I have few maven plugins that were developed in my team,
and those plugins are not marked #threadSafe.
I have run around 50 jobs and I do not see in inconsistency, but I would like to know if there is way to verify this programmatically.
And what would be the things to look for which will make the plugin unsafe for multithreading
Related
I have a significant amount of pre-configuration that I want to automate for Jenkins. E.g. Pre configuring gerrit for the gerrit trigger plugins, pre configuring saml, libraries etc
I'm aware of two methods typically used to do similar tasks:
Configuration as code plugin + yaml configuration
Groovy scripts to execute from the init.groovy.d directory of jenkins home on Jenkins startup
My users want to be able to update Jenkins configuration from the UI without needing to update yaml, suggesting the config as code plugin isn't fit for our purpose as I believe it reapplies the config when the Jenkins container is restarted.
My hunch is to use groovy scripts that remove themselves after the first execution so that they don't reapply themselves on restart.
Is there a more standard way of pre configuring Jenkins? or is groovy my best bet?
TL;DR: Use the file system
Why? There is no "standard" way to achieve what you intend; the two approaches that you suggest are viable options for sure.
From operational point of view, however, it will be good to select a solution which is
generic (so it can cover all aspects of Jenkins configuration) and
"simple" to use
Now,
"Configuration as code" makes you depend on the corresponding plugin -- it may or may not support a specific configuration option
With groovy, it is sometimes quite difficult to find out how to set a Jenkins configuration option (and how to store the setting permanently).
Since all Jenkins configuration data is stored on-disk, another option for bootstrapping Jenkins with a well-defined configuration is to pre-fill those configuration files with proper content right away:
You can be sure that this works in all cases, including all border cases (like, secret/encrypyted data)
Users can change the data later on as needed
Usually, it's quite easy to find the proper configuration file
On the downside, there is a risk that the configuration file format might change with newer versions of the core or of some plugin. However, a similar risk exists for the two other solutions that you suggested.
Tip: for rolling out such pre-configured Jenkins setups, it is helpful to disable the Jenkins setup wizard by setting jenkins.install.runSetupWizard to false.
When you combine words like : pre-configuring Jenkins, init.groovy.d, jenkins home, jenkins startup, etc, it sounds confusing o_O
When Jenkins is ready to use, usual folks just need to create jobs or pipelines. If you need to create a job or pipeline, you just need to install and configure some plugins. Very few of them need groovy, because the goal is "Easy to use".
Advanced user are able to create its own plugins, with java. But almost all is available as plugins.
You can use groovy in a pipeline scripts or declarative pipelines.
So if your question is more like "What is the best way to create and configure jobs or pipelines", I can advise you:
Try much as possible to use pipeline scripts or declarative pipelines.
Use just verified and supported plugins.
Stop call shell scripts in hard drive.
Stop using complicated configurations. Almost all of requirements are already implemented and documented.
If you have a requirement and no one plugin seems to help you, ask here in stackoverflow or develop your own plugin focused in configurability, so you can release it, for the benefit of Jenkins Community.
I'm adding to, and maintaining, groovy files to build a set of repositories - previously they were built with freestyle Jenkins jobs. I support some code in shared libraries and to be honest (mainly for DRY reasons) I want to do that more.
However, the only way I know how to test and debug those library files is to push the changes on a git branch. I know about the "replay" trick to test the main Jenkins file. Is there some approach I've missed to do something similar for library code?
If you set up a job to load the shared library instead of relying on a globally set up shared library (you can have both going, for this particular job), then it is possible to hit "replay" and have all your shared library steps show up as editable files.
This can be helpful in iterative development without a million commits.
EDIT: Here's how that looks on an Organization job in Jenkins.
There is the 3rd party Jenkins Pipeline Unit testing framework.
While it does not yet cover all features of pipeline, it is well documented and maintained so that I would consider starting using it (once I revisit our Jenkins setup).
I want to setup a continous integration system that upon a commit or similar trigger should:
run tests on a fortran/C/C++ code, if needed.
compile that code using cmake.
run tests on a rails app.
compile the rails ap.
restart the server.
I'm looking at Jenkins. Is it the best choice for this kind of work? Also, what's the difference between using a bash script that makes all that (if possible) and using jenkins? I'm asking not because I'm thinking about using a script, but to better understand jenkins.
It sounds like Jenkins would certainly be a reasonable choice for this. Apart from the ability to run arbitrary scripts as build steps, there's also a large number of plugins, which provide better integration with cmake for example.
Even if you're using a single bash script to do all of this, using Jenkins on top of it would still have a number of advantages. You get a web interface, email notifications and build history for free, with all that this entails. By integrating your tests "properly" with Jenkins, you can also get things like graphs that show how many tests succeeded/failed over time.
I am using Jenkins for java projects and have to say it is easy to configure. I used to add lots of plugins for better configuration of build steps, but tend to go back to using scripting languages for build and deploy steps because of two main reasons. If I have a build script, it's easier to configure the same job on a different Jenkins server or run the script manually if need be and the build configuration is not so cluttered (I still have one maven job with more than 50 post build steps). The second reason is, that it is easier to version the scripts in SVN, compared to having the build config in SVN.
So to answer your questions. I don't know if it is the 'best' tool, but it is good enough for me. Regarding scripting: use each tool for what it is build for. Jenkins a glorified cron deamon with great options when it comes to displaying analysis. The learning curve for people to use it is minimal (i.e. starting a job, seeing whether it failed.) Configuring Jenkins needs a little bit more learning, but it's very easy to set up simple jobs and go then to the more complicated tasks.
For the first four activities Jenkins will do the job and is rather the best choice nowadays, but for things like restarting the server (which is actually "remote execution"), better have a look at:
http://saltstack.com/
or:
https://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home
http://cfengine.com/
http://puppetlabs.com/
http://cfengine.com/
Libraries like Fabric(Python) or Capistrano(Ruby) might be useful too.
I am pressmuming (without really knowing) that "gant" is superior to "ant", especially when building grails applications. I have some old, inherited, grails apps using ant. Is is possible or easy to convert existing build.xml files into gant build scripts?
ANT2GANT
If you have a go at using it, please
feel free to give feedback and/or make
bug reports and improvement requests
via the Gant JIRA.
The project for this script is being
maintained as a Bazaar branch. The
URL for the branch is
http://www.russel.org.uk/Bazaar/Ant2Gant
**, though if you want to browse the material rather than branch is you may
well want to use the URL
http://www.russel.org.uk:8080/Ant2Gant.ttp://www.russel.org.uk:8080/Ant2Gant.
I'm picking up support on a project that is currently built with MyEclipse and has a decent sized development team that has been working without any CI processes.
From what I can tell, the MyEclipse folks don't see any value in being able to build outside of the Eclipse platform, which makes no sense at all to me. Continuous Integration is extremely helpful when you have to integrate changes into a codebase from more than one development environment, and it's pretty tough to automate builds when you're tied to a GUI.
Does anyone have continuous integration processes set up around MyEclipse style project-sets? If so, what strategy did you use to accomplish it?
AFAIKT there is no OOTB feature that can generate an Ant script (or equivalent headless-build script) from MyEclipse, nor is there an exposed way to invoke MyEclipse builders from a build-script platform.
This would lead me to believe that I'll need to reverse engineer the scripts based on what MyEclipse generates, which I'd rather not have to do.
I'm not particularly concerned with a Maven-style solution for my needs, but if you know of one I'd like to hear about it. From my initial research it looks like Maven/MyEclipse integration is even worse.
This is remarkably similar to the problems I had working with a websphere 5.1 application that could only be built from WSAD6 running on build machine built from a disk image from the company IT dept. WSAD did have a headless mode. It was a real pain to get that working from Hudson.
I would not be surprised if there was a Maven plugin and/or Ant task for each of the builders you are using. I would start there.
Here is a Maven based solution so maybee a bit off topic for you..
In our company, we use MyEclipse as IDE and Hudson and Team City for continuous integration. The projects are Maven based, so Hudson and TC can work with them.
When you want to open the project in Eclipse, you have to check out the sources, setup maven repository path for eclipse with mvn eclispse:add-maven-repo, build them with mvn install and then run target mvn eclipse:eclipse, which creates the Eclipse project setup from the maven's POM configuration. Then it is possible to import the project into Eclipse and work with it seamlessly..
More information can be found on maven-eclipse-plugin project page
..seamlessly until you change something in the POM configuration - then you have to run the mvn eclipse:eclipse again and have the eclipse project configuration recreated acording to the new POM.. it's important not to forget about this step, unless your project in the IDE won't work properly and you'll be wondering why ;)
Me personally don't find this solution the best, but that's the way how Eclipse folks work with Maven :/
Hope this should inspire you at least :)
This is another reason why I intensely dislike Eclipse. The fact that an IDE can force you away from something that's acknowledged to be a best practice is shameful.
"AFAIKT there is no OOTB feature that can generate an Ant script (or equivalent headless-build script) from MyEclipse" - I'm not sure I understand why this is a problem. It's possible to write a simple Ant build.xml in an hour or two that would do the job for most Java EE apps packaged as WAR files. I don't know if you're using EJBs, but even adding app server specific tasks such as EJB and JSP compilation wouldn't be much of a challenge. If you can agree on a common directory structure it would even be reusable across projects.
With that Ant build.xml in hand, you should be able to drive your CI process simply by checking into Subversion. The Eclipse plug-ins to do that work well, I hear.
If it's really a problem, I'd recommend IntelliJ. It works nicely with CI based on either Cruise Control or Hudson or Jet Brains' own Team City. The cost isn't excessive, and it'll pay for itself quickly.
If I'm misreading your question, I apologize. But if I've got it right, there's no way I'd let the IDE dictate to the team this way.