[macOS] Add MacOS Big Sur for Azure Pipelines Hosted agents

[firaxis]

Hi!

I wanted to ask, do you have any plans to add macOS 11 support on your hosted agents ? GHA have it in preview, and we would like too.

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Update from repo owners: Hello everyone!

Just an update on this thread. Starting from today, macOS 11 is publicly available for all Azure DevOps users 🚀 You should specify macos-11 image spec to use the new image. macos-latest image spec still points to the macos-10.15. We will notify about switching macos-latest later this year.

Thank you for everyone for your patience. We will work to make sure that MacOS 12 is available faster.

Note: Availability of macOS 11 in Azure DevOps doesn't mean that the new image will be available in App Center immediately. App Center team has to perform some work on their side to make sure that new Xcode versions are available in App Center Build.

[maxim-lobanov]

Hello, Thank you for raising feature request! We definitely have a plan to add MacOS 11.0 to Azure DevOps but unfortunately can't provide ETA right now. Let's keep this issue opened and we will post update as soon as we have

[Jon889]

Is there any update on this?

Also the azure devops documentation points to here for the available hosts, but Big Sur is only available on GitHub Actions, and there's no mention of any difference between Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions.

[AlenaSviridenko]

Hi @Jon889 , unfortunately, we still have no ETA on providing Big Sur in Azure DevOps, we are still investigating capacity and infrastructure updates required for it. Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions are different services and not sharing images, you can find the list of agents available for Azure DevOps on Microsoft-hosted agents page.

We will keep you posted with updates, thank you for your patience.

[Jon889]

Thanks, ok I thought there were similar because the Included Software links in the table in that doc link to this repo.

[AlenaSviridenko]

Images that we provide for GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps are the same for the same OS versions, but the set of provided images is different due to the different infrastructure.

[ogrisel]

Beyond 11.1 or 11.0 images running on x86_64 hardware, do you plan to add support for 11.1 or 11.0 images running on arm64 hardware (e.g. Apple Silicon M1) or will we have to rely on cross-compilation to build macos/arm64 software artifacts without being able to run the tests on the CI machine?

[remyjette]

@ogrisel see #2187

[Jon889]

Is there any plans for Big Sur on Azure DevOps? Xcode 12.5 beta says it requires Big Sur, and there are some changes like the improved compilation and SPM caching that would be great to have.

[Jon889]

@AlenaSviridenko can you update us on this?

[Jon889]

@AlenaSviridenko @maxim-lobanov Any update?

[AlenaSviridenko]

Hi @Jon889, sorry for some silence, it is sad to say, but not too many updates. We expect the earliest we can add macOS 11 to AzDO is in April, when we're first able to start adding new capacity, which we still do not have at the moment. Thank you for your patience.

[Jon889]

Thanks @AlenaSviridenko, hopefully it will be roughly when Xcode 12.5 comes out then. Instead of adding more capacity couldn't it replace some macOS 10.15 images? Not really sure why this has been more difficult than when macOS 10.15 came out?

[Jon889]

@AlenaSviridenko Is there any update now that we know iOS 14.5 and Xcode 12.5 will be coming out next week?

We'll be eager to build for iOS 14.5 as well as take advtange of improvements like this:

The build system no longer re-signs the hosting app target when building app-hosted test targets; instead it builds test targets before the app target’s sign task runs. This eliminates an extra codesign task, which speeds up builds for large apps with such test targets. (47322098)

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-12_5-release-notes

[AlenaSviridenko]

Hi 👋, we're working on a plan to get Big Sur added to the hosted pool sometime in June/July, we are still working on hardware infrastructure to be ready. We are aware about stable Xcode 12.5 coming soon and doing everything possible to make macOS 11 ready as soon as possible.

[Jon889]

Thanks @AlenaSviridenko for the update! It’s possible to run the agent on Big Sur on our own hardware right?

[AlenaSviridenko]

Correct, you can use self-hosted runner with Big Sur

[RobinDink]

Any update on this? We need this for Xcode 12.5.

[AngryDuckFTW]

requesting an update on this issue too please.

[AlenaSviridenko]

Hey! Looping in @vijayma for ADO timelines as they are slightly different from the GitHub Actions.

[vijayma]

@ahdbilal is working on a plan to make Bug Sur available to internal customers. We will gradually ramp up the capacity for Big Sur as we reclaim the machines from older versions (10.13 and 10.14). The plan is to have at least a few 10s of machines running with Big Sur by the end of this month. The rollout to all internal accounts may take another week after that.

[AlenaSviridenko]

@vijayma what about public customers? I believe it is mostly them who is asking any timeline on macOS 11 here, because we have other channels for communication with internal customers

[vijayma]

At this time, we do not have a good ETA for external customers on Azure Pipelines. We are waiting for some licensing aspects to be sorted out first.

[Jon889]

Can’t it be the same as GitHub Actions?

[Jon889]

We're almost at WWDC, with a new Xcode and Swift version coming. We currently pay for 20 hosted agents, it's not worth it if we have to wait much longer.

[nor0x]

GitHub Actions is getting macOS 11.0 agents soon (https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/2486#issuecomment-854422862) Can we get an update for AZDO or at least a timeline? We are buildless for quite a while now 😕

[vijayma]

We are working on the logistics for private preview in Azure DevOps. If you are interested in pre-registering for the private preview, please send me an email with the name of your Azure DevOps organization and the # of concurrent jobs you expect to run on macOS-11. We expect this to be available sometime in June.

[kumar505]

We are working on the logistics for private preview in Azure DevOps. If you are interested in pre-registering for the private preview, please send me an email with the name of your Azure DevOps organization and the # of concurrent jobs you expect to run on macOS-11. We expect this to be available sometime in June.

@vijayma Any update on this ? We've requested via email as mentioned, but not received any response. Could you let us know the status pls.

[rmaloney3]

We are working on the logistics for private preview in Azure DevOps. If you are interested in pre-registering for the private preview, please send me an email with the name of your Azure DevOps organization and the # of concurrent jobs you expect to run on macOS-11. We expect this to be available sometime in June.

@vijayma It's now been 10 days since the last update. I sent an email to you around that time and haven't heard a reply. Do you have a more concrete timeline as to when Azure DevOps customers will have access to macOS 11 pipelines? Or at least when the private preview will open up?

[vijayma]

The private preview will open up by the end of this month. We have received a number of requests than what we can safely support during the first phase of the preview. We will go through the requests received so far and respond in the next few days. Thank you for your patience.

[Axemasta]

Xcode 12.5 was release 2 months ago, I'm starting to see failures in my pipelines:

MTOUCH : error MT0180: This version of Xamarin.iOS requires the iOS 14.5 SDK (shipped with Xcode 12.5). 
Either upgrade Xcode to get the required header files or set the managed linker behaviour to Link Framework SDKs Only in your project's iOS Build Options > Linker Behavior (to try to avoid the new APIs).

What is the eta for public release?

[simonbuerger]

Please start planning for macos 12 infrastructure now, it's not like the annual release cycle is unpredictable... It's a little crazy we're all waiting for 11 images when 12 preview will be out soon

[kraigspear]

The question is what will be first, Azure getting Big Sur installed or Xcode Cloud getting released...

[AngryDuckFTW]

The question is what will be first, Azure getting Big Sur installed or Xcode Cloud getting released...

Think its safe to say I will be moving all my company's builds onto Xcode cloud instead of azure, its pretty poor that this is lagging so far behind for a major release that has been out plenty of time now, very disappointing

[simonbuerger]

And the first MacOS 12 public beta is now available...

It'll be in full public release inside 3 or 4 months if history is any indication. Please can we not be still waiting for 11 build agents by then 🙏

[melanchall]

macOS 11 has changes in some APIs and I'm not able to test those changes within Azure Pipelines due to no the image. I'm on Windows and it's pretty inconvenient to use virtual machines or so to test my code. You wrote

we're working on a plan to get Big Sur added to the hosted pool sometime in June/July

Well, it's July now. Maybe it's finally the time to give your users what they need and what they ask you for?

[AlenaSviridenko]

For registering for the private preview usage, please, send email to @vijayma with the name of your Azure DevOps organization and the # of concurrent jobs you expect to run on macOS-11. These requests are regularly reviewed and new users are included when capacity allows that.

Thanks.

[jahmai-ca]

For registering for the private preview usage, please, send email to @vijayma with the name of your Azure DevOps organization and the # of concurrent jobs you expect to run on macOS-11. These requests are regularly reviewed and new users are included when capacity allows that.

Thanks.

How regularly? I sent a request last Friday and no response as yet...

[praneetrohida]

@AlenaSviridenko Are the users notified in any way when they are included, or should we just try running the pipeline on macos-11 to check if we got the access?

[AlenaSviridenko]

How regularly? I sent a request last Friday and no response as yet...

currently, it is 2 times a month for now, when capacity is ready for the new load.

@praneetrohida, unfortunately, there is no automatic notifications about it yet. So I suppose you should run your pipelines to check it.

[simonbuerger]

So we're still begging for table scraps...

[diogot]

I send the email requesting access to macOS-11 image to @vijayma a month ago, so far no response nor access to the images, I just tested. Can I have a status or forecast of when my organization will have access?

Thanks

[honkmaster]

I also send a request to @vijayma today. We need access to Xcode 12.5, which is only available for Big Sur.

[metaine]

Can we use Apple Silicon (M1) self-hosted agent?

[miketimofeev]

@metaine looks like it's not yet implemented https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-agent/issues/3184

[metaine]

@miketimofeev it's not clear if it's about microsoft-hosted agents or self-hosted or both

[aprilmintacpineda]

I also need this https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/3709

[miketimofeev]

@metaine both.

[fespinoza]

grrrrrr this very bad, it's unacceptable how slow this has been

[simonbuerger]

Do you have ETA for public release of Big Sur images on Azure Pipelines? End of this month, next month, Q4? Also can we get a breakdown of how this happened and how you'll prevent it happening for future MacOS releases? It is of course a pain for me to migrate my companies pipelines to other providers so I would prefer not to, but if this is going to keep happening then what choice do I have but to look into it.

[bdolewski]

All project in my company has deployment target of iOS 14.5. I am amazed that Big Sur + Xcode 12.5 are not the default images s macos-latest. It's not like this software was released a couple of days ago.