How to clean up Bamboo agents regularly

[Martin Burkhardt]

I'm running a set of Bamboo agents using standard Windows PCs. Apart from compilation, these agents are used for extensive UI testing controlled by Bamboo build plans. Since sometimes UI tests put the system into an inconsistant state, I have scheduled build plans which restart each agent PC three times a day.

Since during execution of such a restart build plan, an agent gets shut down and restarted, Bamboo looses track of this build run and logs an error in the "Administration / System Errors" (.../admin/systemErrors.action). I get a lot of such errors each day and it is difficult to keep track of real system errors.

Are there any recommendations on how to set up a clean and defined environment for automated UI tests? Or how to avoid these kind of system errors?

PS: It is not a solution to let the restart Bamboo job finish before the agent PC actually shuts down. If I do so, even the next build gets triggered on the agent and gives just the same sytem error.

[Przemek Bruski · Accepted solution]

The solution would be to first disable the agent by hitting:

http://bamboo:8085/bamboo/admin/agent/disableAgent.action?agentId=99156140

You can get the agent id e.g. from bamboo-agent-home/bamboo-agent.cfg.xml

Access that URL, and schedule a restart for ~1 minute later, let the build finish and all should be OK.

Just remember to enable the agent when the machine comes up:

http://bamboo:8085/bamboo/admin/agent/enableAgent.action?agentId=99156140