VSTS Agent Auto Update fails to update

4
votes

Reading the VSTS documentation about Build and Release Agents, that says:

  1. Each agent automatically updates itself when it runs a task that requires a newer version of the agent. But if you want to manually update some agents, right-click the pool, and then click Update all agents.

That doesn't work for me.

I tried to "right-click the pool, and then click Update all agents", the status change to "Downloading version ....". But I can't see any change with the agent.

Every time, I have to uninstall the agent, download the new version and reinstall it again. I've checked directory permissions and everything looks fine. The agents are installed on a Windows Server 2012 x64.

Any idea?

2
azure-devopsazure-pipelines
Does your build agents run as service or run in interactive mode? And as soon as the status change to "Downloading version ...", it will take several minutes to download the agent and then install the agent. How long did you wait on that status? – Eddie Chen - MSFT
Did it get resolved? – Chaitanya Gadkari
On the other hand, is there a way to auto schedule the agent updates, like check for it periodically? – Chaitanya Gadkari
Unfortunately not. I gave up and for some time I decided to upgrade manually. – Danilo Reis

2 Answers

1
votes

It takes some minutes (per to the environment, such as network) to update the agent and will be restarted automatically, then you can check the Agent.Version value in Capabilities.

0
votes

Are your agents in a machine behind a proxy?

In this case, you need to configure the proxy:

  1. Add a file named .proxy in the root folder where the agent is installed
  2. Write as content the proxy address to be used, for example http://192.168.0.1:1234
  3. If your proxy needs authentication, you must set these environment variables:
    • set VSTS_HTTP_PROXY_USERNAME=user
    • set VSTS_HTTP_PROXY_PASSWORD=password
  4. Restart the agent service to apply the change

The agent should now be able to connect to internet and download to apply the update.