_vm_size parameters, like westus and Standard_D2s_v3 (not their display names).
For more advanced options call get-help .\connect-to-azure.ps1 -detailed or check script source code.
Wait for the script to complete. It should take about an hour depending on VM size and optional software installation scripts addition. Upon completion script will print build worker image name (which is Windows Server 2019 on Azure if you do not change it with the -image_description parameter). Just set image: Windows Server 2019 on Azure in appveyor.yml (or select Windows Server 2019 on Azure in the Settings > Environment tab if you use UI), and you can start building on Azure!