Configuring email notifications is a mandatory step.
The following providers are supported for sending email notifications from AppVeyor:
To configure email notification settings login as System Administrator and go to Account menu → Settings → Email page.
Specify Notifications email address and Notifications sender name to send all email messages from. These settings are mandatory.
You can optionally specify No-reply sender email and name to be used when sending build and deployment notifications.
Select mailing provider in Send with dropdown.
SMTP provider settings are straightforward but note that there is an SMTP host setting for specifying port, for example smtp.gmail.com:587.
Example settings for using GMail for sending email notifications:
SMTPsmtp.gmail.com:587<your-gmail-user>@gmail.com<your-gmail-password>YesSendGrid is a cloud-based SMTP provider that allows you to send email without having to maintain email servers. SendGrid manages all of the technical details, from scaling the infrastructure to ISP outreach and reputation monitoring to whitelist services and real time analytics.
SendGrid is a quick option for testing AppVeyor mailouts as it doesn’t require configuring/validating a real mail domain, however without a real domain, messages sent by AppVeyor via SendGrid would be trapped in your spam folder. SendGrid doesn’t have a free plan, but a free 14-day trial only.
AppVeyor uses SendGrid API v3. To create new API token login to your SendGrid account and go to https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/api_keys page. Click Create API Key button select Restricted Access and set “Full Access” for Mail Send action.
Copy API key to API key field on email settings in AppVeyor.
Mailgun is a Transactional Email API Service For Developers. It has functionality similar to SendGrid. Mailgun has free tier (up to 10,000 messages per month), but for production use you should add a real domain and verify it - without domain verification you can send to authorized recipients only.
You need Active API Key (“Secret API key” on dashboard home page or “Active API Key” on USers & API Keys page) to integrate AppVeyor with Mailgun.
Configuring artifact storage is a mandatory step.
Artifact storage is used to store build logs and artifact files uploaded during the build. At least one “system” artifact storage must be configured before running your first build on AppVeyor.
The following types of artifact storage are supported:
To configure artifact storage login to AppVeyor as System Administrator and go to Account menu → Settings → Build environment → Artifacts storages page.
Click Add storage button and select storage type.
“File system” storage allows storing build artifacts on either local disk or networking share.
During AppVeyor installation %LocalAppData%\AppVeyor\Artifacts directory is automatically created and correct ICALs for AppVeyor Web role’s app pool identity configured.
When adding “File system” storage Path should not contain environment variables. You can expand environment variables with the following command:
echo %LocalAppData%\AppVeyor\Artifacts
If you are going to use a custom directory or UNC share for artifact storage then Modify permission for IIS_IUSRS group should be added for that directory.
Click Add button to save the settings and add a new storage.
Go to Account menu → Settings → Build environment page and type added storage name in System artifact storage. Click Save button.
IMPORTANT NOTE: “Premium” storage accounts cannot be used as artifact storage as they can hold page blobs only used for VM disks. More information about Premium storage accounts.
Login to Azure Portal and navigate to Storage accounts page.
Click storage details and then Access keys under “Settings” section. Copy Storage account name and Primary key to AppVeyor storage settings.
Click Add button to save the settings and add a new storage.
Go to Account menu → Settings → Build environment page and type added storage name in System artifact storage. Click Save button.
In the main console menu navigate to Storage → Browser and create a new bucket.
Get back to AppVeyor storage setting screen and type Service account email, paste the contents of .txt file with Base64-encoded certificate in Service account certificate in Base64 format field and type Bucket name.
Click Add button to save the settings and add a new storage.
Go to Account menu → Settings → Build environment page and type added storage name in System artifact storage. Click Save button.
[TBD]
AppVeyor can be configured to run builds in any of the following clouds:
THe following services can be configured as Build cache storage:
AppVeyor storage is a web service that stores/serves files to/from a local disk storage. It can be used in the situations when cache data should not leave boundaries of your company firewall.
To host AppVeyor storage you will need IIS 7.5 or higher and .NET Framework 4.6. The website running AppVeyor storage should be accessible from both AppVeyor machine (External Storage Server URL in cache settings) and build VMs (Internal Storage Server URL). If everything is on the same network “external” and “internal” addresses will be the same. Deploying SSL certificate is recommended; self-signed certificate will be fine.
To install AppVeyor storage web app:
C:\cache-data.$rsa = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.RSACryptoServiceProvider -ArgumentList 2048
$privKeyXml = $rsa.ToXmlString($true)
$pubKeyXml = $rsa.ToXmlString($false)
Write-Host "=== Private Key ==="
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([system.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($privKeyXml))
Write-Host "`n=== Public Key ==="
[System.Convert]::ToBase64String([system.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($pubKeyXml))
Copy-paste Public key to SignaturePublicKey app setting in web.config and you will have to specify Private key on cache settings UI in AppVeyor.
web.config update StorageDirectory to local cache directory path.New-EventLog -Source "AppVeyor Blob Storage" -LogName "AppVeyor"
Open AppVeyor web interface and go to Account menu -> Build environment -> Build caches.
Add new cache of AppVeyor storage type.
External and internal storage server URLs should have the format https://<storage-website-ip> (or http://).
Insert private key generated with PowerShell script above.
Click Add button to save cache settings.
Open Build clouds page and then click details of the build cloud for which cache should be configured. Specify cache name in Build cache name field under Storage and cache overrides section.
[TBD]
Builds retention policy automatically deletes old builds and their artifacts to reclaim artfiact storage.
Builds retention policy can be enabled on account level and applied to all projects or it can be enabled (or overridden) on the individual project level.
To enable builds retention policy on account level go to Account menu → Retention policy.
Specify the miniumum “age” of builds that should be deleted. The cut-off date is compared with the build creation date.
You can also specify multiple conditions for builds to determine exclusion, for example you can skip tagged builds or builds with [RELEASE] word in commit message.
Save retention policy.
Now, to execute retention policy you should additionally configure two scheduled tasks:
ExecuteRetentionPolicy)PurgeDeletedBuilds)ExecuteRetentionPolicy should run first. It goes through project builds and those satisfying the criteria are marked for deletion.
PurgeDeletedBuilds completely deletes builds marked for deletion. All build artifacts such as logs, uploaded artifacts, test results and NuGet packages are also deleted.
To add scheduled tasks go Account menu → Scheduled tasks.
Add new schedule with the following details:
ExecuteRetentionPolicy0 11 * * * (run every day at 11:00 am UTC)ExecuteRetentionPolicy{}Add second schedule with the following details:
PurgeDeletedBuilds15 11 * * * (run every day at 11:15 am UTC)PurgeDeletedBuilds{}You may want to play with ExecuteRetentionPolicy first by scheduling it for the nearest time possible and make sure you are OK with the results (right builds were deleted), then enable PurgeDeletedBuilds to finally deleted builds as this operation is irreversible.