Ansible scripts to build CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) for Windows

This repository contains scripts to build CEF for Windows in a cloud environment.

Initialy only Azure is supported, but more can be added later.

The compilation can be done using Visual Studio 2017 or 2019.

Usage (Azure)

Ansible should be installed with the Azure plugin, and configured with a service principal in the ~/.azure/credentials file in the default section. If the Azure configuration isn't made this way, the upload to blob storage will fail.

Copy azure_config_default.yaml to azure_config.yaml and edit its parameters. At least the admin_password must be set with a password compatible with Azure (mix of lowercase, uppercase, number and symbol).

ansible-playbook azure_build.yaml --extra-vars "@azure_config.yaml"

This process takes approximately 4:30 hours, 2:30 of it building in a high spec machine, the rest in a medium spec one.

Process (Azure)

• Provision a VM with medium specs (by default a 4 vcpu with premium SSD) for the setup in a resource group named rg-cefbuild.
• Create, partition and format a separate 250GB managed disk to store the source and compilation, mounting it in drive M.
• Install Visual Studio, or update/configure if using an image that already has Visual Studio installed.
• Install the Windows 10 SDK.
• Download the CEF build scripts and source code, using the automate-git.py tool.
• Switch to a high spec VM for the compilation phase (by default a 64 vcpu with premium SDD. You need to ask for a quota increase in Azure to use this VM).
• Compile CEF in release and debug modes, also generating the binary distribution.
• Upload the resulting binary distribution to Azure Blob Storage, in the sacsweb01 storage account, container fl-cs-web01.
• Stop the VM without destroying it.

You should destroy the rg-cefbuild resource group when you confirm everything went smoothly.

Parameters

• admin_password: the password for the cefuser user of the Windows VM. You can use this password to connect to the machine using RDP.
• azure_location [default: eastus]: the Azure datacenter location to use.
• image_has_visualstudio [default: true]: whether the VM image already has Visual Studio installed.
• vs_edition [default: Community -- valid: Community, Professional, Enterprise]: the Visual Studio edittion to use.
• vs_version [default: 2019 -- valid: 2017, 2019]: the Visual Studio version to use.
• azure_upload_distrib_blob [default: true]: whether to upload the generated binary distrib to Azure Blob Storage.
• azure_vm_size_setup [default: Standard_DS3_v2]: the vm size to use when setting up the machine and downloading the CEF source code.
• azure_vm_size_build [default: Standard_D64s_v3]: the vm size to use when compiling CEF.
• azure_managed_disk_type [default: Premium_LRS]: the managed disk type to use on the vm.
• cef_branch [default: 4324]: the CEF branch to build
• cef_gn_defines [default: is_official_build=true proprietary_codecs=true ffmpeg_branding=Chrome]: the Chromium compile defines. The default enables video playing with ffmpeg.

Author

Rangel Reale (rangelreale@gmail.com)