The most common operation here is to set up a new VM for Azure pipelines; we try to make that operation as easy as possible. It should take all of three steps, assuming the machine is already set up (or read these instructions for how to set up a machine):

Create a new vagrant box
Create a new agent pool
Setup and run the vagrant VM
Update azure-pipelines.yml and azure-pipelines-osx.yml to point to the new macOS pool.

Creating a new Vagrant box

Whenever we want to install updated versions of the command line tools, or of macOS, we need to create a new vagrant box. This is pretty easy, but the results of the creation are not public, since we're concerned about licensing. However, if you're sure you're following Apple's licensing, you can set up your own vagrant boxes that are the same as ours by doing the following:

You'll need some prerequisites:

An Xcode installer - you can get this from Apple's developer website, although you'll need to sign in first: https://developer.apple.com/downloads

If you're updating the CI pool, make sure you update macOS.

First, you'll need to create a base VM; this is where you determine what version of macOS is installed. Follow the Parallels process for creating a macOS VM:

Get a machine with matching version of Parallels.

If you haven't already, install Vagrant and vagrant-parallels:

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
$ brew install hashicorp/tap/hashicorp-vagrant
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-parallels

Update your MacOS host.
Run parallels, and select 'Other Options' -> 'Install macOS 13.5.2 Using the Recovery Partition' (version number to change :))
Install MacOS like you would on real hardware.
- Apple ID: 'Set Up Later' / Skip
- Account name: vagrant
- Account password: vagrant
Install Parallels Tools
Shut down the VM
Open Parallels Control Center, right click the VM, and make the following edits:
- 12 processors
- 24000 MB of memory

Once it's finished installing, make sure to turn on the SSH server. Open System Preferences, then go to Sharing > Remote Login, and turn it on. You'll then want to add the vagrant SSH keys to the VM's vagrant user. Open the terminal application and run the following:

$ # basic stuff
$ date | sudo tee '/etc/vagrant_box_build_time'
$ printf 'vagrant\tALL=(ALL)\tNOPASSWD:\tALL\n' | sudo tee -a '/etc/sudoers.d/vagrant'
$ sudo chmod 0440 '/etc/sudoers.d/vagrant'
$ # then install vagrant keys
$ mkdir -p ~/.ssh
$ curl -fsSL 'https://raw.github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub' >~/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Now, let's package the VM into a base box. (The following instructions are adapted from these official instructions).

Shut down the VM cleanly. On the host, run the following commands:

$ cd ~/Parallels
$ echo '{ "provider": "parallels" }' >metadata.json
$ prl_disk_tool compact --hdd ./<name of VM>.pvm/harddisk.hdd
$ tar zcvf <name-of-box>.box ./metadata.json ./<name of VM>.pvm
$ rm ./metadata.json

This will create a box file which contains all the necessary data.

$ vagrant box add <name-of-box>.box --name <name-of-box>

Then, we'll create the final box, which contains all the necessary programs for doing CI work. Copy Vagrantfile-box.rb as Vagrantfile into a new directory. Edit the config.vm.box line to . Into that same directory, download the Xcode command line tools dmg, typically from https://developer.apple.com/download/all/ , and name it clt.dmg. Then, run the following in that directory:

$ vagrant up
$ vagrant package
$ vagrant destroy

This will create a package.box, which is the box file for the base VM. Once you've created this box, log in to the Azure Portal, and upload the box to vcpkg-image-minting/vcpkgvagrantboxes/boxes. (You might need to use scp to copy the box to a machine that can see the Portal)

Once you've done that, add the software versions under VM Software Versions.

VM Software Versions

2023-09-11
- macOS: 13.5
- Xcode CLTs: 14.3.1
2022-02-04 (minor update to 2022-01-03)
- macOS: 12.1
- Xcode CLTs: 13.2

Creating a New Azure Agent Pool

When updating the macOS machines to a new version, you'll need to create a new agent pool for the machines to join. The standard for this is to name it PrOsx-YYYY-MM-DD, with YYYY-MM-DD the day that the process is started.

In order to create a new agent pool, go to the vcpkg/public project; go to Project settings, then go to Agent pools under Pipelines. Add a new self-hosted pool, name it as above, and make certain to check the box for "Grant access permission to all pipelines".

Once you've done this, you are done; you can start adding new machines to the pool!

Running the VM

First, make sure that your software is up to date, first by checking in

macOS system settings
Parallels' UI
homebrew:
```
$ brew update
$ brew upgrade
```

If this machine has been used before, you might have to remove an existing boxes:

$ cd ~/vagrant/vcpkg-ec-mac
$ vagrant halt
$ vagrant destroy
$ cd ~
$ rm -rf ~/vagrant
$ mkdir ~/vagrant

grab a PAT, mint a SAS token to vcpkg-image-minting/vcpkgvagrantboxes/boxes, and pull the box:

$ vagrant box list
$ vagrant box remove <any boxes listed by previous command>
$ vagrant box add 'https://vcpkgvagrantboxes.blob.core.windows.net/boxes/<name of box>.box?<SAS token>' --name <name of box>

Copy the contents of Vagrantfile-vm.rb to ~/vagrant/Vagrantfile, and edit the values at the top to match this particular machine:

machine_name
box
azure_agent_url should be changed to the latest version
agent_pool
pat

Then:

$ cd ~/vagrant
$ vagrant up

If the vagrant up fails you might need to vagrant halt and rerun from within the KVM as sometimes over SSH this fails.

Getting an Azure Pipelines PAT

Personal Access Tokens are an important part of this process, and they are fairly easy to generate. On ADO, under the correct project (in vcpkg's case, "vcpkg"), click on the "User Settings" icon, then go to "Personal access tokens". It is the icon to the left of your user icon, in the top right corner.

Then, create a new token, give it a name, make sure it expires quickly, and give it a custom defined scope that includes the "Agent pools: Read & manage" permission (you'll need to "Show all scopes" to access this). You can now copy this token and use it to allow machines to join.

Setting up a new macOS machine

Install Parallels

Install Homebrew

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
$ brew install hashicorp/tap/hashicorp-vagrant
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-parallels

README.md

vcpkg-eg-mac VMs

Table of Contents

Basic Usage