Every build runs on a fresh virtual machine which is not shared with other builds and the state of which is not preserved between consequent builds. After the build is finished its virtual machine is decommissioned.
AppVeyor runs builds on two build clouds:
Hyper-V cloud is a primary build cloud hosted in LiquidWeb’s Lansing, Michigan data center. It is a pool of pre-heated virtual machines, so, generally, builds start faster on Hyper-V cloud.
Google Compute Engine (GCE) cloud is a secondary build cloud running in Google Cloud “Central US” zone. Builds are routed to GCE cloud when they use a custom build worker image not available on Hyper-V cloud. GCE cloud is also used as a failover solution for Hyper-V cloud.
It usually takes a build around 3-4 minutes to start on GCE environment as this is the time required to provision and boot up build virtual machine.
There might be build scenarios that cannot be covered by AppVeyor build workers. For example, some proprietary software should be pre-installed to support your builds or you need more powerful build VMs or private network access.
AppVeyor allows running builds on your own cloud:
In this scenario AppVeyor service provides UI, orchestration, artifacts storage and NuGet feeds while AppVeyor build agents run on your virtual machines. Private build clouds can be enabled upon request. Please let us know if you are interested.
| Build cloud / configuration | CPU | Memory | Nested virtualization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyper-V | 2 cores | 6 GB | - |
| Hyper-V "4-cores" | 4 cores | 7 GB | Enabled |
| GCE | 2 cores | 7.5 GB | - |
IP addresses assigned to build VMs in Google data center (us-central1 region):
104.197.110.30
104.197.145.181
IP addresses assigned to build VMs in LiquidWeb data center (Lansing, MI):
67.225.164.38
67.225.164.41
67.225.164.53
67.225.164.54
67.225.164.96
67.225.164.101
67.225.164.102
67.225.164.136
67.225.165.19
67.225.165.66
67.225.165.168
67.225.165.171
67.225.165.175
67.225.165.183
67.225.165.185
67.225.165.193
67.225.165.198
67.225.165.200
67.225.165.215
IP addresses assigned to build VMs in AWS data center (US West (Oregon) region):
34.208.156.238
34.209.164.53
34.216.199.18
52.43.29.82
52.89.56.249
54.200.227.141
IP addresses assigned to build VMs in Azure data center (West US region):
13.83.108.89
IP addresses of AppVeyor macOS VMs:
162.221.92.98
199.38.85.75
199.38.81.89
199.102.237.23
IP address of AppVeyor Cloud in Azure data center (West US region) - when deploying with “Environments”:
138.91.141.243
The full list of IP addresses is maintained in a JSON file that can be used in automation scenarios.
Build worker image is a template used to provision a virtual machine for your build. Physical implementation of the template depends on the build cloud platform and can be a master VHD for Hyper-V and Azure, snapshot or image for GCE or AWS.
AppVeyor provides these “standard” build worker images:
Visual Studio 2022Visual Studio 2019Visual Studio 2017Visual Studio 2015Visual Studio 2013Ubuntu or Ubuntu1804 - Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver)Ubuntu1604 - Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus)Ubuntu2004 - Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)macos - macOS 10.15 “Catalina”macos-mojave - macOS 10.14 “Mojave”Below you can find the list of pre-installed software for all images.
If the build configuration does not specify build worker image then Visual Studio 2015 image is used.
You can select a different image on AppVeyor UI (“Environment” tab of project settings) or in appveyor.yml:
image: Visual Studio 2019
to build on Linux:
image: Ubuntu
or to build on macOS:
image: macOS
Please note that
appveyor.ymlhas precedence over UI settings, so whenappveyor.ymlexists the image should be specified in YAML, not on UI.
image is first class dimension for build matrix, therefore the following YAML configuration will work (and will create 6 build jobs):
image:
- Visual Studio 2019
- Ubuntu
- macOS
environment:
matrix:
- MY_VAR: value1
- MY_VAR: value2
Also for some combinations it makes sense to use APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE “tweak” environment variable, so this configuration will also work (and will create 3 build jobs):
environment:
matrix:
- APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: Visual Studio 2019
MY_VAR: value1
- APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: Ubuntu
MY_VAR: value3
- APPVEYOR_BUILD_WORKER_IMAGE: macOS
MY_VAR: value4
AppVeyor team regularly (once in 2-3 weeks) updates build worker images by installing new or updating existing software.
The history of build worker image updates can be found here.
Before rolling out an image update we perform its extensive testing. However, not all usage scenarios can be covered by our automated tests and sometimes even a smallest change in the image can break someone’s build. If that happened - no worries - you’re covered! We provide an access to “last good” versions of build worker images from previous update:
Previous Visual Studio 2022Previous Visual Studio 2019Previous Visual Studio 2017Previous Visual Studio 2015Previous Visual Studio 2013Previous Ubuntu, which is the same as Previous Ubuntu1804Previous Ubuntu1804Previous Ubuntu1604Previous macOSPrevious macOS-MojaveYou can use those images to unblock your builds while we are working together with you to understand the root cause and do a fix by the next image update.
The following pages contain the up-to-date list of software pre-installed on build worker VMs: