Teamcity server migration - agent changes

Question

I'm planning to migrate my teamcity server onto a new physical location. The process is pretty straight forward, export the database, install a vanilla teamcity server and import the database via maintaindb.sh.

Since i have a large installation I decided to backup only server settings, projects and builds configurations, plugins. My point was that I can manually move build logs and artifacts later (i'd rather not try to restore from a 500GB zip file). However after importing the backup I was unable to see any build agents in the agent pool.

Any ideas? Do you have to install each build agent from scratch just because the server got migrated to a new location? Do you just have to point the agents to the new server and that's it (and if so why does the agent pool on the server seem empty)

Thanks,

Answer 1

If you are changing the servers URL in your migration, which from your question I am assuming that you are, then you will need to edit each build agent's properties.

In your ~TeamCity\Install\buildAgent\conf, you will have a buildAgent.properties file. You need to modify this file to point to your new Teamcity location via the serverURL value. Then you will want to restart the build agent server, and authorize and enable the build agent from your Teamcity interface.

There is an extremely brief explanation of this here at the bottom of the "Move TeamCity Installation to a New Machine" section.

And to answer your question as to why the agent pool seems empty - it is because the agent is not looking for the server at it's new location.