Running builds on Google Compute Engine

• Create Google Cloud Platform service account
• Create Master VM
• Setup Master VM
• Prepare Master VM snapshot
• Setting up custom cloud and images in AppVeyor
• Make build worker image available for configuration
• How to route build to your own cloud

Create Google Cloud Platform service account

• Open Google Cloud Platform menu and select existing or create new project to use for AppVeyor build environment
• Create Google Cloud Platform service account and obtain certificate

Create Master VM

• Go back to Google Cloud Platform menu and select Compute engine
• Navigate to VM instances and press Create
  • Set descriptive Name, for example master-vm
  • Optionally change Zone, to be the same as build VMs, closer to other GCE or non-GCE resources needed during build, test or deployment
  • Optionally increase number of CPUs or memory
  • Press Change in Boot disk
    • Select Windows Server 2012 R2
    • Select SSD persistent disk
  • Press Select and then Create
  • In drop-down menu near RDP select Create or reset Windows password
    • Set user name to appveyor and press Set
    • Save auto-generated password for future use
  • In drop-down menu near RDP select Download RDP file
    • Click RDP file and in RDP window change username to appveyor and use password saved before

Setup Master VM

Login into master VM via RDP.

Follow these steps to configure VM and install software required for your build process. It is tested PowerShell scripts which can be simply copy-pasted to PowerShell window (started in privileged mode). Specifically:

• Basic configuration and Essential 3rd-party software - we strongly recommend to install everything from those sections.
• Build framework - you can skip one of MSBuild and Visual Studio versions or both if you don’t need them.
• Test framework - you can skip that step if you are running your own custom test script/framework.
• AppVeyor Build Agent and Configuring agent to run in “Interactive” mode - these steps are mandatory.

Install any additional software required for your builds.

Do not sysprep master VM!

Prepare Master VM snapshot

• Optionally restart Master VM to ensure AppVeyor build agent is started on automatically interactively
• Shutdown Master VM
• In Compute engine menu select Snapshots and press Create snapshot
  • Set descriptive Name, for example build-vm-2017-05-09. It is handy to include date to manage build images versions
  • Select Master VM created before as a Source disk
  • Press CREATE

Setting up custom cloud and images in AppVeyor

• Login to AppVeyor portal
• Navigate to your account name on the top right and select Build environment option from drop-down menu
  • If Build environment option is not available, please contact team@appveyor.com and ask to enable Private build clouds feature
• Press Add cloud, select cloud type Google Compute Engine

Complete the following settings:

• Name: Name for your private build cloud. Make it meaningful and short to be able to use in YAML configuration
• Google account
  • Service account email: Service account ID from Create Google Cloud Platform service account step
  • Service account certificate (Base64): content of the file created in Create Google Cloud Platform service account step
  • Project name: ID of Google Cloud Platform project selected or created in the beginning
• Virtual machine configuration
  • Zone name: select the same as used for Master VM
  • Machine type (size): select depending on performance you need
  • Tags: Optionally add tags
• Networking
  • Network name: Optionally set custom VPC network
    • Select Assign external IP address if VMs need to be accessible from outside
• Images
  • IMAGE NAME: Image name as you want to see it in AppVeyor UI and YAML, for example VS2017 on GCE
  • SNAPSHOT OR IMAGE NAME: Image name as it was set in Prepare Master VM snapshot step
  • SIZE, GB: VM disk size in Gb
• Open Failure strategy and set the following:
  • Job start timeout, seconds: 360 is good enough for GCE. However, if VM creation and build start takes longer for you, please adjust accordingly
  • Provisioning attempts: 2 is good for start. Later you may need to change it according to your observations

Make build worker image available for configuration

• Navigate to Build environment > Build worker images
• Press Add image
• Enter what you set as IMAGE NAME in previous step

How to route build to your own cloud

At project level:

• UI:
  • Settings > Environment > Build cloud: Select your private build cloud name from drop-down
  • Settings > Environment > Build worker image: Select your build worker image from drop-down
• YAML:

build_cloud: <private_build_cloud_name>
image: <private_build_cloud_image>

At project level:

• Set environment variable “APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_CLOUD” to your private build cloud name
  • This assumes that default and custom build clouds have build worker image with the same name (for example Visual Studio 2015)