Creating artifacts in jenkins - jenkins

I have been tasked with looking into using Jenkins as a build server. So far I have managed to pull a project from git, restore the Nuget packages, build the project and run the unit tests. However I am struggling to find out how to generate the artifact.
The way the business would like to have the build server generate a zip file to a directory on the build server or a remote server for the systems team then to pick up and deploy to the relevant location. E.g. given a windows service project the built bin directory would be zipped up and put in the relevant artifact directory.
I thought that in order to do this I add an archive the artifacts post-build action. However I am getting the below error:
‘Watchdog.WinService.Monitor/bin/Release/*.zip’ doesn’t match anything:
‘Watchdog.WinService.Monitor’ exists but not
‘Watchdog.WinService.Monitor/bin/Release/*.zip’
If I look in the workspace for this project I can browse to the bin directory and see all the files so I unsure what I have done wrong.
Can someone please let me know if what I am trying to accomplish is possible, and also if our approach to using Jenkins is correct?

The problem is that you try to create the artifact using the archive artifatcs step.
But the step is to collect artifacts and show them on the job page.
That means you need to create the artifact first e.g. using a shell or batch script.
You can combine this with the Flexible Publish Plugin.
When you select this as post build step you can create a conditional action that runs the artifact archive task and as condition executes the script that creates the zip file.
So if that fails the task won't be executed. Also it may causes your job to 'fail' but that may not be the case in your job.

Related

Jenkins - how to copy test logs back to artifacts directory for build

New to Jenkins so apologise in advance as I'm sure this answer is out there somewhere. Just not sure exactly how to search for what I'm after. I'm struggling a bit with the copyback process in Jenkins.
When I build, I'm running some unit tests that create some log files which I want to be stored as part of the Jenkins build. I'm running on Windows 10 and everything is running on my laptop (I'm purely trying to learn Jenkins so this is fine for me).
So my test results will always appear in C:\TestLogs\*.log. I want the results copied to my build directory which is URL: http://localhost:8080/job/loadrunner_test/1/ absolute: C:\Program Files (x86)\Jenkins\jobs\loadrunner_test\builds\1
I'm a bit confused with which plugin I should use in my post build step? Copy Artifact plugin looks as if it's meant to pass data between builds. For each build, I just want to copy C:\TestLogs*.* to the current build directory so I can see them when I click on the link for #1 in the Build History.
Many thanks!
Tim
WindowsDir
Jenkins Build
You can copy it with additional step.
Select Execute Windows batch command for that step and add this line:
xcopy C:\TestLogs C:\Program Files (x86)\Jenkins\jobs\jenkins_test\builds\%BUILD_NUMBER% /s /e
You can also check configuration for your test if you can set path location.

Can JENKINS create build by excluding particular files?

I am actually trying to ignore a particular file to be included in the build. Actually it is a thumb.db file which is automatically created whenever images are encountered in a folder. My solution contains the image folder. So basically, whenever the build is triggered from JENKINS, it will create the thumb.db file.
Is there any way, I can ignore the Thumb.db file from getting created via JENKINS?
I can switch off the thumb.db file from creation by switching it off from my windows, but I have to do it every time a build is created from JENKINS. So I want to ignore the thumb.db file from creation.
Below is the Job creation flow in my JENKINS from my current project:
SCM
I have used the Team Foundation Server Plugin and have mentioned my SERVER URL and PROJECT PATH
POST BUILD steps simply create the build to the staging location(folder Location)
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
AFAIK, on windows you can turn it off or on for the whole system and not for particular folders.
So you have to choose. On or off.
If you still want to keep it on, you'l have to handle this in your Jenkins build scripts. Remove any thumbs.db files after build is done.
If your output is an archive, make sure to exclude thumbs.db from it. All archives support an exclude flag.
I hope this helps.

Archiving artifacts not in the workspace when build fails

When an ANT build step fails in my build I'd like to archive the logs in order to determine the problem. The relevant logs, however, are not located in the workspace, so I have to use a full path to them.
The standard artifact archiving feature does not work well with full paths, so first I have to copy the logs into the workspace within some build step so that I can later archive them. I do not want to incorporate the copying code into the original ANT script (it does not really belong there). On the other hand, since the build step fails the build I can't execute the code that copies the artifacts into the workspace as a separate build step as it is never reached.
I am considering using ANT -keep-going option, but how will I then fail the build?
Any other ideas (artifact plugins that handle full paths gracefully, for example)?
Update: I've worked around the problem by creating a symbolic link in the workspace to the directory that contains the files to be archived. Kludgy, but effective.
I would recommend using Flexible Publish plugin in conjunction with the Conditional Build Step plugin.
The Flexible Publish plugin allows you to schedule build steps AFTER the build steps have normally run. This allows you to catch both successful and failed builds and execute something - say a script that copies the files from OUTSIDE the workspace to INSIDE the workspace. The Conditional BuildSet plugin allows conditionalizing the steps so that they only run when the build fails. Using these two plugins, you can copy the files into the workspace upon failure, then archive them with the usual Jenkins mechanisms.

Can a Jenkins build access the archived artifacts from itself?

I'm using Jenkins and have the "Archive the Artifacts" step at the end of my builds to archive them into a zip file.
Instead of using this step, I'd like to use a script to push the artifacts to a remote server at the end of the build. The server I'm pushing to uses a REST API / HTTP PUT request in a script to upload files.
Note that I'm looking to access the artifact created in the same build. So if I'm on build #5, I want the artifacts from build #5, not build #4.
Is there any way to access this zip file with a script, in the same build that it was created in?
I need to upload this zip remotely and don't want to create another job to do so.
You can install one of the "Publish Over..." plugins to upload your artifacts at the end of a build.
The goal of the Publish Over plugins is to provide a consistent set of
features and behaviours when sending build artifacts ... somewhere.
See also the full list of "upload" plugins for other methods of publishing your artifacts.
Like #Christopher said, you can use any of the Publish Over plugins on the Jenkins Plugins page to upload the artifact to any of the
If you want to access the archived zip file from within the build itself, you can use the following link to access it:
http://<server>/job/${JOB_NAME}/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/<artifact name w/folder>
For example:
server = myserver.com
job name = myproject
artifact = del/project.zip
Your URL would be:
http://myserver.com/job/myproject/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/del/project.zip
EDIT: Question was changed. In any case, this would work for accessing the artifact of the previous build in the current one.
There is no way that I have found to access the "Archive the Artifacts" package of the build that generates it. This step always occurs last in the build. Accessing the URL prior to the build ending (during the build via script for example) results in a blank zip file. To get around this limitation, I'm making a second linked build job to grab the zip and run my script to deploy it.

Hudson/Jenkins PMD Configuration

I am new to Jenkins and just started configuring it. This is what i have done till now:
Installed and configured Jenkins to display the home page. Added PMD plugin.
Set the HUDSON_HOME to a specific directory > C:\Work\Jenkins
Configured a test build to run a simple do-nothing ant script. It runs successfully
Written an independent pmdbuild.xml to run checks on a set of files in C:\myview (I am using clearcase). This xml also copies the output pmd_results.xml to the workspace directory in $HUDSON_HOME/[job-name]/workspace
Now I added the pmdbuild.xml as a step in my primary build. So my build has 2 steps:
a. Run a simple script, do-nothing.
b. Run pmdbuild.xml which generate pmd_results.xml and place it in $HUDSON_HOME/[job-name]/workspace (HARD-CODED as Jenkins PMD plugin expects the file there)
Jenkins picks up the pmd_results.xml automatically with the plugin and displays warnings and everything.
Now the problem:
If I click on a filename in the PMD results, it gives a filenotfound exception as it is looking for the source file in $HUDSON_HOME/[job-name]/workspace.
My java code files are placed in C:\myview (a clearcase snapshot view)
My question is, do I need all my code files to be present inside $HUDSON_HOME/[job-name]/workspace ?? Meaning can't I tell Jenkins to look for the PMD input files in C:\myview or any other directory instead of $HUDSON_HOME/[job-name]/workspace ??
Sorry for the extremely long description.
Jenkins expects that all the code is in the workspace. Usually Jenkins is used to check out a copy of the code into the workspace, and then runs all build steps on the Sources in the Workspace.
Might seem restraining at first, but it saves you a lot of trouble if you need to move Jenkins to another server, or create a slave instance.
So I would suggest you let Jenkins check out your code (there should be a clearcase plugin) into the workspace, and run the analysis on the checked out code.
If there are compelling reasons why your code has to stay where it is (C:\myview in your case) you can still set the workspace of your build to that directory (find this in the job configuration page, you need to click on the 'extended' button to see the option).

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