awsdeploy -> msdeploy -> runCommand timeout

Question

I am using awsdeploy to deploy an elastic beanstalk ASP.NET MVC application. The application requires Crystal Reports which can only be installed by running a .msi installer (CRRuntime_64bit_13_0_6.msi).

To run the installer as part of the deployment I have added a custom target like so:

<!--install msi-->
  <Target Name="InstallCrystalReports" AfterTargets="AddIisSettingAndFileContentsToSourceManifest">
    <Message Text="Install Crystal Reports msi" />
    <ItemGroup>
      <MsDeploySourceManifest Include="runCommand">
        <Path>c:\mypath\installCrystalReports.cmd</Path>
        <waitAttempts>20</waitAttempts>
        <waitInterval>300000</waitInterval>
        <dontUseCommandExe>false</dontUseCommandExe>
        <AdditionalProviderSettings>waitAttempts;waitInterval;dontUseCommandExe</AdditionalProviderSettings>
      </MsDeploySourceManifest>
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

The install can take around a minute and I can view the log files created by the installer to see that it has been started OK. However, runCommand will only let it run for a maxiumum of 5 seconds before terminating it with an error. Changing waitAttempts and waitInterval appears to have no impact.

Below in an excerpt from "C:\Program Files\Amazon\ElasticBeanstalk\logs\AWSDeployment.log" which shows how awsdeploy/msdeploy is prematurely terminating the install.

2013-08-19 12:42:11,428 INFO 5 DeploymentLog - C:\mypath>msiexec /i  CRRuntime_64bit_13_0_6.msi /quiet /norestart /l C:\mypath\CRRuntime_64bit_13_0_6.txt 

2013-08-19 12:42:12,426 WARN 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 1 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:12,426 WARN 1 DeploymentLog - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 1 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:13,440 WARN 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 2 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:13,440 WARN 1 DeploymentLog - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 2 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:14,454 WARN 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 3 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:14,454 WARN 1 DeploymentLog - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 3 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:15,468 WARN 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 4 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:15,468 WARN 1 DeploymentLog - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 4 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:16,482 WARN 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 5 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:16,482 WARN 1 DeploymentLog - The process 'C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe' (command line '') is still running. Waiting for 1000 ms (attempt 5 of 5).
2013-08-19 12:42:16,482 ERROR 1 AWSBeanstalkCfnDeploy.DeploymentUtils - Exception during deployment.

Any ideas how I can up the increase the timeout so the installer will run to success? Or any other ideas how I could get the installer run as part of the deployment?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '13 at 15:35

An easier way to install MSI packages on AWS Elastic Beanstalk instances is to use the .ebextensions mechanism.

Create a folder in your project called .ebextensions, and place a file in there with the extension .config (for example installs.config). This is a YAML file which describes installs to do, and commands to run on each instance before deploying. A simple example might look like this

packages:
    msi:
      CrystalReports: http://myfilehost.com/packages/CrystalReports.msi

Where the URL is a publicly accessible place you can put your MSI. This could be in an S3 bucket for example.

More details about the AWS Elastic Beanstalk customization feature can be found here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/customize-containers-windows-ec2.html

An overview of the feature can be found on the AWS Developer Blog, here: http://blogs.aws.amazon.com/net/post/Tx1RLX98N5ERPSA/Customizing-Windows-Elastic-Beanstalk-Environments-Part-1

Brilliant! Thanks worked perfectly. Much easier than using the runcommand provider. — Sam Sippe, Aug 20 '13 at 02:13
For those struggling with msbuild and the runcommand provider, I think the problem is that when msbuild uses the target to build the archive.xml manifest file, it doesn't respect the waitInterval parameter. One way around it might be to use [this approach](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/539088/Amazon-AWSDeploy-To-Provision-Multiple-Websites?fid=1825739&df=90&mpp=25&noise=1&prof=True&sort=Position&view=None&spc=Relaxed) and hand code the top level manifest file so you can specify the waitInteval attributes on the runCommand elements. — Sam Sippe, Aug 20 '13 at 02:21

awsdeploy -> msdeploy -> runCommand timeout

1 Answers1