Ant build for multiple servers - ant

Question

I need suggestions for creating Ant build for multiple servers. I have about 25 servers. If possible, I would like to implement deployment war file for all the servers by running ant once. I have the following issues to consider
The configuration parameters are not the same for all servers.
Some configuration parameters I have to set server host ip on which app is deployed. With 25
servers, want some suggestions on how to deal with this.

Answer 1

You could hand code the logic to do this in Ant, but it might be lot of work depending on how different your server configurations are. Instead, I'd recommend looking at using a proper configuration management tool such as Chef or Puppet to automate your deployments and just use Ant to build the files that are deployed.

Answer 2

I had the same objectives.
You can either code a maven script in order to set up the continuous integration on Jenkins as mentionned by Jayan
or you can create an ANT script like you mentionned.
<!-- Define custom properties -->
<property name="build.dir" location="${basedir}/target" />
<property name="host.dev" value="YOUR IP" />
<property name="host.live" value="YOUR IP 2" />
<property name="ssh.timeout" value="60000" />
<property name="username.dev" value="username" />
<property name="username.live" value="username 2" />
<property name="password.dev" value="password" />
<property name="password.live" value="password 2" />
Create you own ssh macrodef task in order to use ssh commands:
<!-- Define ssh commands sshexec -->
<macrodef name="ssh_cmd">
<attribute name="host" />
<attribute name="command" />
<attribute name="usepty" default="false" />
<attribute name="username" />
<attribute name="password" />
<sequential>
<echo>Executing command : #{command} on #{username}###{host}</echo>
<sshexec host="#{host}" failonerror="true" username="#{username}" password="#{password}" timeout="${ssh.timeout}" command="#{command}" usepty="#{usepty}" trust="true" />
</sequential>
</macrodef>
Send a command to your server like :
<ssh_cmd host="${host.dev}" command="YOUR COMMAND (ex: sudo start yourservice onlinux)" username="${username.dev}" password="${password.dev}"/>
Don't forget to import sshexec / scp ant tasks with something like :
<property environment="env" />
<taskdef resource="net/jtools/classloadertask/antlib.xml">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${ant.home}/lib" includes="ant-classloader*.jar" />
</classpath>
</taskdef>