Into ALM with TFS/VSTS

During a trial-migration of TFS, I typically prepare a lot of command-line tools to run some background update processes. Instead of writing little C# command-line applications in Visual Studio, I’m moving more and more away from Visual Studio and do stuff via PowerShell.

For a migration upgrade from TFS 2010 to TFS 2013, I have to deal with an update of the Build Controller to a new build machine/server. For a Team Project Collection of 100+ Team Projects and lots of build definitions, this is not something you want to do manually or delegate to all involved dev teams.

Instead of having to start from zero, I found this interesting post from Daniel Mann which does exactly what I want: updating the Build Controller from PowerShell via the TFS API. Except, it does it specifically for one dedicated Team Project.

So, the PowerShell script only needed a bit of tweaking to fetch all available Team Projects via the ListAllProjects method of the ICommonStructureService interface.

param(
[Parameter(Mandatory)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[string]
$TfsUrl,
[Parameter(Mandatory)]
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[string]
$NewBuildController,
[Switch]
$WhatIf
)

Function SetBuildControllerForTeamProject($TeamProject, $BuildController, $WhatIf)
{
$buildDefinitions = $buildClient.QueryBuildDefinitions($TeamProject)
$buildDefinitions | % {
Write-Host " >> Checking Build Definition" $_.Name
Write-Host " >>" $_.Name "is using" $_.BuildController.Name

if ($_.BuildController.Uri -ne $controller.Uri) {
Write-Host " >>> Setting" $_.Name "to use $BuildController"
if (!$WhatIf) {
$_.BuildController = $controller
$_.Save()
}
}
else {
Write-Host " >> Build controller is already set. Taking no action."
}
}
}

add-type -Path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.dll'
add-type -Path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll'
add-type -Path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.dll'

$tfsUri = new-object System.Uri $TfsUrl
$tpc = new-object Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.TfsTeamProjectCollection $tfsUri

$buildClient = $tpc.GetService('Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.IBuildServer')
$commonStructure = $tpc.GetService('Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server.ICommonStructureService')
$controller = $buildClient.GetBuildController($NewBuildController)

$allTeamProjectInfo = $commonStructure.ListAllProjects()
$sortedTeamProjectInfo = $allTeamProjectInfo | sort-object { $_.Name }

foreach($teamProjectInfo in $sortedTeamProjectInfo)
{
Write-Host '************** Scanning Build Definitions in Team Project' $teamProjectInfo.Name
SetBuildControllerForTeamProject $teamProjectInfo.Name $NewBuildController $WhatIf
Write-Host ''
}

You may also use the Community TFS Build Manager (Visual Studio 2013 extension) to modify a number of Build Definitions in bulk, but for my migration scenario, I preferred to have a PowerShell script. Having this script also allows me to modify other settings in the Build Definitions … for example the Build Drop Location.