Jenkins Job Current "Log Status" - jenkins

I've got a job that runs for a long time (for example, it builds few solutions), Is there a way to know the current solution that is beind compiled on runtine?
I mean, the Log is very long, so sometimes is confusing to know what is the current compilation that is running.
I want to know what is the current solution that is being compiled now...
Any plugin or a way to do that?

It would be easier to diagnose problems if you split the job into multiple jobs (each one building a single solution). If you have dependencies between the different builds (i.e. one part of the build cannot happen until another part has completed), you can create a build pipeline, where once one job finishes, it triggers the next job in the pipeline. You can do this using the post-build action Build other projects in the job configuration.
There is also an excellent build pipeline plugin which helps you visualize your build pipeline.

If it is the case that you must have the whole solution built in a single job, then one approach would be to use the Jenkins log parser plugin to display a cut-down version of your build log, which just highlights the key events you are interested in to diagnose such problems.
More details of this plugin can be found at:
https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Log+Parser+Plugin

I've got two ideas for a possible solution but they needed to be implemented:
1. Adding a prefix for each row in the Log. The prefix could be a string.
for example, if there was a new Project Compilation started then the Log finds the line
----- Rebuild All started: Project: PROJ1 , Configuration: Release x64 ------
Then it adds all the rows after it the prefix "Building PROJ1"
until the log reads the next project:
----- Rebuild All started: Project: PROJ2 , Configuration: Release x64 ------
2. Adding a the current project name that's building to the flashing Job status blue ball.
I mean, finding the current building project from the Log, then adding it next to the current job status (the flickering ball).

Related

Can you ask for user input for TFS 2015 CI build?

This seems simple enough, but I can't find a solution for this online.
I am integrating SonarQube into our build definitions that get triggered on check in. I want the version SonarQube uses to be tied back to the project number defined by the business side of things.
Ideally, I would like to be able to prompt the user for input. When you go to check in and it kicks off the build, it would ask you for the project number to be used as the version for SonarQube. Is this something TFS 2015 supports?
User input for build definitions
As far as I know, build definitions that are not manually triggered do not prompt for user input. A prompt allowing users to set build variables is shown for manually triggered builds from the VSTS web page.
SonarQube project version
I would recommend against you using the build or assembly version in your build tasks. This is because the SonarQube concept of version is quite different from the build concept. SonarQube uses versions as a baselining mechanism / to determine the leak period. If you up the version number often, the leak period is going to be too short to be actionable.
I'd recommend keeping the SonarQube project version in sync with your release schedule instead.
The short answer to this question is no, there is no way to prompt for input on a non-manually triggered CI build.
Here's what we did to work around this:
I wrote a Powershell script to read a config file and set the values to environment variables exposed to later build steps. Those variables are then what are specified in the Sonar Begin Analysis build task. I packaged that script up as a custom build task that will read a "sonar.config" file. This means all we have to do is add a "sonar.config" file to each solution we want to run Sonar analysis for, defining the key, name and version for the project, and then this build task will populate all necessary environment variables as the first step in the build.
So not a perfect solution, but it gets the job done without us having to add a lot of extra code to our solutions.

How do I get all build steps to execute in Hudson/Jenkins?

I'm using Jenkins to build a number of client libraries to my system, each one targeting a different language. My configuration consists of a number of distinct build steps, one for each language, building and/or testing the library.
Right now, a breaking change in the system will cause the first build step to fail, and no other build step ever gets run, which is very inconvenient. I need to run all build steps, so that I can see all resulting errors.
One alternative would be for a configuration to exist to tell jenkins not to abort latter build steps if earlier ones fail. I didn't find any such thing, but maybe there is.
Another alternative I thought of was to trigger each language as a separate build, but then I have to tie them all up for my post build steps, and I'm not sure how to do that.
And, of course, there might be something I'm missing.
Any of the above would solve my problem. So, what should I do, and how do I do it?
The Multijob Plugin is what you are looking for. I use this plugin a lot. Take a look at their screenshots - You can specify three options on how to mark a Phase(a Phase can have multiple jobs) as successful
when the Phase Job's build was successful
even if the Phase Job's build was unstable
even when the Phase Job's build failed - this is what you need
In your case, you can create a Multijob Job that has one phase for each 'client library'. And add your respective 'client library' jobs into their Phrases. So if you have 10 'client library' jobs then you will end up having 10 Phases (one for each) in this MutliJob. And don't forget to set the 'Mark phase as successful when phase jobs' statuses are' as 'Complete (always continute)'
I usually don't prefer using Downstream Jobs for this purpose, because, there is no nice UI in Jenkins to look at the whole build flow in a single page. Ofcourse there is this Build Pipeline Plugin that shows each and every build flow status. You may choose the right plugin based on your need.
To make this work in one job, I think you need to make the build steps to not fail (return non-zero exit code). Then you need a post-build step which analyzes test results and marks build failed or unstable, if needed.
You may need to write a wrapper script to do the build, such as simple .BAT or shell script, which has exit 0 as last line, after running the build/test actions.
Example of a post-build action which does this kind of test result processing is Publish JUnit test result report.

Manually failing a build after it's complete

Is it possible to set the build result for a build after that build is complete?
I could not find any plugins that do this already, and I was considering writing my own, but I wanted to see if this was even possible before going down that path.
(I have looked at existing code and how the "Fail The Build" plugin works as an example, but my understanding of the Jenkins code base is not advanced enough to understand what all the possibilities are.)
Use case: we have a build pipeline, and near the end of the pipeline there is a deploy-to-qa step that deploys the artifact to a QA environment. We have automated tests before this step to try to catch any problems with the artifact, but our test coverage is not very high in some areas so bugs could still slip through the cracks. I'd like to have the ability to mark a deploy-to-qa build as FAILED after the fact, to denote that that particular pipeline was invalid and is not a candidate for production release. (Basically the same as this Build Pipeline Plugin issue)
After some more investigation in the code, I believe that this is not possible.
From hudson.model.Run:
public void setResult(Result r) {
// state can change only when we are building
assert state==State.BUILDING;
// snip
...
}
So the build result cannot change except when in "building" state.
I could try to muck with the lastSuccessful and lastStable symlinks (as is done with the delete() function in hudson.model.AbstractBuild), but then those would be reset as soon as Jenkins reloaded the build results from jobs/JOBNAME/builds/.
I have an untested suggestion: Make a parametrized build, where the parameter determines if build will fail or not (for example simple bat / shell script testing the parameter from the environment variable it sets, and doing exit 0 or exit 1). This assumes that build pipelines manually triggered step will ask the parameters, and not use default values.
If it does not support interactive build parameters, then some other way is needed to tell this extra build step wether it should fail or not. Maybe editing upstream build description or display name to indicate failure, and then allowing build pipeline to continue to this extra build step, which probably has to use system groovy script to dig out upstream build description or display name.
I have seen several debates on this topic previously, and the outcome was always that it is theoretically possible to do so, but the codebase is not designed to allow this and it would have to be a very hacky workaround.
It's also been said that this is a bad practice in general, although I don't remember what the argument against it was.
I am facing the same requirement. I haven't found an appropriate plugin, changing the build status is not just a flag but has other impacts on links (eg latest successful build etc). So instead of changing the status of the build I looked for a possibility for qualifying the build. The Promoted Builds Plugin apply flags to build to define e.g. different quality stages. Build promotions can be performed manually or based on e.g. downstream project successful builds. Any successful build can be qualified, based on the promotion additional build and post build actions can be executed, e.g tagging or archiving.
Actually I was able to do it by changing the build.xml manually to <result>FAILURE</result>.
I've then played a little bit with mklink to create some symbolic links and also renamed the lastSuccessfulBuild to lastFailedBuild and it worked. If you are allowed to access the filesystem from within a Jenkins PlugIn, then it is possible to write one.
In case you are fine to delete the current build and start the same build using a version number and setting the next BUILD_NUMBER to the deleted one, then you could use this plugin to tell it to fail instead of succeed:
Fail The Build Plugin

How to conditionally build other projects?

I have a fairly complicated Jenkins job that builds, unit tests and packages a web application. Depending on the situation, I would like to do different things once this job completes. I have not found a re-usable/maintainable way to do this. Is that really the case or am I missing something?
The options I would like to have once my complicated job completes:
Do nothing
Start my low-risk-change build pipeline:
copies my WAR file to my artifact repository
deploys to production
Start my high-risk-change build pipeline:
copies my WAR file to my artifact repository
deploys to test
run acceptance tests
deploy to production
I have not found an easy way to do this. The simplest, but not very maintainable approach would be to make three separate jobs, each of which kicks off a downstream build. This approach scares me for a few reasons including the fact that changes would have to be made in three places instead of one. In addition, many of the downstream jobs are also nearly identical. The only difference is which downstream jobs they call. The proliferation of jobs seems like it would lead to an un-maintainable mess.
I have looked at using several approaches to keep this as one job, but none have worked so far:
Make the job a multi-configuration project (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Building+a+matrix+project). This provides a way to inject the job with a parameter. I have not found a way to make the "build other projects" step respond to a parameter.
Use the Parameterized-Trigger plugin (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Parameterized+Trigger+Plugin). This plugin lets you trigger downstream-jobs based on certain triggers. The triggers appear to be too restrictive though. They're all based on the state of the build, not arbitrary variables. I don't see any option provided here that would work for my use case.
Use the Flexible Publish plugin (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Flexible+Publish+Plugin). This plugin has the opposite problem as the parameterized-trigger plugin. It has many useful conditions it can check, but it doesn't look like it can start building another project. Its actions are limited to publishing type activities.
Use Flexible Publish + Any Build Step plugin (https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Any+Build+Step+Plugin). The Any Build Step plugin allows making any build action available to the Flexible Publish plugin. While more actions were made available once this plugin was activated, those actions didn't include "build other projects."
Is there really not an easy way to do this? I'm surprised that I haven't found it and even more surprised that I haven't really seen any one else trying to do this? Am I doing something unusual? Is there something obvious that I am missing?
If I understood it correct you should be able to do this by following these Steps:
First Build Step:
Does the regular work. In your case: building, unit testing and packaging of the web application
Depending on the result let it create a file with a specific name.
This means if you want the low-risk-change to run afterwards create a file low-risk.prop
Second Build Step:
Create a Trigger/call builds on other projects Step from the Parameterized-Trigger
plugin.
Entery the name of your low-risk job into the Projects to build field
Click on: Add Parameter
Choose: Parameters from properties File
Enter low-risk.prop into the Use properties from file Field
Enable Don't trigger if any files are missing
Third Build Step:
Check if a low-risk.prop file exists
Delete the File
Do the same for the high-risk job
Now you should have the following Setup:
if a file called low-risk.prop occurs during the first Build Step the low-risk job will be started
if a file called high-risk.prop occurs during the first Build Step the high-risk job will be started
if there's no .prop File nothing happens
And that's what you wanted to achieve. Isn't it?
Have you looked at the Conditional Build Plugin? (https://wiki.jenkins.io/display/JENKINS/Conditional+BuildStep+Plugin)
I think it can do what you're looking for.
If you want a conditional post-build step, there is a plugin for that:
https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Post+build+task
It will search the console log for a RegEx you specify, and if found, will execute a custom script. You can configure fairly complex criteria, and you can configure multiple sets of criteria each executing different post build tasks.
It doesn't provide you with the usual "build step" actions, so you've got to write your own script there. You can trigger execution of the same job with different parameters, or another job with some parameters, in standard ways that jenkins supports (for example using curl)
Yet another alternative is Jenkins text finder plugin:
https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Text-finder+Plugin
This is a post-build step that allows to forcefully mark a build as "unstable" if a RegEx is found in console text (or even some file in workspace). So, in your build steps, depending on your conditions, echo a unique line into console log, and then do a RegEx for that line. You can then use "Trigger parameterized buids" and set the condition as "unstable". This has an added benefit of visually marking the build different (with a yellow ball), however you only have 1 conditional option with this method, and from your OP, looks like you need 2.
Try a combination of these 2 methods:
Do you use Ant for your builds?
If so, it's possible to do conditional building in ant by having a set of environment variables your build scripts can use to conditionally build. In Jenkins, your build will then be building all of the projects, but your actual build will decide whether it builds or just short-circuits.
I think the way to do it is to add an intermediate job that you put in the post-build step and pass to it all the parameters your downstream jobs could possibly need, and then within that job place conditional builds for the real downstream jobs.
The simplest approach I found is to trigger other jobs remotely, so that you can use Conditional Build Plugin or any other plugins to build other jobs conditionally.

Jenkins conditional project

The projects concerned in my linked solution are the initialise database, import database and export database.
If the initialisation succeeds then 'export' should be called. If it fails then 'import' should be called.
dbinit
/ \
export import
Logically this is simple enough; however, due to my lack of Jenkins experience, it's causing considerable grief.
I've looked at the following plugins:
Conditional BuildStep - this basically adds an 'if' statement to the build. I investigated this with the idea that the export/import projects can be collaborated into one project, using the condition to decide which course of action to take. This could work if I was able to check the condition of the upstream build (success or failure)
Post Build Task - executes a shell script based on the log output. This would go in the dbinit project. The problem with this is that I would like import/export jobs to be separated from dbinit. This would work IF I could call another job from the shell
Parameterized Trigger - This could be perfect. This would basically solve the problem by deciding which job to run based on the status of that build. However, at the time of writing, this plugin does not perform correctly with Jenkins version 1.481 or above. This problem was raised a month ago (see error link, dated the 12th Sep 2012) and has still not been fixed, therefore I am still looking for another solution.
Can anyone tell me how to overcome the identified problems with any of these plugins?
Or is there another route that I've overlooked?
Many Thanks,
Rory
In case jenkins 1.481 or later doesn't give you anything you need, and Parametrized Trigger works, then simply use 1.480, and wait 'till problem gets fixed (it is sure to get fixed, that's so popular plugin).
Would the Build Result Trigger help you?
With the BuildResultPlugin, you configure jobB to monitor jobA build result. A build is scheduled if there is a new build result matches your criteria (unstable, failure, ...)

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