Continuous integration with Jenkins

Buttle

Article from ADMIN 10/2012

By Thorsten Scherf

Compiling and testing newly written code is one thing. But, creating an entire RPM package to be able to install the software cleanly on the test systems is something quite different. Jenkins helps minimize this work.

The question of whether developers should check their work into a version control system (VCS) such as subversion or Git often and early is the subject of heated discussions. Opponents claim that it can make the work of other developers difficult because it is not always possible to ensure that the checked-in code or the software will work or can even be built. In contrast, the proponents claim that new code becomes increasingly difficult to integrate, the larger and more extensive the new commit is. Small, but numerous code snippets, they say, ensure that a potential error is identified at an early stage, and thus quickly resolved.

But, of course, the whole thing can only work if someone actually checks all these new code snippets regularly, as soon as they appear in the repository. Only then is it ensured that errors are fixable in a timely manner. So, why not simply employ someone who does nothing all day except build newly checked-in code and identify possible errors? This new resource wouldn't even ask for a paycheck, because I'm talking here about Jenkins, the butler – some readers may know him as Hudson.

Jenkins [1] is a web-based Java application that runs in any modern servlet container, such as Tomcat or JBoss. However, the tool also includes Winstone in its own, minimal container. Thus, you don't need to install an additional web container if you don't already have one. Jenkins supports a whole range of build tools and integrates seamlessly into version control systems such as Subversion. Thanks to its modular structure, Jenkins's feature set is extensible. For instance, plugins exist for integrating other build tools or version control systems.

Regularly querying the configured VCS helps Jenkins very quickly discover whether new code has been checked in to the repository. If this is the case, the code is checked out and Jenkins calls the configured build tool to compile the new

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