boots

NuGet
boots
Cake.Boots

Azure DevOps	App Center	Github Actions	Bitrise

boots is a .NET global tool for "bootstrapping" vsix & pkg files.

boots is useful for pinning a version of Mono, Xamarin, etc. when building projects on Azure DevOps Hosted Agents. You don't get to choose what versions of things are installed on each agent, so it makes sense to install things yourself for reproducible builds. It also allows you to install preview versions of things (or more recent!) before they come preinstalled on Hosted build agents.

Use it

dotnet tool install --global boots
boots https://url/to/your/package

boots currently supports Windows & Mac OSX, therefore:

• On Windows - assumes the file is a .vsix and installs it into all instances of Visual Studio via VSIXInstaller.exe.
• On Mac OSX - assumes the file is a .pkg and installs it

Builds from Stable & Preview Visual Studio Channels

By querying the Visual Studio updater manifests, boots 1.0.2 or higher allows you to install the latest versions of Xamarin or Mono from the stable or preview channels.

Some examples:

boots --stable Mono
boots --preview Xamarin.Android
boots --preview Xamarin.iOS
boots --preview Xamarin.Mac

This would install the latest stable Mono and the latest previews for Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin.Mac.

Cake

You can also use boots from a Cake script:

#addin nuget:?package=Cake.Boots&version=1.0.3.556

Task("Boots")
    .Does(async () =>
    {
        if (!IsRunningOnWindows ()) {
            await Boots (Product.XamarinMac, ReleaseChannel.Stable);
            await Boots (Product.XamariniOS, ReleaseChannel.Preview);
        }
        await Boots (Product.XamarinAndroid, ReleaseChannel.Preview);
    });

If you omit the second ReleaseChannel parameter, it will default to ReleaseChannel.Stable.

NOTE! if you need to install Mono, do this in a separate process from the rest of your Cake build.

For example:

Task("Mono")
    .Does(async () =>
    {
        await Boots (Product.Mono);
    });

Then invoke Cake twice:

dotnet cake --target=Mono
dotnet cake --target=Boots

Network Resiliency

CI systems are somewhat notorious for random networking failures. Starting in boots 1.0.4, you can control some of this behavior:

  --timeout <seconds>               Specifies a timeout for HttpClient. If omitted, uses the .NET default of 100 seconds.
  --read-write-timeout <seconds>    Specifies a timeout for reading/writing from a HttpClient stream. If omitted, uses a default of 300 seconds.
  --retries <int>                   Specifies a number of retries for HttpClient failures. If omitted, uses a default of 3 retries.

This can also be defined in a Cake script with the BootsSettings class:

var settings = new BootsSettings {
    Channel = ReleaseChannel.Stable,
    Product = Product.XamarinAndroid,
    Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds (100),
    ReadWriteTimeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes (5),
    NetworkRetries = 3,
};
await Boots (settings);

Use the Azure Pipeline Extension Task

Install the extension into your DevOps instance and add the task to a build or release, or use it from YAML:

steps:
- task: Boots@1
  displayName: Install Xamarin.Android
  inputs:
    uri: https://aka.ms/xamarin-android-commercial-d16-4-windows

You can install the Boots Extension from the VS Marketplace.

See the Boots Task Extension Source for more details.

If you don't want to use the extension, alternatively you can:

variables:
  DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT: true
steps:
- script: |
    dotnet tool install --global boots
    boots https://aka.ms/xamarin-android-commercial-d16-4-windows

DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT is optional.

DOTNET_SKIP_FIRST_TIME_EXPERIENCE is also a good idea if you are running on a .NET Core older than 3.0.

Finding Builds

For more information on how to source urls for each platform, see how to find builds

Some Examples

Install Mono, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.iOS on Mac OSX:

boots https://download.mono-project.com/archive/6.4.0/macos-10-universal/MonoFramework-MDK-6.4.0.198.macos10.xamarin.universal.pkg
boots https://aka.ms/xamarin-android-commercial-d16-4-macos
boots https://download.visualstudio.microsoft.com/download/pr/5a678460-107f-4fcf-8764-80419bc874a0/3f78c6826132f6f8569524690322adba/xamarin.ios-13.8.1.17.pkg

Install Xamarin.Android on Windows:

boots https://aka.ms/xamarin-android-commercial-d16-4-windows

System.CommandLine

boots now uses System.CommandLine, so we get rich help text for free:

> boots --help
boots:
  boots 1.0.x File issues at: https://github.com/jonathanpeppers/boots/issues

Usage:
  boots [options]

Options:
  --url <url>                       A URL to a pkg or vsix file to install
  --stable <product>                Install the latest *stable* version of a product from VS manifests. Options include: Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Mac, and Mono.
  --preview <product>               Install the latest *preview* version of a product from VS manifests. Options include: Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Mac, and Mono.
  --file-type <msi|pkg|vsix>        Specifies the type of file to be installed such as vsix, pkg, or msi. Defaults to vsix on Windows and pkg on macOS.
  --timeout <seconds>               Specifies a timeout for HttpClient. If omitted, uses the .NET default of 100 seconds.
  --read-write-timeout <seconds>    Specifies a timeout for reading/writing from a HttpClient stream. If omitted, uses a default of 300 seconds.
  --retries <int>                   Specifies a number of retries for HttpClient failures. If omitted, uses a default of 3 retries.
  --version                         Show version information
  -?, -h, --help                    Show help and usage information

App Center

samples/HelloForms.sln is a "Hello World" Xamarin.Forms project configured with boots installing newer versions than what is available on App Center:

See appcenter-pre-build.sh in this repo for an example of setting up boots. See the App Center docs for further detail about custom build scripts.

GitHub Actions

I was able to get boots to work on both Windows & macOS agents in Github Actions.

See actions.yml for an example.

Other CI Systems

boots has been tested, and appears to work fine on:

• Azure DevOps
• App Center
• AppVeyor
• Bitrise
• Github Actions
• Travis CI

Any build environment that can be configured to run .NET Core 2.1, can run boots. If you have success on other CI systems, let us know!