Azure-pipelines-agent: Agent can't run on x86 machine

[NikolayKash]

Agent version and platform

v2.111.1


Windows 8.1 x32

VSTS type and version

VisualStudio.com

What's not working?

There is no version for x86

Agent and Worker's diag log

[NikolayKash]

we need to deploy to windows 8.1 x86 machine and it is impossible with the new machine group approach as it requires to install an agent to a target machine

[chrispat]

The deployment group feature is really targeted for server based applications and not for client app deployment. Can you help us understand why you need to target windows 8.1 x86.

[NikolayKash]

Hi @chrisrpatterson .

we have a solution which we deploy to two levels: Back-end servers and Clients.

Our clients are windows 8.1 x32, we can't use x64 as our client app linked to some old components which runs only on x32.

We are using now machine groups under Test hub but they are going to be removed.
Our deploy process is based on tags which allows us to add new machines to be deployed just add it to machine group and mark them with tags.
So our deployment process is machine name agnostic
When machine groups under Test hub will be removed, only new machine group allows to specify tags.

[StarWars999123]

Hi @chrisrpatterson,

I know, its not connected to the machine group request that @NikolayKash mentioned here, but we would also need a deployment to 32bit-Windows 7 for test purposes. The client-system has limited ressources and so it is a 32bit OS.
Why was it not possible to compile a 32bit agent? Can you give us some more insights into the problems you experienced thereby?

[ibrahimsuzer]

We also need this feature as we have many x86 machines we need to deploy. Is it possible to use it by compiling ourselves ? We would like to use it even if it is not supported.

[ChadEQ]

We would also like this feature supported. We have old components we build with that aren't supported on 64 bit. I haven't thoroughly tested, but have successfully built on a 32 bit box using the agent after adding an x86 target (to all of the projects). All test pass as well.

[TingluoHuang]

you can always try to compile yourself.

[ChadEQ]

Yes, but we would prefer it to be supported.

[schenkjan]

Same here, we also have the need to run the build agent on a x86 machine.
Was anyone able to compile it for x86 and can give directions?

[ChadEQ]

Built a working x86 version using the dev.cmd but first changed the win7-x64 target to win10-x68 in dev.sh and the csproj files.

[schenkjan]

Thank you @ChadEQ, your hint helped me to create a x86 build agent.

Unfortunately it still didn't run on my Windows Server 2008 box since .Net Core only supports Windows Server 2008 from R2 onwards :cry:.

[LokiMidgard]

@chrisrpatterson We original testet our client software using Functional Tests. Those are now depricated and so we tried to switching to the proposed replacement Visual Studio Test. This now requires installing the vsts-agent on the test machine. Unfortunalty we test on diffrent Windows versions wit different architectures. After all our client needst to run on all Windows Systems since Windows 7.

Maybe I have overlooked something, but if vsts-agent is not offical supported on x86 machiens how should we run tests on x86 machines? Is there some setting to also run those tests remote like with functional tests?

[LokiMidgard]

I were also able to build it my selfe targeting x86. But in addition I also needed to change externals.sh.

# Download the external tools only for Windows.
if [[ "$PLATFORM" == "windows" ]]; then
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/azcopy/1/azcopy.zip" azcopy
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/pdbstr/1/pdbstr.zip" pdbstr
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/mingit/2.17.1.2/MinGit-2.17.1.2-64-bit.zip" git
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/symstore/1/symstore.zip" symstore
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/vstshost/m122_887c6659/vstshost.zip" vstshost
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/vstsom/m122_887c6659/vstsom.zip" vstsom
    acquireExternalTool "$CONTAINER_URL/vswhere/1_0_62/vswhere.zip" vswhere
    acquireExternalTool "$NODE_URL/v${NODE_VERSION}/win-$RUNTIME/node.exe" node/bin
    acquireExternalTool "$NODE_URL/v${NODE_VERSION}/win-$RUNTIME/node.lib" node/bin
    acquireExternalTool "https://dist.nuget.org/win-x86-commandline/v3.3.0/nuget.exe" nuget
fi

$RUNTIME will be replaced with x86 or x64. I think in theory MinGit must also be replaced, but my build did not use git and there were no 32-bit version to download at the $CONTAINER_URL. So it seems to work for me regardless.

[StefanKert]

We have the same requirement as some of the preposters. We have to run tests on a 32 bit Windows 7 and since the Functional Test tasks are deprecated we thought about installing the agent on each of these machines. Since it is not supported is there any other (recommended) way to run tests on these kind of machines?

[TingluoHuang]

1844

We add x86 support while consume dotnet core 2.1.

here is the RC build.
https://github.com/Microsoft/azure-pipelines-agent/releases/tag/v2.141.0

we are in the process of validation will release to service soon, i am closing this issue.