Jenkins CI Server is great

Finally got a Jenkins server installed. Had a host of system issues, like communicating to our source code repo.

Jenkins is a joy to use. Well, it is not perfect, what is? Like, I need to pass the user’s name that invoked a build via Jenkins to the target DOS script (yea, Windows) that eventually invokes the legacy Ant scripts. A quick Google search shows that this is asked in various ways, but no answers. For example, here or here. Hmmmm.

Anyway, now comes a trial use, to see if it is what we really need and can we manage it to do what we will want. With 400 plugins, I don’t see how it could lack. Plus, I’m sure I can use the Groovy plugin to cobble something up. Jenkins even includes a Groovy Console. Finally, there is a road map for possible migration of legacy Ant scripts to Gradle using the Gradle Plugin.

I take back my past snarky comment. Jenkins is not just a pretty face on Cron.

BTW, is there some Wiki law that says a wiki shall never ever have a link to the parent project? If you get tossed into a wiki by following a link, invariably you will click in agony at links that should go to the real home. Instead, you have to edit the URL in the address bar. Since I never curse, I can’t write “wtf”.

Off Topic
Was watching the Easyb intro video. BDD is interesting. Definitely “should” is a better then “test”. With so many great tools why are products still bug ridden?

More stuff

1. Jenkins home page
2. Continuous integration Not a very good Wikipedia article
3. Continuous Integration Much better
4. Continuous Integration in Agile Software Development
5. Hooking into the Jenkins(Hudson) API
6. Five Cool Things You Can Do With Groovy Scripts
7. Parameterized Builds in Jenkins – choosing subversion folders
8. Groovy Console
9. Groovy plugin
10. Switching to Jenkins–Download and Install Artifact Script for Tester
11. Gradle Plugin

Hudson/Jenkins CI Server, can’t edit a job?

I was looking at a possible use of a Continuous Integration Server to quickly set up a build process.

Downloaded the Jenkins war file, put into Tomcat and defined a simple Job that invoked an Ant file to echo “Hello World!”. Cool, that was easy. But, then I wanted to expand that job to do more. Could not find a modify or edit capability. Huh? What’s up with that?

I searched and found very little. There was even some mention of using SED to edit the Job configuration XML, yeeech! Edit using a text tool for a tree-based data structure?

Anyway, not impressed. Of course, this was a quick tryout. Or maybe Linux people are so perfect they never have to edit their work.

Is Jenkins/Hudson just a pretty face on *nix utilities?

I looked at a few other CI Servers. So far Pulse and Team City look interesting, but they are not free.

Updates
Mar 2, 2012: Used one of the latest Jenkins version. Much much better! Though I’m having issues getting Active Directory authentication going. Can log in ok, but then it uses the wrong user “name” that our PCs must use. You know how LDAP has all this distinguished this or that.

Links

1. Jenkins
2. Active Directory Plugin