If you use Visual Studio Release Management vNext / 2013 with PowerShell/DSC you probably have a lot of custom configuration variables that you pass to your scripts. Be careful when you choose the names for these variables because! There are a lot of reserved words. For example the word UserName is reserved. This leads to very odd error messages that are really hard to track down:
System.AggregateException: One or more errors occurred. —> Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Common.Helpers.OperationFailedException: Permission denied while trying to connect to the target machine <hostname> on the port:5985 via power shell remoting. Please check the following link for instructions: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=390236System.Management.Automation.Remoting.PSRemotingTransportException: Connecting to remote server <hostname> failed with the following error message : Access is denied.
The error indicates connection problems or wrong credentials – but in reality it cam only be a wrong variable name. So I think the best practice is to use a fix prefix for all configuration variables.
System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.AggregateException: One or more errors occurred. ---> Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Common.Helpers.OperationFailedException: Permission denied while trying to connect to the target machine xxx on the port:5985 via power shell remoting. Please check the following link for instructions: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=390236System.Management.Automation.Remoting.PSRemotingTransportException: Connecting to remote server xxxx failed with the following error message : Access is denied. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic. at System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.AsyncResult.EndInvoke() at System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.Internal.RunspacePoolInternal.EndOpen(IAsyncResult asyncResult) at System.Management.Automation.RemoteRunspace.Open() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.GetOpenedRunspace() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.EstablishRemoteSession() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.RetryExecutor.Execute(Action action) at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.<Initialize>d__d.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.<Initialize>d__1.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.RemoteDeploymentHelper.<Initialize>d__0.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.DeploymentClient.<RunAsync>d__11.MoveNext() ---> System.Management.Automation.Remoting.PSRemotingTransportException: Connecting to remote server lissval-t02 failed with the following error message : Access is denied. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic. at System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.AsyncResult.EndInvoke() at System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.Internal.RunspacePoolInternal.EndOpen(IAsyncResult asyncResult) at System.Management.Automation.RemoteRunspace.Open() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.GetOpenedRunspace() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.EstablishRemoteSession() at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.RetryExecutor.Execute(Action action) at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.<Initialize>d__d.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.PowershellExecutor.<Initialize>d__1.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.RemoteDeploymentHelper.<Initialize>d__0.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.DevTestLabs.Deployment.Deployment.DeploymentClient.<RunAsync>d__11.MoveNext() --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.EnvironmentProvider.OnPrem.Implementation.OnPremDeploymentProvider.ReadDeploymentResponse(DeploymentResponse response) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.EnvironmentProvider.OnPrem.Implementation.OnPremDeploymentProvider.<CopyBuildsLocally>d__5.MoveNext() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.EnvironmentProvider.OnPrem.Implementation.OnPremDeploymentProvider.<RunScript>d__0.MoveNext() --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Threading.Tasks.Task`1.GetResultCore(Boolean waitCompletionNotification) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.MonitorServices.Dsc.OnPrem.OnPremDeploymentActions.InvokePlatform(String activityId, MachineSpecification machineSpecification, StorageSpecification storageSpecification, String scriptPath, String configurationPath, Dictionary`2 configurationVariables) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.MonitorServices.Dsc.OnPrem.OnPremDeploymentActions.RunScript(DscComponent dscComponentParameters, String serverName, String userName, String password, String componentName, String scriptPath, String configurationPath, String useCredSecuritySupportProvider, String useHttps, String skipCACheck) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Object obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments) at System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.DeploymentAgent.Services.Deployer.Dsc.DscComponentInstaller.InvokeMethodByReflection(String methodArguments)
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Should be using prefixes anyway, like RMS_ or Whatever1234-. Thanks for the tip!
I think they should use it internally so that the end user can use normal words. But since they don’t – we better do it ourselves.