Can't rename the Build Server?

We are evaluating whether or not we want to virtualize our build machine or have it as a separate piece of hardware.

We created a new build server on vmware named ServerB.

We changed a single build type that used to run on ServerA, to run on ServerB just to make sure we were comparing apples to apples when measuring the performance delta. That worked.

Convinced that ServerB, the vmware machine, was 'fast enough' we decided to decommision ServerA.

We renamed ServerB to ServerA so we wouldn't have to change all our builds.

Our network admin made sure everything was right on the network, and then we brought the new ServerA up.

None of the build scripts, or build types that we'd created worked.

We took down the new ServerA, and restored the old ServerA and everything worked. We tried this 3 times with the same result.

Googled around to see if anyone else had experienced it and didn't get anything similar to what we've done.

We really don't want to have to change all our legacy build scripts.

Is there something that has to be done on the app tier

Is there some config file somewhere that has to be altered so that we can make this simple switch

Can you not change the name of the BuildServer

In Version 1, the server simply looks at the name of the machine from the tfsBuild.proj file and tries to connect to that machine name. In Orcas, the machine names and port numbers are all stored on the App Tier and you can change the machine name or port in one place (So, this would help you a lot in this situation). In Orcas the name in the tfsBuild.proj is ignored.

Assuming you are using Version1, what you have described should work. I would suggest that perhaps you have some kind of DNS weirdness going on (Sorry, I am not an expert in that realm). Try using the IP address of the machines instead of the names in the TfsBuild.proj. Perhaps that will shed some light on where the problem is.

Let me know what you find out,

Jason

Yes we checked the DNS server for forward and reverse lookups, and we also did an IPConfig /flushdns and /registerdns on the build server, but still got this behaviour. We also did this on the app tier server.

Is there something else we need to do on the DNS server

When your build scripts and build types did not work with the renamed serverA, what error message were you seeing

Swaha

Yes