Jenkins Continuous Build System

Jesse Bowes CSCI-5828 Spring 2012

Executive summary
!! Continuous integration systems are a vital part of any Agile

team because they help enforce the ideals of Agile development !! Jenkins, a continuous build tool, enables teams to focus on their work by automating the build, artifact management, and deployment processes !! Jenkins core functionality and flexibility allow it to fit in a variety of environments and can help streamline the development process for all stakeholders involved

Agenda
!! Continuous Integration (CI)
!! What is it? !! What are the benefits? !! Continuous Build Systems !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

!! Jenkins

What is it? Where does it fit in? Why should I use it? What can it do? How does it work? Where is it used? How can I get started?

!! Putting it all together !! Conclusion !! References

CI - Defined
!! Continuous Integration is a software development practice

where members of a team integrate their work frequently, usually each person integrates at least daily - leading to multiple integrations per day. Each integration is verified by an automated build (including test) to detect integration errors as quickly as possible Martin Fowler

CI What does it really mean?

!! At a regular frequency (ideally at every commit), the system

is:

!! Integrated !! All changes up until that point are combined into the project !! Built !! The code is compiled into an executable or package !! Tested !! Automated test suites are run !! Archived !! Versioned and stored so it can be distributed as is, if desired !! Deployed !! Loaded onto a system where the developers can interact with it

CI - Workflow
Code Repository

Regular Interval

Continuous Build System

Executable/ Package

Artifact Repository

Testing Results Source & Tests Test Reports

Deployment

Developers

CI Benefits
!! Immediate bug detection !! No integration step in the lifecycle !! A deployable system at any given point !! Record of evolution of the project

CI The tools
!! Code Repositories
!! SVN, Mercurial, Git

!! Continuous Build Systems

!! Jenkins, Bamboo, Cruise Control

!! Test Frameworks
!! JUnit,Cucumber, CppUnit

!! Artifact Repositories
!! Nexus, Artifactory, Archiva

Jenkins
!! Branched from Hudson !! Java based Continuous Build System !! Runs in servlet container
!! Glassfish, Tomcat

!! Supported by over 400 plugins

!! SCM, Testing, Notifications, Reporting,

Artifact Saving, Triggers, External Integration

!! Under development since 2005 !! http://jenkins-ci.org/

Jenkins - History
!! 2005 - Hudson was first release by Kohsuke Kawaguchi of

Sun Microsystems !! 2010 Oracle bought Sun Microsystems

!! Due to a naming dispute, Hudson was renamed to Jenkins !! Oracle continued development of Hudson (as a branch of the

original)

Jenkins Fitting in
Code Repository

Regular Interval

Executable/ Package Testing Results

Artifact Repository

Source & Tests Test Reports

Deployment

Developers

Why Jenkins? Flexibility!

!! Jenkins is a highly configurable system by itself !! The additional community developed plugins provide even

more flexibility !! By combining Jenkins with Ant, Gradle, or other Build Automation tools, the possibilities are limitless

Why Jenkins? Award winning!

!! InfoWorld Bossies Award, 2011 !! O'Reilly Open-Source Award, 2011 !! ALM&SCM, SDTimes 100, 2010, 2011 !! GlassFish Community Innovation Award 2008 !! Duke's Choice Award 2008

Why Jenkins? Free/OSS

!! Jenkins is released under the MIT License !! There is a large support community and thorough

documentation !! Its easy to write plugins !! Think something is wrong with it? You can fix it!

What can Jenkins do?

!! Generate test reports !! Integrate with many different Version Control Systems !! Push to various artifact repositories !! Deploys directly to production or test environments !! Notify stakeholders of build status !! and much more

How Jenkins works - Setup

!! When setting up a project in Jenkins, out of the box you have

the following general options:

!! Associating with a version control server !! Triggering builds !! Polling, Periodic, Building based on other projects !! Execution of shell scripts, bash scripts, Ant targets, and Maven

targets !! Artifact archival !! Publish JUnit test results and Javadocs !! Email notifications

!! As stated earlier, plugins expand the functionality even

further

How Jenkins works - Building

!! Once a project is successfully created in Jenkins, all future

builds are automatic !! Building

!! Jenkins executes the build in an executer !! By default, Jenkins gives one executer per core on the build server !! Jenkins also has the concept of slave build servers !! Useful for building on different architectures !! Distribution of load

How Jenkins works - Reporting

!! Jenkins comes with basic reporting features
!! Keeping track of build status !! Last success and failure !! Weather Build trend

!! These can be greatly enhanced with the use of pre-build

plugins
!! Unit test coverage !! Test result trending !! Findbugs, Checkstyle, PMD

Jenkins by example Main Page

!! The main page provides a summary of the projects !! Quick view of

!! Whats building (No builds in the queue) !! Build Executor Status (both Idle) !! Status of the projects

Jenkins by example Project Status

!! Project status pages provide more details about a given

project
!! The status of the last several builds !! Charting (depending on plugins) !! Dependencies

Jenkins by example Project Status

Jenkins by example New Project

Enhancing Jenkins
!! Jenkins plugin system can enable a wide range of features including (but certainly not

limited to)

!! SCM !! Mercurial, Git, Subversion !! Testing !! Selenium, Windmill, TestLink !! Notifications !! IRC, Twitter, Jabber !! Reporting !! Doxygen, PMD, Findbugs !! Artifact Saving !! Artifactory, Amazon S3, SCP !! Triggers !! Jabber, Directory Watchers !! External Integration !! GitHub, Bugzilla, JIRA !! And most importantly The CI Game !! A points based game where developers compete against each other to develop the most stable, welltested code

Who uses Jenkins?

Running Jenkins yourself

!! Jenkins is packaged as a WAR, so you can drop it into whichever servlet

container you prefer to use !! Jenkins comes pre-packaged with a servlet if you just want a lightweight implementation !! Native/Supported packages exist for
!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

Windows Ubuntu/Debian Redhat/Fedora/CentOS Mac OSX openSUSE FreeBSD OpenBSD Solaris/OpenIndiana Gentoo

Running Jenkins yourself Updates

!! Jenkins has two release lines
!! Standard releases !! Weekly bug fixes and features !! Long-Term Support releases !! Updates about every 3 months !! Uses a Stable but older version from the standard release line !! Changes are limited to backported, well-tested modifications

Letting someone else run Jenkins

!! There are also cloud-based solutions that can provide a

Jenkins instance
!! Cloudbees - http://www.cloudbees.com/ !! ShiningPanda - https://www.shiningpanda.com/

Tying it into Agile

!! For an Agile team, Jenkins provides everything needed for a

robust continuous build system !! Jenkins supports Agile principles by constantly providing access to working copies of software !! Jenkins extensibility allows the system to adapt to many different pre-existing environments

Putting it all together

!! While an integral part of a CI system, Jenkins is by no means

the only component !! In order for a CI system to function, a common repository for the codebase needs to exist !! A database of artifacts needs to exist, so deliveries can be made at past iterations !! The last step in a CI process is the deployment of the components built !! and none of this matters if the developers dont use the system; procedures need to ensure the system is used as intended

Conclusion
!! Continuous integration is a necessity on complex projects

due to the benefits it provides regarding early detection of problems !! A good continuous build system should be flexible enough to fit into pre-existing development environments and provide all the features a team expects from such a system !! Jenkins, a continuous build system, can be an integral part of any continuous integration system due to its core feature set and extensibility through a plugin system

References
!! Continuous Integration Martin Fowler
!! http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

!! Hudson
!! http://hudson-ci.org/

!! Hudson Continuous Integration Server

!! http://www.code-magazine.com/articleprint.aspx?quickid=0906071&printmode=true

!! The Hudson Book

!! http://www.eclipse.org/hudson/the-hudson-book/book-hudson.pdf

!! Jenkins
!! https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org

!! Monkey Image
!! http://corrines-corner2006.blogspot.com/2011/09/freebie-monday_26.html

!! What is Continuous Integration

!! http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/What+is+Continuous

+Integration