ALERT: New Build Agent Requirements for v24

[waldo1001]

From the release of BC v24, you need PowerShell 7 and DotNet 8.
Note: even if your solutions do not use BC24 yet, it's a good practice to already install the below, as some steps (like the ExtensionAPI) will need it anyway!

More info:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-on-windows?view=powershell-7.4
• https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/8.0

Direct links to exe and MSI:

• https://download.visualstudio.microsoft.com/download/pr/9e753d68-7701-4ddf-b358-79d64e776945/2a58564c6d0779a7b443a692c520782f/dotnet-sdk-8.0.203-win-x64.exe
• https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/download/v7.4.1/PowerShell-7.4.1-win-x64.msi

Install both, reboot, done!

Known issues:
The property blocksymbolsonly cannot be used because of the combination "DevOps Step" and "PowerShell" doesn't allow this to be used. We are looking for solutions.

[Arthurvdv]

Will these be automagically installed on the agents hosted by ALOps?

[waldo1001]

Will these be automagically installed on the agents hosted by ALOps?

Already there for quite some time ;-)

[epernst]

After installing PS7 to the agent, I'm getting other issues - not related to ALOps.
According to Freddy, then PS7 is not required on the agents/hosts by BcContainerHelper - #3527.

How come you need it on the agent for ALOps?

[waldo1001]

Hi Erik,

Please define "other issues" .. ? What issues? Are you re-using the agent for other things than DevOps tasks?

Remember, ALOps is building blocks that discovers "stuff" for easier configuration. When ALOps doesn't have context of "versions", we'll take the latest version, which is v24, which means ps7 🤷‍♂️.

Also, the statement "in your case, you don't need ps7" just doesn't work with the majority of ALOps customers: partners need to be able to support multiple versions, meaning build agents need ps7 🤷‍♂️.

We're open to discuss to improve ..
So - create an issue, share your yaml (repro scenario), output and all we need to improve the situation: may be we can give scope to steps that don't have it .. but then we need to know what is the issue.

[waldo1001]

Also -

Just as a suggestion - since v14 is a hopelessly unsupported version with many differences on the back end .. can't you set up a second agent, and split pipelines for both versions?

[epernst]

The "other issues" were not related to neither PS7 or .NET8. These are problems caused by the upgrade from BCCH 6.0.15 to 6.0.17, which basically happened while I were installing PS7/.NET8.

Setting up a different pipeline for v14 wouldn't help us much, when the PS7/.NET8 requirement to install it on the agent/container host is not a Microsoft (BCCH) requirement for neither v14 or later. The requirement from MS only relates to onprem installs (without containers) and V24, as MS already installs this inside the BC24 container.

So, I don't think that many ALOps customers would need it, if it wasn't because we like to use ALOps.