I was wondering if someone would be able to explain what Build runners do and also what i would need to use for just a static HTML / CSS / JS site, or even an already compiled .NET site.
I will be hooking up each project to its equiv SVN and grabbing updates from there, but not 100% sure what the build runners do or which i should use as technically i dont need to build the site.
Sorry it may be too much to answer but i am just struggling to get my head round Team City
Thank you
Build runners are just a process for a specific task, for example the MSBuild runner is set up by putting information into specific fields which it then uses to call MSBuild on the target build agent. You could just as easily use the Command Line runner and build up the MSBuild run command manually.
Build runner is a part of TeamCity that allows integration with a
specific build tool (Ant, MSBuild, Command line, etc.). In a build
configuration, the build runner defines how to run a build and report
its results. Each build runner has two parts:
server-side settings that are configured through the web UI
agent-side part that executes a build on agent
You need to choose your runner depending on the task that you want to do and the technology that you have wrapped your project in. If there is no runner for your specific task then you can use the lowest common denominator which would be the Command Line runner.
The way I approach this would be to see how I can achieve what I want to from my own environment be that calling a rake, MSBuild or batch file. I then see how I can then apply that to a tool. Do not create a process around a tool but choose a tool that fits to your process.
Related
We are currently running a Jenkins (Hudson) CI server to build and package our .net web projects and database projects. Everything is working great but I want to start writing unit tests and then only passing the build if the unit tests pass. We are using the built in msbuild task to build the web project. With the following arguments ...
MsBuild Version .NET 4.0
MsBuild Build File ./WebProjectFolder/WebProject.csproj
Command Line Arguments ./target:Rebuild /p:Configuration=Release;DeployOnBuild=True;PackageLocation=".\obj\Release\WebProject.zip";PackageAsSingleFile=True
We need to run automated tests over our code that run automatically when we build on our machines (post build event possibly) but also run when Jenkins does a build for that project.
If you run it like this it doesn't build the unit tests project because the web project doesn't reference the test project. The test project would reference the web project but I'm pretty sure that would be butchering our automated builds as they exist primarily to build and package our deployments. Running these tests should be a step in that automated build and package process.
Options ...
Create two Jenkins jobs. one to run the tests ... if the tests pass another build is triggered which builds and packages the web project. Put the post build event on the test project.
Build the solution instead of the project (make sure the solution contains the required tests) and put post build events on any test projects that would run the nunit console to run the tests. Then use the command line to copy all the required files from each of the bin and content directories into a package.
Just build the test project in jenkins instead of the web project in jenkins. The test project would reference the web project (depending on what you're testing) and build it.
Problems ...
There's two jobs and not one. Two things to debug not one. One to see if the tests passed and one to build and compile the web project. The tests could pass but the build could fail if its something that isn't used by what you're testing ...
This requires us to know exactly what goes into the build. Right now msbuild does it all for us. If you have multiple teams working on a project everytime an extra folder is created you have to worry about the possibly brittle command line statements.
This seems like a corruption of our main purpose here. The tests should be a step in this process not the overriding most important thing in this process. I'm also not 100% sure that a triggered build is the same as a normal build does it do all the same things as a normal build. Move all the correct files in the same way move them all into the same directories etc.
Initial problem.
We want to run our tests whenever our main project is built. But adding a post build event to the web project that runs against the test project doesn't work because the web project doesn't reference the test project and won't trigger a build of this project. I could go on ... but that's enough ...
We've spent about a week trying to make this work nicely but haven't succeeded. Feel free to edit this if you feel you can get a better response ...
In Jenkins/Hudson, it's quite ok to have many jobs. some for doing compilation triggered version control changes, some for running (unit) tests triggered by successful builds, some for doing more tests (integeration) trigered by successful earlier tests, some for deploying, triggered by successfully passing all tests.
Look at plugins like join, build pipeline, parametrized trigger and more to help out with this.
This will also allow things to happen in parallel, by using multiple nodes. Trying to cram everything in one job is not the way to go.
The group that I work in has standardized on Jenkins for Continuous Integration builds. Code check-in triggers a standard build, Cobertura analysis and publish to an Artifactory SNAPSHOT repo. I've just finished adding a new target to the master build file that'll kick off a Sonar run but I don't want that running on every check-in.
Is there a way to schedule a nightly build of a specific build target in Jenkins? Jenkins obviously facilitates scheduled builds but it'll run the project's regular build every time. I'd like to be able to schedule the Sonar build target to run nightly.
I could, of course, create a separate Jenkins project just to run the Sonar target on a schedule but I'm trying to avoid that if I can. Our Jenkins server already has several hundred builds on it; doubling that for the sake of scheduling nightly builds isn't very desirable. I looked for a Jenkins plug-in that might facilitate this but I couldn't find anything. Any suggestions?
Here's one way to do it, if you are ok with triggering the build using cron or some other scheduling tool:
Make the build parameterized, and use a parameter in your build file to decide if the Sonar build target should run or not.
Trigger the build remotely by HTTP POST:ing the parameter values as a form to http://[jenkins-host]/jobs/[jobname]/buildWithParameters. Depending on your Jenkins version and configuration, you might need to add an Authentication Token and include this in your url.
Authenticate your POST using a username and password.
wget --auth-no-challenge --http-user=USERNAME --http-password=PASSWORD "https://[jenkins-host]/job/[jobname]/buildWithParameters?token=<token defined in job configuration>&<param>=<value>&<param2>=<value2>"
I am also looking for a solution for this. My current solution in my mind is to create 2 triggers in the regular build, one is the nightly build, another one is Polling SCM
In the sonar plugin configuration, it has the options to skip the builds triggered by the SCM change. Therefore, only the nightly build will start a sonar analysis.
I didn't get a chance to test it now, but I suppose this will work.
Updated on 12/19/2011
The above solution doesn't work if the sonar analysis is invoked as a standalone build step. To make the sonar analysis run conditionally, you could use the following 2 plugins:
Conditional BuildStep Plugin - this allows the sonar analysis to be run conditionally
Jenkins Environment Injector Plug-in - this allows you to inject the variables to indicate how the build is triggered.
I am tasked to improve quality and implement TeamCity for continuous integration. My experience with TeamCity is very limited - I use mostly TFS myself and have some experience with CC.NET.
A lot should happen within a build process... actually the build is already pushed into three different configurations that will run one after the next.
My main problem is that in each of those I actually would need to start multiple runners. For example, the first build step shall consist of:
The generation of new AssemblyInfo.cs files for consistent in assembly numbering
The actual compilation
A partial unit test run (all tests that run fast and check core functionality)
An FxCop run
A StyleCop run
The current version of TeamCity only allows to configure one runner ... which leaves me stuck with a lot of things.
How you would approach this? My current idea is going towards using the MsBuild runner for everything and basically start my own MsBuild based script which then does all the things, pretty much the way that TFS handles it (and the same way i did things back in the cc.net way with my own Nant build script).
On a further problem the question is how to present statistical information, for example from unit tests running in different stages (build configurations). We have some further down that take some time to run and want that to run in a 2nd or 3rd step (the latest for example testing database generation code which, including loading base data, takes about 15+ minutes to run). OTOH we would really like test results to be somehow consolidated.
Anyone any ideas?
Thanks.
TeamCity 6.0 allows multiple build steps for a single build configuration. Isn't it what you're looking for?
You'll need to script this out, at least parts of it. TeamCity provides some nice UI based config for some of your needs, but not all. Here's my suggestion:
Create an msbuild script to handle your first two bullet points, AssemblyInfo generation and compilation. Configure the msbuild runner to run your script, and to run your tests. Collect your assemblies as artifacts.
Create a second build configuration for FxCop. Trigger it from the first build. Give it an 'artifact dependency' on the first build, which is how it gets a hold of your dlls.
For StyleCop, TC doesn't support it out of the box like it does FxCop. Add it to your msbuild script manually, and have it produce an html report (which TeamCity can then display).
You need to take a look at the Dependencies functionality in the TeamCity. This feature allows you to create a sequence of build configurations. In other words, you need to create a build configuration for each step and then link all them as dependencies.
For consolidating test results please take a loot at the Artifact Dependencies. It might help.
I am trying to create 1 package with multiple build configurations. The first will checkout the code, build it (Solution File configuration), and run nunit tests. If that succeeds, another will then build in release mode. If that succeeds, a final script witll package up the output, and mark it as an artifact.
The problem I'm having is that I don't know how to tell TeamCity not to create new directories for each step, and as a result, the steps are failing. Is there a setting for this? It seems like the dependencies tab would be an appropriate place to look, but I don't seem to understand the instructions, and my tinkering so far has been fruitless.
I basically skipped most of the TeamCity workflow, and instead used a scripting language to handle all of this. (I used Rake and Albacore, which I highly recommend for .net projects)
I'd caution you not to use powershell w/ TeamCity. You have to wrap everything in .bat file, which is fairly excruciating.
So the result, is that I have 1 checkout, and everything builds from this point. It's drastically cut down the amount of time required for the builds, though perhaps that wouldn't be the case if I had a lot of agents available.
I think I'm missing a valuable piece of understanding with TeamCity 5.0. Why is there a separate build runner for FxCop? I prefer that my build server run everything, at once (compile, run unit tests, FxCop, etc). The problem is, I don't see how to add more than a single Build Runner for a specific project, so it seems I have to add a second project to TeamCity with a dependency on another project that uses the sln2008 build runner, or I could simply go the long route and build everything out in MSBuild. Am I missing something that should be obvious? Is it possible to configure the sln2008 Build Runner to include FxCop code analysis?
I think most of the users want their builds with tests to be as fast as possible. Other things like coverage, code analysis, metrics most likely should not be run often. It is enough to run them once per day, because their value is statistics gathered over time.
As for multiple build runners per build configuraution feature - it is one of the most voted in our tracker: http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/TW-3660?query=multiple+build+runners, it has very good chances to be implemented in the next versions.