Agent options

General

Agent Service

Use the Agent Service Start, Stop, or Restart button to start, stop, or restart the Incredibuild Agent Service ("BuildService.exe"). This section also displays the current status of the Incredibuild Agent Service (either "Running", "Stopping", "Stopped", or "Starting").

Build History

The Build History settings are used in conjunction with the tray-icon "Build History..." command.

Days to keep builds in history

Sets the number of days that Incredibuild saves past builds for display in the Build History window.

Clear History

Deletes all saved builds from the Build History storage.

Logging

Logging level

When working with Incredibuild Technical Support on a technical issue, you may be asked to change this setting in order to provide more information. It is generally recommended to keep this option set to Minimal. Other logging levels can affect the performance.

Note:Technical Support may request you to select a different logging level. In this case, when you are finished resolving the technical issue, reset the logging level to Minimal.

Color Theme

You can define the color theme for the Agent Settings and the Incredibuild windows embedded in Visual Studio.

  • Light - always use light theme.

  • Dark - always use dark theme.

  • Automatic - use the same setting as your windows environment.

Preferences

Agent State

On system start-up

Determines whether the Agent becomes enabled when the machine boots up. The following options are available:

  • Enable Agent–Agent always starts off in the "Enabled" status.
  • Disable Agent–Agent always starts off in the "Disabled" status.
  • Keep last Agent state–Agent starts off in the status that was active in the last system shutdown.

Enable Agent Scheduling

Allows the Agent to be automatically enabled and disabled in predefined hours. This can be useful, for example, for enabling the Agent outside standard work hours.

Screen Saver

Enable screen saver detection

Determines whether the Agent detects screen saver activity. When this feature is used, screen saver CPU activity is considered idle CPU activity, improving the Agent's chances of getting assigned to remote builds. Furthermore, the following changes in behavior take effect during screen saver activity:

  • Tasks (compilation and others) running on this Agent always use a high priority thread, improving performance.

  • A "Screen saver running" indication appears for that Agent in the Coordinator Monitor.

Enable Agent while screen saver is running

Determines whether the Agent automatically becomes enabled when the screen saver starts, even if the Agent is disabled. When the screen saver activity stops, the Agent resumes its "Disabled" status. This option is available only when the "Enable screen saver detection" option is selected.

Version Update

Ask for user confirmation before a remotely initiated version update is performed.

Select this option to specify that version updates only run after manual confirmation. It is recommended to leave this option unselected.

Windows Firewall

Don't show Windows Firewall related messages.

Select this option to prevent Incredibuild from suggesting to open Incredibuild ports in MS Windows Firewall on this machine.

CPU Utilization

CPU Utilization - when acting as Initiator

This option allows you to override the number of logical processors Incredibuild detects and reports to the Coordinator when it initiates builds.

In certain cases (in particular on machines with multiple cores and/or hyper threaded processors), Incredibuild may list a choice of more than one possible hardware configuration. Choose the one that best describes your machine's hardware.

Utilize x logical core(s)– When "User Defined" is selected in the dropdown list, this setting can be used to explicitly set a custom number of cores that will be used by Incredibuild on that machine.

  • In registered licenses, the "X cores" extension package must be allocated to an Agent in order for it to utilize additional processors or cores in builds.
  • Decreasing the "Utilize x logical cores" setting from a higher value to "1", reallocates the "Multiple CPU(s)/Core(s)" or "Agent + X cores" extension package from the Agent. Restoring use of multiple processors requires you to reallocate the package to the Agent using the Coordinator application.

CPU Utilization - when acting as Helper

This allows you to limit the number of cores on your machine that will contribute to builds from other Initiators.

This settings can conflict with a similar setting in the Coordinator Monitor > Agent List > License Configuration. The setting in Coordinator Manager is primarily used by the grid manager to manage licenses. The Agent setting allows owners of Helper machines to limit their use. The lower value of the two settings will determine the maximum number of cores a particular Agent can use.

In certain cases you may want to use a different cores amount when your Agent is used as Helper. In order to do so, simply define the desired cores amount in the select box.