Agent reboot not working on Win x64 (related to TW-9538)

Hi,

This post is related to my discussion in TW-9538 (http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/TW-9538)

Tested on: MS Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition

I've added to the Agent.properties file:
teamcity.agent.reboot.command=shutdown -r -t 60 -c "TeamCity Agent reboot command" -f

The Agent log shows:
WARN - erver.agent.AgentRemoteApiImpl - Failed to start Reboot command.CreateProcess: shutdown -r -t 60 -c "TeamCity Agent reboot command" -f error=2

Our dev did some investigations a while back, and found that invoking 64 bit windows processes from a 32 bit java VM was the culprit. So, to solve the issue we made a workaround, of which I'm not very fond. What we did is implement our own shutdown ANT script. This one is run from a 64 bit Java installation on the 64 bit boxes (so ANT runs on a 64 bit VM).

That fixed the problem, so in effect we follow this chain to do a shutdown:
Agent -> ANT Script in Agent VM (32 bit) -> Invoke ANT Script on different 64 Bit VM -> Shutdown.exe

At the time I've accepted the workaround, but it kept nagging me. While discussing TW-9538 (http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/TW-9538) it all came back to haunt us (we can not use the TC Agent Reboot functionality, which is needed for that issue). So, this time I invested some googling time to see what I could come up with.

First I stumbeled upon:
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/31891452/heads-up-shutdownexe-on-windows-64.aspx

Good, there are more having the issue.

After that I found this great article:
http://bit.ly/gc8pSS

The information in there, I think, hits the right explanation.

Our workaround works because we can invoke a 64 bit ANT from a 32 bit one, and the 64 bit ANT _is_ able to invoke the 64 bit Reboot.exe.

I've tried to hardcode the path in the Agent properties file (teamcity.agent.reboot.command=C\:\\Windows\\System32\\shutdown.exe -r -t 60 -c "TeamCity Agent reboot command" -f), but that didn't work either :(

The workarounds suggested in the article all include having to do activities on the (agent) server. While this would be possible, I beleive a 64 TC Agent version would also not encounter the issue. The latter would make it work for us all, not having to configure\hotfix our Agent boxes.

Yours Sincerely,

  Bob