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Recently I posted on How to use the TFS 2010 Community StyleCop Build Activity and I am sure it all sounded very awkward and complex, well it did to me.
The point I should have made is that you don’t have to follow this process every time you want to make use of the custom activity. As long as the build process template is the same between to builds you can just copy it, you only need to follow the method in the post the first time.
So assuming you have followed the process in my last post and want to add the same build process to another project, lets say in another Team Project Collection, you do the following
Get the files onto the build box
- In VS2010 open Source Control Explorer select your Team Project and map the BuildProcessTemplates folder to a location on your local disk.
- Create a new folder under the BuildProcessTemplates called Custom Assemblies
- In this new folder copy all the assemblies from the equivalent folder you created in my last post
- Into the BuildProcessTemplates copy the edited build process template that uses the custom activities, again from the equivalent folder in my last post
- From within Source Control Explorer add these new files and check the files into TFS.
- Open Team Explorer, right-click on Builds and select Manage Build Controllers
- Select the controller to configure, and then select Properties
- Set the Version control path to custom assemblies to the location just created under version control containing your added assemblies
- You might want to restart the build service, it should automatically pick up the changes, but I usually do a restart to make sure
Making use of the build
- Create a new build and set it up as normal.
- On the process tab press the new button and browse to find the newly added process template
Once this is done can now save the build and queue it and all should work.
So the 2nd, 3rd etc. uses of a custom activity are not too bad as the first, as long as you can keep your process templates generic.
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Over the holiday I have been reading Professional Foundation Server 2010 by Ed Blankenship, Martin Woodward, Grant Holiday and Brian Keller, yes I know how to have time off and have fun!
So who is this book for? It is a comprehensive guide to TFS 2010, the components and their usage, but this does not mean the book is only for teams new to TFS or people planning to take certification exams. Spread throughout there are useful little titbits of information where you find yourself going ‘I never know that’ or ‘arr.. that explains so much’
So I would suggest it is well worth a look for anyone who is working, or planning to work, with TFS.
It is even available as Kindle edition, how times change, used to be only novels for the Kindle!
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I am always being asked when at events for details of books I have recommended. So I have added a list of books I have found useful to this blog, it can be found at http://blogs.blackmarble.co.uk/blogs/rfennell/pages/reading-list.aspx.
Thus far I have added the ones I have been looking at recently, but will add more as I go along.
Hope you find them as useful as I have
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The Codeplex Community TFS Build Extensions contains a StyleCop activity, but the way to use it is less than obvious. This is not helped by the complexity in using any custom activity within TFS 2010 builds. In this post I will try to show how to get going with the StyleCop activity, which might shed some light on using other custom assemblies.
Get the files
- Download and install StyleCop on you development PC. The alpha 1.0.0.3 custom activity is built against StyleCop 4.4.0.14.
- Download and unzip the Community TFS Build Extensions to a directory on you development PC.
Get the files onto the build box
The assemblies that contain the custom activity and StyleCop need to put under source control so they are available to the build controller and agent(s).
- In VS2010 open Source Control Explorer select your Team Project and map the BuildProcessTemplates folder to a location on your local disk.
- Create a new folder under the BuildProcessTemplates called Custom Assemblies
- In this new folder copy all the assemblies from the unzipped TFS Build Extensions and StyleCop folder (found in Program Files)
- From within Source Control Explorer add these new files to the new Custom Assemblies folder and check the files into TFS.
- Open Team Explorer, right-click on Builds and select Manage Build Controllers
- Select the controller to configure, and then select Properties
- Set the Version control path to custom assemblies to the location just created under version control containing your added assemblies
Get the custom activities into Visual Studio
Next we need to get the activity into Visual Studio so we can add it to build process
- Open Visual Studio 2010
- Create new Class Library project, this new project is only going to be used as a container for the editing of the build process template.
- Delete the Class1.cs file
- In Solution Explorer right click and select Properties., make sure the new project does not build in any configuration.
Now we have a project to work with, we need to get a process template into it, this can be done by branch the process template into the project for adding it as a link. In this example I used a link to one of the standard template in the BuildProcessTemplates folder, for simplicity, but I would normally recommend at least copying the process template in the BuildProcessTemplates folder prior to editing it.
- Make sure BuildProcessTemplates is mapped in you current workspace and get a local copy on your development PC
- In the new project select Add Existing Item and browse to local folder mapped to the BuildProcessTemplates, select the template your wish to edit. But, don’t just press the Add button, but use the drop down to select Add as link.
- On the added file set the build action property to none
- Select Add Reference and add references to all the assemblies from the unzipped TFS Build Extensions
- Open the newly added process template in VS2010, this can be slow, so wait…..
- Open the toolbox and you should see all the standard build activities
- Right click in the toolbox and select Choose Item, select browse and select the file TfsBuildExtensions.Activities.StyleCop.dll.
- The StyleCop activity should now be in the toolbox
Editing the Process template
Well at last we can start to edit the process template, that took a while didn’t it!
Using the standard DefaultBuild template find the ‘Compile the Project’ sequence and add the activities as show in a graphic below. I have chosen to add the sequence inside the compile the project so we can pickup the solution file’s location, but you could choose a different location of that meets you needs. The StyleCop activity does not require to be after the compile stage as it works against the .CS files, not the compiled assemblies.
Here are the breakdown
- Add a new sequence, I named it “Run StyleCop”
- Add the following variable with a scope of the “Run StyleCop” sequence
- StyleCopFiles – iEmumerable<string>
- StyleCopSettingsFile – string
- StyleCopResults – bool
- StyleCopViolations - int32
- Add a FindMatchingFile activity, set the result to StyleCopFiles and the MatchPattern to String.Format("{0}\**\*.cs", BuildDirectory). This will recursively find all the .CS files in the project and add them to the collection.
- Add an Assign activity, set the to property to StyleCopSettingsFile and the value to String.Format("{0}\Settings.StyleCop", localProject.Substring(0, localProject.LastIndexOf("\"))). We use the name of the .SLN file to find the root folder to find the StyleCop settings file.
- Add a WriteBuildMessage activity, set the importance to High (so we always see the message) and the Message to String.Format("About to run Stylecop with {0}", StyleCopSettingsFile)
- Add a StyleCop activity with the following properties (these are a minimum to get it working, to see what the other options do I would suggest you look at the unit tests in the Codeplex activities source.)
- SettingsFile = StyleCopSettingsFile
- SourceFiles = StyleCopFiles.ToArray()
- Succeeded = StyleCopResults
- TreatViolationsErrorASWarnings = True - setting this is down to how you want violations to appear in the log, for this example I wanted warnings
- ViolationCount = StyleCopViolations
- Add another WriteBuildMessage activity, again set the importance to High and the Message to String.Format("StyleCop Successed:{0} with {1} violations", StyleCopResults, StyleCopViolations)
- Save the edited process template and check it into TFS
Running the Build
If you have not done so already create a build using this process template. Queue a new build using the template. If it is all OK you should see a log similar to the graphic below
Notice that the FXCop (code analysis) results appear within the main build summary (green), but the StyleCop violations (red) appear in the Other Errors and Warnings section. Unfortunate this cannot be altered. You cannot add extra bits to the main build summary. However, you could choose to fail the build if there are StyleCop violations
So I hope this has made the use of the StylCop activity more obvious, so you can bolt it into your build process and trigger all the argument in your team as to which rules should be used.
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A while ago I posted on my experiences running multiple instances of 2010 build service on a single VM. Well a couple more experiences as now one of my VM is running 3 instances.
Firstly it seems to work OK, you have to have the right build profile i.e. fairly low load but a need to support many Team Project Collections. This is not a solution for a highly loaded build environment. At Black Marble we run a TPC per client model and tend to have fair few projects on the go at any one time, so need plenty of build controllers. However, in general the builds are small, taking minutes not hours If we have a seriously long running build I would still create a dedicated build service VM.
So what have I learn since the last post
- Set the agents working directory differently for each agent on the VM. You will probably be OK if you don’t, as the $(BuildAgenId) should differ, but life is easier of you know what is where. So I use $(SystemDrive\Build1, $(SystemDrive\Build2 etc. as opposed to the default $(SystemDrive\Build.
- When you create the new service instance using the Sc.exe command line remember to make sure it starts automatically when the operating system is rebooted. Stupid mistake but I keep make it!
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Over the weekend we have released Black Marble’s WP7 TFS Phone client to the WP7 Marketplace.
This app allows the user of a WP7 phone to access their TFS server to perform common operations. They can:
- See recent builds and drill into the results
- Queue new builds
- View and add work items
This client talks via a custom web service to a TFS 2008 or 2010 server, which are available from Black Marble. But if you just want a quick look to see what it can do we have setup a demo web service so you can trial the application, just use the default account details stored in the application. These are
- UID demo
- PWD demo
- DOMAIN demo
- URL https://tfssample.blackmarble.co.uk/tfs/tfs/tfsservice.svc
So if you have WP7 and TFS why not download the trial version and have a look at it? Just search the market place for Black Marble and TFS Phone Explorer or try the marketplace deep link. We are interested to hear your thoughts 
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When trying to create a new Team Project on TFS2010 from a client PC I got the following error
Event Description: TF30162: Task "UploadStructure" from Group "Classification" failed
Exception Type: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.PcwException
Inner Exception Details:
Exception Message: TF205029: No catalog resource type exists with the following identifier: 41c8b6db-39ec-49db-9db8-0760e836bfbe. (type CatalogResourceTypeDoesNotExistException)
However if I did the create on the TFS console all was fine.
Turned out the problem was due to the caching done by Team Explorer in Visual Studio. Exiting the copy of VS2010 on the client and reloading it fixed the problem as the updated team process settings will cached locally.
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Next Tuesday lunchtime (12th Apr 2011 1pm) I will be doing a webcast on on ‘Lab Management and Automated Build’. I will be looking at the build options in TFS and also how they can be extended with Lab Management.
The event is free to attend you just need to register at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-gb/visual-studio-events
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Whist recently installing a TFS 2010 system onto a single box server, that was also a domain controller, I had a problem that though everything seemed in order I could not view my reporting services based reports in either SharePoint or directly from the http://myserver/reports interface.
During the installation I had verified I had the correct password for my [domain]\tfsreports account used to run the reports. If went to the http://myserver/reports page and edited the TFS2010ReportsDs or TFS2010OlapReportDS and tried to test the [domain]\tfsreports login it failed. However, if I swapped to the [domain]\administrator all was fine and my reports worked.
So what was the issue?
The key point is that the server, as it is a PDC, would only allow limited accounts to login to the server console. The actual Reporting Services web services were running as a named domain account (you cannot use Network Service and like on a PDC), but it seems that the connection by the [domain]\tfsreports account is considered the same as a login via the login screen as far as security systems are concerned.
The immediate fix was to make sure the [domain]\tfsreports user was in a group listed in the “Allow log on locally". To check this
- Run gpedit.msc
- Expand Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies
- Click on User Rights Assignment
- Ensure that "Allow log on locally" includes user required, or that the user is in one of the listed groups
Now I am not sure this is the end of story, I am sure I can waste loads of time to find out exactly the minimum security settings needed, but this is an adequate solution for no for me.
