Tag: devops

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Install Azure DevOps agent using powershell

With Azure devops you can create incredible automations. But in many cases you will need first to install the azure devops agent in order to run your tasks. Using the below powershell you can automate the installation of an azure devops agent.

New-Item "C:\agent" -itemType Directory
cd "C:\agent"
$url = "https://dev.azure.com/YOUR_ORG"
$token = "PAT_TOKEN"
$auth = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(":$token"))

$package = Invoke-RestMethod "$url/_apis/distributedtask/packages/agent?platform=win-x64&$`top=1" -Headers @{Authorization = "Basic $auth"}

$fileName = $package.value[0].fileName;
$downloadUrl = $package.value[0].downloadUrl;
    

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing $downloadUrl -OutFile agent.zip
Expand-Archive -Force agent.zip -DestinationPath .
Remove-Item -Force agent.zip


.\config.cmd --unattended --replace --acceptTeeEula --work work --url https://dev.azure.com/YOUR_ORG --pool YOUR_POOL_NAME --auth pat --token $token --runAsService --runAsAutoLogon --windowsLogonAccount USER --windowsLogonPassword USER_PASSWORD
.\run.cmd

During the installation you may notice a problem for the powershell task to write on the log file.

Nevertheless the agent will be installed successfully.

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Build NodeJS applications using Azure devops and npm

In this article I will explain how you can build your nodeJS application on Azure Devops. For the purposes of this demo I have created a hello world javascript application and stored it under a folder called node inside my repository with the name project.

We will use the folder structure later on for the build tasks.

The node folder contains two files, index.js and package.json. 

The package.json file has been created automatically after initialization of a new project with

npm init

In order to build this project using npm you should define under the scripts section the commands that will be executed using a specific target. 

For example in order to compile application I will execute

npm run build

but the build instructions have to be configured under the package.json file. 

{
  "name": "nodetest",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Test project for AzureDevops using nodeJS",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "dev": "node index.js",
    "build": "node index.js"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.1"
  }
}

As shown above, the build and dev targets have a simple node command that will start the application.

The index.js file is a console output javascript command.

console.log("Hello from node js app");

In order to build this node app using devops I will use the build in Npm@1 task. First I will execute the install command in order to install dependencies. Then I will run npm run with the target build. This will execute the node index.js command and will execute the node application.

trigger:
- none
pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- task: Npm@1
  displayName: npm install
  inputs:
    command: 'install'
    workingDir: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/node/'
- task: Npm@1
  displayName: npm run build
  inputs:
    command: 'custom'
    workingDir: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/node/'
    customCommand: 'run build'

After pipeline run the Hello world message will print on the output.

Find this guide on Youtube:

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Build triggers on Azure devops pipelines

Continuous integration (CI) triggers cause a pipeline to run whenever you push an update to the specified branches or you push specified tags. Build in triggers can become a powerful tool for your build strategy and the most common scenarios will be explained using the examples below.

Continuous integration triggers:

Branches:
Those will trigger your pipeline when a new commit is performed on your branch. In the scenario below the pipeline will run if code is merged on your main branch or a branch starting from releases like release1, release-1 releases etc. Also the pipeline will not run if a push is commited on uat branch. This is excluded through the exclude keyword.

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - main
      - release/*
    exclude:
      - uat

Tags:
Those will trigger your pipeline only when a tag is pushed on your repository. Tags are bound with a commit on a git source control system. In the scenario below the pipeline will get triggered if a tag is pushed following the v.* regex like v.1 , v.something, v.2 etc. Also it will not run if the tag that is pushed starts with uat keyword for example uat-1 will not trigger the pipeline.

trigger:
  tags:
    include:
      - v.*
    exclude:
      - uat*

Pull Requests:
pr keyword will trigger your pipeline if a pull request is created from a branch and the destination is the noted one. For example if you create a new pull request from mybranch to current branch then the pipeline will get triggered. The pipeline will not trigger if a pull request is created from any branch to uat branch as it is excluded.

trigger:
pr:
  branches:
    include:
    - current
    exclude:
      - uat

One powerful tool that you can combine with your build strategy is paths. When you specify paths, you must explicitly specify branches to trigger on. You can’t trigger a pipeline with only a path filter; you must also have a branch filter, and the changed files that match the path filter must be from a branch that matches the branch filter.

Paths:
Using a path you specify a directory/folder which will trigger the build. For example you may want only to trigger a build when particular files are changed on your repository. In the below example the pipeline will get triggered if files inside the docs folder change for the branches master and releases*

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
    - master
    - releases/*
  paths:
    include:
    - docs
    exclude:
    - docs/README.md

Microsoft documentation for build strategies:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/repos/azure-repos-git?view=azure-devops&tabs=yaml#ci-triggers

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Trigger azure Devops pipeline from another repository

For security reasons you may want to store the pipelines to another repository than the one that the code is hosted. Lets say for example that you have your application code located on test-project/repository location but your pipelines are stored on the consoleapp1 repository. Also you want to have continuous integration and deployment for the repository on which the code is hosted, so when code is pushed to repository then the pipeline should trigger which is hosted on ConsoleApp1.

You can do that using the repositories resource of azure devops. You will need to define the repository and also configure trigger for this repository based on your strategy.

The final result would be the pipeline to run when code is commited on the code repository instead of the one that pipelines are hosted.