Release Management in TFS without build automation

Question

We have an automated build process in place which creates the release artifacts for us. These are copied to an FTP location and post certain processes, the packages are available for deployment to val, customer dev, UAT and prod. I want to create a Release in TFS where the release should simply use the package from the ftp location instead of triggering a new build.

The process of moving the artifacts to the ftp using a detached build process is legacy and I'm afraid cannot be changed.

I would like to trigger a release ( at the moment I'm testing this using VSTS ) which will use the artifact from an ftp instead of triggering a build.

My build server / process is not in TFS and it's a large application with multiple components.

Answer 1

Trigger a release using the artifacts from an FTP instead of triggering a build is supported. But there's no default steps about download a FTP file for you to use. You need to use command or Powerscript to download.

• In the release definition, delete all artifacts under the Artifacts tab. Then it won't download any files from your builds.

• Create a bat file or Powershell script file, write the command/script to download those files you want. Here are some methods you could have a look:

  How to script FTP upload and download?

  How to download files from FTP site in one command line without user interaction (Windows)

  https://tecadmin.net/download-upload-files-using-ftp-command-line/

• Check the bat/script to TFS and run it in your release definition.