• Roslyn Analyser backwards compatibility

    I recently created a Roslyn Code Analyzer project in Visual Studio 2019 16.6, but discovered that the package references used by the template aren’t suitable if you need the analyzer to run against older projects.

    Using the latest template might result in an error like this:

    error NU1202: Package Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Workspaces 3.3.1 is not compatible with net45 (.NETFramework,Version=v4.5). Package Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Workspaces 3.3.1 supports: netstandard2.0 (.NETStandard,Version=v2.0)
    

    So I spun up an instance of Visual Studio 2017 (on an Azure VM) to compare the projects.

    Here’s the analyzer csproj (after I did minor package updates)

    <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    
      <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netstandard1.3</TargetFramework>
        <IncludeBuildOutput>false</IncludeBuildOutput>
        <GeneratePackageOnBuild>True</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
      </PropertyGroup>
    
      <PropertyGroup>
        <PackageId>Analyzer2</PackageId>
        <PackageVersion>1.0.0.0</PackageVersion>
        <Authors>dgardiner</Authors>
        <PackageLicenseUrl>http://LICENSE_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</PackageLicenseUrl>
        <PackageProjectUrl>http://PROJECT_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</PackageProjectUrl>
        <PackageIconUrl>http://ICON_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</PackageIconUrl>
        <RepositoryUrl>http://REPOSITORY_URL_HERE_OR_DELETE_THIS_LINE</RepositoryUrl>
        <PackageRequireLicenseAcceptance>false</PackageRequireLicenseAcceptance>
        <Description>Analyzer2</Description>
        <PackageReleaseNotes>Summary of changes made in this release of the package.</PackageReleaseNotes>
        <Copyright>Copyright</Copyright>
        <PackageTags>Analyzer2, analyzers</PackageTags>
        <NoPackageAnalysis>true</NoPackageAnalysis>
      </PropertyGroup>
    
      <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Analyzers" Version="2.6.1" PrivateAssets="all" />
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Workspaces" Version="2.9.0" PrivateAssets="all" />
        <PackageReference Update="NETStandard.Library" PrivateAssets="all" />
      </ItemGroup>
    
      <ItemGroup>
        <Compile Update="Resources.Designer.cs" DesignTime="True" AutoGen="True" DependentUpon="Resources.resx" />
        <EmbeddedResource Update="Resources.resx" Generator="ResXFileCodeGenerator" LastGenOutput="Resources.Designer.cs" />
      </ItemGroup>
    
      <ItemGroup>
        <None Update="tools\*.ps1" CopyToOutputDirectory="Always" Pack="true" PackagePath="" />
        <None Include="$(OutputPath)\$(AssemblyName).dll" Pack="true" PackagePath="analyzers/dotnet/cs" Visible="false" />
      </ItemGroup>
    
    </Project>
    

    and the test csproj

    <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    
      <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>
      </PropertyGroup>
    
      <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Analyzers" Version="2.6.1" />
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Workspaces" Version="2.9.0" />
        <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.9.2" />
        <PackageReference Include="MSTest.TestAdapter" Version="2.1.1" />
        <PackageReference Include="MSTest.TestFramework" Version="2.1.1" />
      </ItemGroup>
    
      <ItemGroup>
        <ProjectReference Include="..\Analyzer2\Analyzer2.csproj" />
      </ItemGroup>
    
    </Project>
    

    The older test project also contains helper and verifier classes (the equivalent of these have moved to Nuget packages in 2019 templates).

    The older projects still compile and work in 2019. Obviously if you’re using a newer C# language / SDK version then using the newer template is preferred.

    If you’re looking for a nice overview of analyzers, you might want to check out the recording of Jason Bock’s presentation ‘Using the Compiler API in Real World Scenarios’

  • Docker performance on Azure Pipelines agents

    I’ve noticed some interesting variations in build times on Azure Pipelines related to using Docker to build and/or run containers. I tracked down the issue to excessive time downloading docker images, so I started investigating whether there’s ways to cache or optimise the docker pull steps.

    So what to do?

    Self-hosted agents

    First off, if you can run your own build agent you’re probably not going to see these problems. Having a dedicated agent means that Docker caches all images locally and can reuse them for subsequent build jobs. That’s issue with Microsoft-hosted agents - you get a brand new agent for each job - there’s no possibility to persist any changes, so the value of Docker’s image caching is reduced.

    Cache Task

    First off I did some research into whether the Cache Task could be used as a way to more efficiently restore the Docker image cache. I think the answer is probably ‘no’. I’ve started using this task for another build involving NuGet packages, and in that case it makes the dotnet restore step much faster, but I think the problem with Docker is the files are stored in various places, so trying to cache C:\ProgramData\Docker\image\windowsfilter\layerdb\sha256 and/or C:\ProgramData\Docker\windowsfilter didn’t seem to have any effect.

    Docker Save/Load

    There’s a GitHub issue with some discussion about using docker save/load and I can confirm the comments on the issue that this did not make things faster (in fact it made things slower).

    Here’s an example - a pipeline that’s saving 4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019 in the cache.

    pool:
      vmImage: 'windows-latest'
    
    variables:
      dockerCache: $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)\.dockercache
    
    steps:
    
    - script: docker images --digests
      displayName: Docker images
    
    - task: Cache@2
      inputs:
        key: 'nuget | "$(Agent.OS)" | azure-pipelines-docker-cache.yml'
        path: '$(dockerCache)'
        cacheHitVar: DOCKER_CACHE_HIT
      displayName: 1. Cache Task
    
    - script: |
        if exist $(dockerCache)\4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019.tar docker load -i $(dockerCache)/4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019.tar
      displayName: 2. Docker Load
    
    - script: docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
      displayName: 3. Docker Pull
    
    - script: |
        if not exist $(dockerCache) mkdir $(dockerCache)
        docker image save -o $(dockerCache)/4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019.tar mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
      condition: ne(variables['DOCKER_CACHE_HIT'], 'true')
      displayName: 4. Docker Save
    
    Build 1. Cache Task 2. Docker Load 3. Docker Pull 4. Docker Save 5. Cache Save Job time (total)
    Build 1 (cache miss) 00:00:03 00:00:01 00:08:04 00:17:06 00:06:09 00:31:50
    Build 2 (cache hit) 00:05:45 00:10:56 00:00:03 00:00:01 00:00:03 00:17:15

    So yes, the second build was faster, but both of these are way slower than a build that had no caching at all (cf just the first docker pull at 00:08:04). So that’s no help.

    Buildctl

    The issue also mentions using buildctl, which is part of BuildKit. The trouble is I’m working with Windows Containers and BuildKit currently supported with those. If you’re working with Linux containers, this does sound promising.

    Existing images on the agent

    It occurred to me that shouldn’t Docker be making use of some existing images that are shipped on the hosted agent. The software and tools pre-installed on each agent is documented. For example, the Windows 2019 agent. This is not a static list, the agents will be updated over time as patches and updates are issued for both the OS and applications.

    You can see the list of pre-installed images listed, or just to confirm, you can run docker images --digests in a pipeline step to confirm. Here’s the output I got which matches the documentation.

    REPOSITORY                                   TAG                              DIGEST                                                                    IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
    mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet    4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019   sha256:dbf97206264133cdef6b49b06fa5d4028482845547c2858a086b5ce5c4513f00   8280f73a9be1        9 days ago          6.87GB
    mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/runtime   4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019   sha256:bf47599181ae3877ec680428a99f76d43ffb26251155a6f0b0b76f4e70304c26   bcd511658148        9 days ago          6.51GB
    mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore         ltsc2019                         sha256:2629881183feda906459163cb58fbdbc001bea76a92b2dc4695c8e5b14f747ae   561b89eac394        2 weeks ago         3.7GB
    mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver         1809                             sha256:8e6807c213b52405fec8a861e0b766055ba9d4f941267adf49ee67526755b63a   9e7d556b2b51        2 weeks ago         251MB
    microsoft/aspnetcore-build                   1.0-2.0                          sha256:9ecc7c5a8a7a11dca5f08c860165646cb30d084606360a3a72b9cbe447241c0c   5d8be0910d37        21 months ago       3.99GB
    

    Out of curiosity, I added a docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019 step to the pipeline. Now that should be super-quick as you can see that image is already cached. But it wasn’t! It too almost 8 minutes.

    docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
    ========================== Starting Command Output ===========================
    "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe" /D /E:ON /V:OFF /S /C "CALL "D:\a\_temp\d190c5d8-262b-4a70-9c04-216b9ac2b165.cmd""
    4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019: Pulling from dotnet/framework/aspnet
    4612f6d0b889: Already exists
    eed17b4baac2: Pulling fs layer
    565c587c68c2: Pulling fs layer
    c732b140f2ad: Pulling fs layer
    84ae672f9921: Pulling fs layer
    cd04865d4563: Pulling fs layer
    7c75100d3a4d: Pulling fs layer
    bea74093ac0e: Pulling fs layer
    6353217bf85b: Pulling fs layer
    ca397bdd5ee0: Pulling fs layer
    ef8702482a58: Pulling fs layer
    84ae672f9921: Waiting
    cd04865d4563: Waiting
    7c75100d3a4d: Waiting
    bea74093ac0e: Waiting
    6353217bf85b: Waiting
    ca397bdd5ee0: Waiting
    ef8702482a58: Waiting
    c732b140f2ad: Verifying Checksum
    c732b140f2ad: Download complete
    565c587c68c2: Verifying Checksum
    565c587c68c2: Download complete
    eed17b4baac2: Verifying Checksum
    eed17b4baac2: Download complete
    cd04865d4563: Verifying Checksum
    cd04865d4563: Download complete
    7c75100d3a4d: Verifying Checksum
    7c75100d3a4d: Download complete
    6353217bf85b: Verifying Checksum
    6353217bf85b: Download complete
    ca397bdd5ee0: Verifying Checksum
    ca397bdd5ee0: Download complete
    84ae672f9921: Verifying Checksum
    84ae672f9921: Download complete
    ef8702482a58: Verifying Checksum
    ef8702482a58: Download complete
    bea74093ac0e: Verifying Checksum
    bea74093ac0e: Download complete
    eed17b4baac2: Pull complete
    565c587c68c2: Pull complete
    c732b140f2ad: Pull complete
    84ae672f9921: Pull complete
    cd04865d4563: Pull complete
    7c75100d3a4d: Pull complete
    bea74093ac0e: Pull complete
    6353217bf85b: Pull complete
    ca397bdd5ee0: Pull complete
    ef8702482a58: Pull complete
    Digest: sha256:3579480a92f0795c37d6e551139b431eb7cafe798d257c7ce279e10adbd0cb6d
    Status: Downloaded newer image for mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
    mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019
    

    Why is it pulling all those layers? When does mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019 != mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8-windowsservercore-ltsc2019?

    I then took a look at the Docker Hub page for ASP.NET. It lists the same tag, though interestingly the ‘last modified’ date was 19th of May (4 days ago). Compare that with the docker images list above - it says ‘9 days ago’ - and on closer examination the sha256 values are different too!

    So I’m pretty sure that’s the problem - there’s a lag between when a new image is published on Docker Hub and when that image will be included in the current hosted agent VM.

    Image architecture

    One other thing to watch out for. Notice that the one of the images listed on the agent is mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2019? There’s different ‘architecture’ options for container images. For Windows Containers, these are usually either ‘multiarch’ or ‘amd64’. For example see both listed for Windows Server Core. The trap is that these are two different images. If you specify the ltsc2019-amd64 tag, that won’t match the image on the agent.

    Possible solutions

    So that seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Because we’re either explicitly doing a docker pull or we’re depending on images that were built with a different version of the base image, we’re experiencing a cache miss and paying the penalty by needing to download an entirely new image.

    I think the problem can be managed by ensuring that images are built against the current base images on the agent. If you’re building images in different pipelines and then storing those in a private registry (Azure Container Registry for example), then you’re probably going to need to refresh those as soon as the agent images are updated.

    Following the releases in the GitHub Actions virtual-environments repo appears to be the easiest way to know when the agent software is changing. Yes, GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines share the same agent configurations.

    If you really need to fix on a version, don’t just rely on the tags - you’re best bet then is to reference the sha256. That way there’s no ambiguity. But be aware you’ll more than likely end up referring to an image that isn’t cached. In that case if build time matters, then using a self-hosted agent is probably the best strategy.

  • Sharing Git credentials with WSL2

    I’m using WSL2 to manage my blog, but I noticed each time I went to run git push it was asking for my credentials again. Why wasn’t it remembering from last time? Turns out there’s ways of storing git credentials, but even better, you can share the credentials you already have in Windows.

    As outlined in this Stack Overflow answer, assuming you have Git Credential Manager installed in Windows (and you probably do with a recent install of the Git command line tools), then run this in WSL2:

    git config --global credential.helper "/mnt/c/Program\\ Files/Git/mingw64/libexec/git-core/git-credential-manager.exe"
    

    Note the extra escape to handle the space in Program Files. With that set, git push just worked.

    Update 2022-07-08

    See Git Credential Manager setup for newer instructions on how to do this.