[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.

---

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.

[L6Echo]

This ticket is open since November 2020 and it was no surprise that Big Sur will be released. It is very annoying that there is still no public agent after more than 6 month, but it is unacceptable that there is not even an ETA yet.

So please give us at least a ETA. We all have to communicate to customers/partners/chiefs etc. why we are still not able to target iOS 14.5. Please understand that transparency is important and "unfortunately, we still have no ETA" is unacceptable when you had already 6 month time

[Jon889]

The problem is I guess that users of mac hosted agents make up a small percentage of users, so MS wouldn’t really care if everyone left it. Especially with Xcode Cloud coming and GitHub actions being the main focus.

[melanchall]

I believe MS should care about different platforms since they have focus on cross-platform solutions. .NET developers, for example, want to be able to run their CI builds for cross-platform products on different operating systems. As for macOS 11, as I said, there are some API changes in it, so it would be great to have ability to check products compatibility via Azure Pipelines.

[vijayma]

Hello all, we understand the sentiment on this thread and are sorry that we do not have a generally available offering yet for Big Sur builds in Azure Pipelines. The main reason for us to be in this state is not technical. It is related to licensing. We are still working through the licensing terms to understand whether we can offer Big Sur the same way we offer previous versions of macOS. We do not want to offer this in a certain model and then realize that we have to change it again.

Regarding the preview request process, we get a huge number of requests every day. We review these requests regularly and process them once every two weeks. That gives us enough time to monitor the usage and ramp up the capacity for supporting more customers. Once your organization is approved, you will receive an email from us. We sincerely appreciate your patience once you send us a request.

[cquanu]

If you can grant Big Sur Preview for GitHub Actions by filling up a form. Why not AppCenter?

[AlenaSviridenko]

We cannot do that technically, due to the different nature of account creation for GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps and App Center. App Center uses a dynamically created account name in Azure DevOps underneath your username, which complicates the process of enabling an image for a certain account.

[cquanu]

So this more of a technical issue instead of licensing right?

[svaldetero]

So this more of a technical issue instead of licensing right?

@cquanu I think they mean adding people to the preview for AppCenter is a technical issue; creating/provisioning enough Virtual Machines as a whole is a licensing issue.

[Jon889]

Surely any licensing issues would also prevent the closed preview that you can get by emailing?

[L6Echo]

We do understand, that apple changed the license of mac os and that this affects the doability of providing virtual developing environments.

But the license is public (at least) for 7 month now and it's still a blocker? We are paying, not less, to get a managed and up to date CD platform. And be able to build up to date iOS Apps and Frameworks is an important part of it. And Microsoft stuff (e.g. Visual Studio on Mac, Xamarin) are also already requiring Xcode 12.5. Don't get us wrong, these are not sensitivities. These are just facts and business.

We are still working through the licensing terms to understand whether we can offer Big Sur the same way we offer previous versions of macOS. We do not want to offer this in a certain model and then realize that we have to change it again.

Anyway, I don't understand why you're arguing to have licensing issues, but you are able to run private previews. But just not in this strong demand. And also the registration process (request per email and (no) response) is somehow Microsoft unworthy...

What does these private preview (if we get accepted) means for production use cases? Are the production ready? Do we have to expect breaking changes?

@vijayma @AlenaSviridenko A lot of users already asked for an ETA. So please tell us, when do you expect to solve this... August? September? End of the year? Never?

[aprilmintacpineda]

We should really just deprecate azure pipelines, in my opinion, it's inadequate, my experience with GitHub actions is better.

[vijayma]

@L6Echo The servers that are offered in preview will be the same images when we make this generally available. There is no change technically in what we do. By offering it as a preview, we retain some flexibility to change how we license this to our customers or charge for it. Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA yet. I will share another update in the middle of August.

[cquanu]

@vijayma So the question is, are you able to offer it as a preview? - Since you said it's "flexible". You don't have an ETA for the preview, or when it will be generally available?

[vijayma]

@cquanu In my comments, I am referring to our limitations in making Big Sur publicly and generally available for Azure Pipelines. I am not referring to App Center.

Your comments, I believe, are related to AppCenter. With AppCenter, as @AlenaSviridenko mentioned, we do not have a preview because of the way AppCenter uses Azure Pipelines.

[cquanu]

You are not referring to AppCenter but AppCenter uses Azure Pipelines. 😕

[simonbuerger]

@vijayma presumably this is going to continue to be an issue in two months time when Monterey is released? Because if we can't build with Monterey by April next year then Azure pipelines will become dead in the water for iOS development as we won't be able to release builds to Apple app store from that point. I'm making some assumptions based on apple's release history and previous SDK deprecation dates, but I think they're quite safe ones.

[simonbuerger]

@vijayma can you explain the licensing issues in more detail and why they're so hard to overcome? How have other providers done it?

What is the likelihood of positive news in mid-August?

[honkmaster]

@simonbuerger @vijayma Big Sur was announced more than a year ago including the license changes. I can understand if it takes so long for a small company without trademarks, licenses and patent attorneys to solve the problems but not for a big company like Microsoft.

Although we currently have access to the beta and it works well (thanks for that) we will be looking for an alternative soon. I personally don't expect positive news in August.

We were really disappointed by Microsoft this year.... App Center had no iOS 14 devices for testing till April / May and now this "little problem" as well. It is really a pity.

[cquanu]

I am looking for alternatives. What are some good ones?

[ramtechjoe]

@cquanu I use a self hosted build agent . I cannot imagine I would ever go back to using a Azure DevOps provided agent after this debacle

[ataylorme]

@ramtechjoe have you been successful with self-host build agents on Big Sur?

That is probably what I’ll be attempting next. I’m trying to decide between buying Mac Minis or using cloud infrastructure.

[ramtechjoe]

@ataylorme I have been running self hosted agent since back in May on Big Sur. I just use my normal development machine, but we only have a couple Xamarin applications and never run more then a single build at a time. I cannot say how it would scale.

[simonbuerger]

@ramtechjoe Yeah I'm managing active deployment pipelines across 5 other tenants, and then 6 other active app deployment pipelines (all multi environment 🙈) within our own tenant so self hosting is not much of an option for us.

[fespinoza]

@vijayma we sent the email to ask access to the previews for macOS 11 for azure pipelines, 2 weeks ago already (with reply from you) and we still don't have access :(. Why is all of this so painfully slow :(

[ericallam]

@ataylorme we use self-hosted Big Sur for Unity builds (still using Microsoft-hosted agents for our Xcode builds though, but looking to switch to self-hosted soon) and the agent works fine. I'd imagine it would work just fine for building Xcode projects

[s-hintz]

@vijayma

The main reason for us to be in this state is not technical. It is related to licensing.

Can you at least support Bug Sur for Microsoft App Center then?

[hecflores]

Maybe it's time to ask for a feature in Azure DevOps to allow agents to be crowdsourced... Meaning, people publish their own hosting solutions to act as agents and get paid for their use... I'm sure many folks have already gone out and used some hosting provider like Macstadium or their own machines...

[ryanmendoza]

It appears that the latest macOS build agent available on DevOps is not capable of building enterprise distribution iOS apps due to an outdated code signing library. Currently, apps built with the Catalina latest agent do not launch on iOS 15 at all and we are about a month away from public release.

Other than hosting a machine on-prem, does anyone know of a way around this Microsoft delay in offering required build agents for iOS 15?

[gredman]

@ryanmendoza we have access to the Big Sur preview now, but prior to that I was re-signing our ad hoc IPAs as described in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/682775?answerId=681899022#681899022. This is the script I used (you'll need to set SOURCE to the path of your IPA and SIGNING_IDENTITY to the name of your signing identity).

[cquanu]

What's the progress now @vijayma? Can we have some updates?

[maluthbadugecara]

Hi, Good morning ! As we are getting very close to the iOS 15 release, can we please have an ETA on when MacOS BigSur is available on MS hosted agents? Appreciate your assistance.

Best Regards, M

[yvbeek]

We are happy to announce that macOS-11 is out of preview and now generally available for all the GitHub customers 🥳 The docs will be updated later this week.

https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/2486#issuecomment-899752373 https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/blob/main/images/macos/macos-11-Readme.md

@maxim-lobanov @AlenaSviridenko Please tell me that the Xcode 12.5 option will be available later today 🙏

[miketimofeev]

@yvbeek unfortunately, we can't provide ETA for now. Please send an e-mail to @vijayma with justification if you need access

[simonbuerger]

@miketimofeev is this message from you the "official" update that @vijayma said he would give 3 weeks ago in mid August?

Unfortunately, we do not have an ETA yet. I will share another update in the middle of August.

So the update on ETA is that there is still no update on ETA?

As a paying customer I don't think it's too much to ask for more of a detailed update than "we have no update"

[cquanu]

I don't understand, the fact that the issues tab is turned on for this repository and we can submit our issue. But the team of the virtual environment is not transparent about it, decided to silo information from us and think that they have given a reasonable answer.

[FRcarriel]

Please tell me that the Xcode 12.5 option is resolved or not with macos-11 ????🙏

[philipdvo]

Hi @miketimofeev , Could you please provide the email of @vijayma for requesting the Preview of macos-11 on Azure DevOps Pipelines for company?

Thank you

[maluthbadugecara]

Hi @miketimofeev , Could you please provide the email of @vijayma for requesting the Preview of macos-11 on Azure DevOps Pipelines for company?

Thank you

Hi,

Can we use the preview of macos-11 on Azure DEVOps for Production builds? Please let me know how to request macos 11 preview to be available on Azure DevOPS?

Thanks

[miketimofeev]

@philipdvo username@github.com — this will be his address, where username is vijayma

[maluthbadugecara]

@miketimofeev Can we use MacOS 11 Preview on Azure DevOPS to run PRoduction builds?

[miketimofeev]

@maluthbadugecara you can once you have access to macos-11.

[phornsby7]

@vijayma and @miketimofeev Hope your hump day is going well. I wanted to ask if your able to give any new updates that we can pass on to our bosses?

Anything you can share is greatly appreciated.

🙏🏻

[cquanu]

Any updates?

[Ahetejaz]

@vijayma and @miketimofeev Hope your hump day is going well. I wanted to ask if your able to give any new updates that we can pass on to our bosses?

Anything you can share is greatly appreciated.

🙏🏻

FYI, The Big Sur pool is available for all starting today. So, one can start using it in YAML pipelines using the label macos-11.

With respect to Azure DevOps.

[cquanu]

FYI, The Big Sur pool is available for all customers starting today. So, one can start using it in YAML pipelines using the label macos-11.

Thanks. But I was asking about AppCenter.

[maluthbadugecara]

@vijayma and @miketimofeev Hope your hump day is going well. I wanted to ask if your able to give any new updates that we can pass on to our bosses? Anything you can share is greatly appreciated. 🙏🏻

FYI, The Big Sur pool is available for all starting today. So, one can start using it in YAML pipelines using the label macos-11.

With respect to Azure DevOps.

Thanks a lot for the update

[aprilmintacpineda]

@vijayma and @miketimofeev Hope your hump day is going well. I wanted to ask if your able to give any new updates that we can pass on to our bosses? Anything you can share is greatly appreciated. 🙏🏻

FYI, The Big Sur pool is available for all starting today. So, one can start using it in YAML pipelines using the label macos-11.

With respect to Azure DevOps.

will macOS-latest work as well?

[maxim-lobanov]

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.

[FarahaDadvarDeveloper]

Hi,

When will macOS 11.6 host agent be made available on Azure DevOps Pipeline?

[al-cheb]

Hi,

When will macOS 11.6 host agent be made available on Azure DevOps Pipeline?

macOS 11 is publicly available for all Azure DevOps users - https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/2072#issuecomment-904371992