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• Article #1015

Running the BuildMaster Service(s) Interactively

99.99% of the time, you’ll be able debug most problems with tool integrations, builds, and BuildMaster itself using BuildMaster’s web interface . But every now and then, something will work fine when you do it, not when BuildMaster does it. Perhaps a tool is popping-up a MessageBox. Or there are mysterious domain/permissions issues. Or it could be something else that there’s really no way of knowing from the web interface.

Fortunately, there’s a way to look at what’s happening behind the scenes. As a server-based application, BuildMaster relies on Windows Services to host its server-related components. Depending on how BuildMaster is configured, there will be two services configured:

• BuildMaster Service – coordinates build executions, scheduled builds, agent updates, etc.
• BuildMaster Web Server (optional) – hosts the BuildMaster web application instead of IIS

Both of these services point to the same executable (bmservice.exe), and it’s possible to run that very same service from the command-line to see everything that’s going on as it’s happening.

Step 1: Stop the BuildMaster Services

By default the BuildMaster services will be named INEDOBMSVC and INEDOBMWEBSRV. You can control these services a number of different ways, but the most common is to use the Services snap in. Just navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services, and stop the two BuildMaster Services.

Step 2: Command Line

Once the services have been stopped, open up a command prompt (you probably want to Run As Administrator), then navigate to the BuildMaster root folder (default is C:\BuildMaster\). Next, navigate to the Service subdirectory (cd Service), and then type in bmservice /r.

The /r flag instructs the bmservice.exe to run in interactive mode, and you’ll have to press ENTER once more to get the services started. You can quit by hitting CTRL-C at anytime.

Step 3: Use and Ignore Service Warnings

From here, you can log-in to the web application as you normally would. Expect to see “service not running” warnings in a number of places (including when the build execution page), but things should still will work in exactly the same way.

Do not start the service while running interactively. Doing so could trigger a total protonic reversal, which would be bad. Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. In a future release, we may put in a safety net to prevent this from happening… but for now, just make sure not to click the “start service” button.