cTentacleAgent behaviour with multiple tentacles on same server

[richlm]

We are using a default Octopus tentacle on a server to bootstrap additional tentacle installations via DSC(running with different credentials).

If the Windows service for the extra tentacle is not present, $currentEnsure is being set to "Absent", which causes the msi to be downloaded and installed, but this is not necessary, the software is already present from previous installation of the default tentacle.
It can cause a problem if an older version is installed in that the default tentacle service (in this case the one actually running the DSC configuration) gets shut down by the msi installation, and the deployment fails.

Maybe an option/property to disable msi installation?
(e.g. by setting TentacleDownloadUrl64 to "")

[stopthatastronaut]

Hey @richlm,

This sounds a bit like it's a good fit for some of the work the Octopus Cloud team have been doing in cOctopusServer. We've been working to enable a "partly installed" state to speed up provisioning, so we're able to skip downloading the resource if we already have it, and skip running the MSI if we detect it's already installed.

We'll also need a way to specify a specific version, so we don't run the upgrade on your default tentacle, we've been looking at doing that in the server resource based on the value of downloadUrl64, so I think our approaches differ a little.

Overall, it sounds like something that got value and is relatively easy to port across from the Server resource, so I'll definitely chat with the team about it.

Jason