TFS Build Server gives service unavailable (503) message

Question

I recently installed TFS 2015 on a new machine. I want to configure the same machine as our build server but i have massive trouble doing this. I neither can configure the new vNext-system nor can i configure an "old-style" xaml build server. As the build account i want to use the NT AUTHORITY\Network Service. For the xaml configuration i set "Execute service as" to NT AUTHORITY\Network Service and use the same account for the connection to the team foundation server.

But when i add a new controller and want to browse to custom assemblies, i get a "service unavailable" error. So i decided to test without the custom assemblies, added an build agent and created a new build-definition for a simple test project. I added a build to the queue and wait. Nothing happenend (in the build window) until after about 50 seconds an error was shown in the build window: Service Unavailable (Typ VssServiceResponseException).

Same for the new vNext builds. I downloaded the agent.zip from the web-frontend, opened the powershell and started configuring the build-agent. After waiting some minutes, the configuration aborted with.... service unavailable.

So i decided to test something different : instead of using the FQHN, i used localhost and - tataaa - it starts the agent, which is also shown green in the web-frontends agent-tab. So i created a new vNext-Build-Definition and added it to the queue, but it does not start, but shows the message : "waiting for console output from an agent".

So i decided to test it on a different pc : i downloaded the agent to my laptop and installed it, configuring the agent with it's FQHN. Without any problems the agent was started and i was able to start and run a build.

So the question is : Why am i'm not able to configure the build service on the tfs. I guess it has something to do with permissions, but i don't now, what permissions the network service account should have. I also tried it with a local account, but with the same result.

Any hints are very appreciated. Thanks in advance.

BTW: I can ping the FQHN from the command-line.

This is the output, after trying to add a vNext-agent via the powershell.

UPDATE: I used the the servers IP-address instead of its name and it suddenly worked.

Answer 1

Take XAML build for example, to configure a Team Foundation Build Service, you must be a member of both the Windows Administrators security group on the server on which you are configuring Team Foundation Build Service and the Project Collection Administrators group on TFS.

According to the second paragraph, you can configure build controller and add build agent. Before queuing a build, you need to make sure the build controller and agent are in Ready status, sometimes relevant services are not yet fully available when you newly configure them or restart them.

Also, you may try to remove build service feature, and reconfigure it, to see whether you can solve the issue.