CI from scratch with Jenkins (EN)

1
CI from scratch with Jenkins
Borislav Traykov

2 Confidential and proprietary information of Verint Systems Inc. © All rights reserved worldwide2
Well …
Why is this guy going to talk to us about Jenkins?

Because
+Experience with Continuous Build + Test + Deploy using TFS &
Octopus Deploy (2013-2015)
+Captain of a Jenkins system, that is servicing the needs of 15 dev
teams since 2016. Started from scratch.
+Got 500+ jobs for Continuous Building, Continuous Testing и
Continuous Deployment
+Drive to provide clarity and reusability

… and initial expectations for added value
How to start with Jenkins?

How to start with Jenkins (psychological)
+Time and energy for communication
+Clarity of execution
+Expose opportunity for repeatability
+Identifying (and communicating) issues
+Taking into account external factors
+Code is code, even if it’s a script.
Even if it’s a “simple” shell script

How to start with Jenkins (technical)
+Jobs/Pipelines
+Command line interfaces
+Plugins
+Jenkins management
+Control flow

7
Tips and good practices
+Read documentation, blog posts and articles
+______
+Read and write log messages. Preserve them!
+Ensure enough repetitions are successful to prove readiness
+Reserve time and energy for unforeseen circumstances

9
Docker
+For primary/master – experiment with functionality
+For nodes/slaves – describe and preserve functional definitions.
“Servers are cattle, not pets”

Cost of running a Jenkins server or system
+PERCEIVED performance
+ Availability of resources – memory, storage and network
+ Authentication & Authorization
+ Changes to existing functionality
+ Updates to the equipment
+ Server configuration

Control flow plugins (job-to-job)
1. Parametrized Trigger plugin
2. Rebuild plugin
3. Build Blocker plugin
4. Extended Choice Parameter plugin
5. Extensible Choice Parameter plugin
6. Global Variable String Parameter plugin
7. Copy Artifact plugin
8. Hidden Parameter plugin
9. Config File Provider plugin
10.Matrix Project plugin

Control flow plugins (jobs step flow)
1. Conditional BuildStep plugin
2. Text-finder plugin

Plugins for additional job functionality
1. EnvInject plugin
2. Workspace Cleanup plugin
3. HTML publisher plugin
4. Build Name Setter plugin
5. JUnit plugin
6. Ant plugin
7. Gradle plugin
8. SonarQube Scanner plugin
9. Credentials Binding plugin
10.Performance plugin
11.Allure plugin
12.Powershell plugin

Extensions for job capabilities
1. Git plugin
2. Subversion plugin
3. Timestampler plugin
4. Build Keeper plugin
5. Build timeout plugin
6. Discard Old Build plugin
7. Maven Project plugin

Management & Administration plugins
1. CloudBees Folders plugin
2. Martix Authorization Strategy plugin
3. Credentials plugin
4. Job Configuration history plugin
5. Build Trigger Badge plugin
6. Disk Usage plugin
7. Active Directory plugin
8. Bitbucket plugin
9. Windows Slaves plugin

Plugin management

Jenkins updates – LTS or latest nightly

19
Example of an unforeseen & unexpected situation

22
Thank you!
@turbobobi
https://cis.verint.com/careers/locations/bg/
borislav.t.traykovborislavtraykov

23
Actionable
Intelligence
for a
Safer World
Thank you!
Велики спасибi!
დიდი მადლობა!
¡Muchas gracias!
Dziękuję Ci bardzo!
Благодаря!
cis.verint.com

26
Extended Choice Parameter plugin
+The example demonstrates how we can have a hierarchy of drop-
downs. In this case on which VM on which environment do we
want something to happen

27
Extensible Choice Parameter plugin
+ For when we want to provide specific choices when running a job

28
Global Variable String Parameter plugin
+The documentation is good enough – just take a look. 
We are using this plugin so that we can have global environment
variables for all Jenkins machines and jobs.
These variables are set only by Jenkins administrators so there is little
chance that they will disappear or someone would change them by
mistake.

29
Hidden Parameter plugin
+We use it when a given job can be executed either manuall or in an
automated way.
+The idea here is to have an input parameter which is not something
that a person needs to know about or set when executing the job.

30
Config File Provider plugin
+ For globally available files which are consumed in various ways by various jobs.
+ The bad thing here is that these files are configured through the main configuration interface of
Jenkins, hence you need admin permissions which exposes all of Jenkins’ admin functionality.
+ Unfortunately during some updates of the plugin there have been cases where all existing files were
removed for some reason and I had to re-upload them.

31
Copy Artifact plugin
+ Allows us to pass files from one job onto another
+ The “source” job archives files as artifacts during every successful execution. From there every other job can request those
artifacts.
Artifacts are kept only on the master/main Jenkins node – that has its ups and downs.

32
Multijob plugin (1/2)
+Allows us to organize the sequence of executing other jobs –
including other multi-jobs – as well as regular job steps. Thus we
can describe a complex process which is broken down to discrete
(and potentially reusable) atoms.
With a multijob we can execute small and reusable jobs which –
thanks to input parameters, for example – perform different
operations.
Example is on the next slide.
We are using this approach for our automated product deployment.

34
Parametrized Trigger plugin
+ Below is an example of a parallel call to several jobs using a file in which we have
preserved the values of input params for every parallel execution

35
Rebuild plugin
+Allows us to re-run a specific job execution – with the same input
parameters
Any other context variables (such as global ones) are still “live”
+Gotcha: If you re-run a job execution which was triggered by an
SCM change, the re-run will also be marked to have the same
trigger. This is a glitch in the integration with the Build Trigger Badge
plugin

36
Matrix Project plugin
+A useful and complex approach of running a single or two-dimensional
matrix of executions of the same job with different values for its input
param(s)
+The matrix cells are pre-determined – cannot be supplied at the start of
the execution
+Currently we are using it a single dimension – this is how we run the
same job against several user choices – dev environments, in our case
+Every matrix cell gets its own workspace directory and job execution log –
due to this reason, matrix job executions are harder to trace

37
Conditional BuildStep plugin
+Allows us to express different conditions for running one or
more steps.
Having more than one condition makes the UI hard to scroll
unfortunately.

38
Text-finder plugin
+We use it to look for errors in the current job execution log –
allows us to prevent false positive executions.
+Can also be used to look for errors in text files as well.

39
EnvInject plugin
+Enables the injection of variables – global to the current execution.
+This is how we express job-specific environment context that all job
steps and invoked tools will use
+It’s interesting to note that a lot of other plugins are using EnvInject
internally

40
Workspace Cleanup plugin
+Blessing from the gods! Allows us to remove parts of or the entire
workspace directory of the job before and/or after starting a new
execution.
+It’s worth mentioning that you can have a Boolean condition to
determine if workspace cleanup will occur or not
+There is an async mode – by default – which allows the next job
execution not to wait for the cleanup of the previous one.
The workspace of the old execution is renamed and deleted
asynchronously.

41
HTML publisher plugin
We use it to preserve HTML and
text files – usually reports on
external tools that the job
invoked.

42
Build Name Setter plugin
• Enables you to expose context of each job execution.
• In this example – which version of the product we have
built

43
JUnit plugin
+Jenkins has a single built-in way of parsing test reports – JUnit’s
lame XML format. It’s lame because it’s not described anywhere and
so people are forced to reverse-engineer it and produce an XSD
schema for JUnit reports.
Why should I care? Because I don’t need to use JUnit to produce a
test report chart – I can simply output my results in the Junit’s test
report format and BAM! I get a chart!

44
Ant plugin
+Allows slightly improved control and visualization of a call to an
Ant script

45
Gradle plugin
+Analogous to the Ant plugin. This one gives you more refined
control through the UI.

46
SonarQube Scanner plugin
+Enables the connection between Sonar (now renamed to
SonarQube) and Jenkins – for static code analysis and reporting.
The plugin will give you a link to the Sonar instance – related to
every execution of your job

47
Performance plugin
+Jmeter generates reports – you can visualize them in Jenkins with this
plugin

49
Powershell plugin
+Allows us to execute Powershell scripts in the same way as we
would bash or batch scripts.
+Using Powershell on Windows is extremely powerful!

50
Git plugin
+Gives git-related capabilities to Jenkins. Not just cloning, but also
environment variables – like the current branch and commit hash.
+Additional cloning behaviors that we use:
− Shallow clone – because if a job clones A FULL COPY of the full git repo
even when we really need just the latest/head
− Specifying which branch or tag, or commit we want to clone

51
Subversion plugin
+Analogous to the Git plugin
It’s worth mentioning that SVN and git are alike in some aspects. 
That’s important to keep in mind if a customer of your is using SVN –
yes, this can still happen in 2020

52
Timestampler plugin
+Plain simple and very useful!
Prepends a timestamp to every line of your job execution log – starts
at 00:00
+We use it to determine and troubleshoot long execution times of
parts of a job – a plugin or a 3rd party tool

53
Build Keeper plugin
+Allows us to preserve specific job executions – the choice for that
can be done either manually or via a retention policy.

54
Build timeout plugin
+Yet another simple, but useful plugin. It’s functionality was extended
in the last few releases.

55
Discard Old Build plugin
+The primary plugin we use to remove old job executions using a
retention policy how long we want to preserve the job artifacts.

56
CloudBees Folders plugin
+One of the plugins that’s suggested during the initial Jenkins setup
+It provides order via actual directories
+The issue is that these directories and the jobs in them cannot be
filtered into views so jobs in folders can become hard to find and
visualize in a custom view.
+Such a folder is literally a pseudo-job – it can have specific
permission and it also has its own job-like config.xml

57
Martix Authorization Strategy plugin
+Enadles authorization delegation in a matrix fashion
+Allows for deep granularity of permissions
+I use the following strategy:
− Anonymous – has read-only access to everything except for the Jenkins
admin settings
− Administrators – full permissions
− Authenticated users – can do everything except for configuring Jenkins itself

58
Credentials Binding plugin
+ Enables the use of manually-created credentials as masked variables which we
can use in the steps of our jobs.
This enables us to handle passwords and security tokens and pass them
without visualizing them in the job execution log.
Also enables us to no longer hardcode passwords in our jobs

59
Credentials plugin
+Complex, yet well-described plugin with a 50-pages user manual …
not to mention the other 2 official manuals 
+This plugin is the foundation of the afore-mentioned credentials
binding plugin

60
Job Configuration history plugin
+Wonderful plugin! Gives us mini-”source control” for our jobs inside
Jenkins.
+Just like source control, you can see the history of changes and also
REVERT to a specific previous version
+It’s interesting to note that this plugin got extended to work for
pipeline jobs as well – regardless if they are based on a simple
Groovy script of a full-blown Jenkinsfile

61
Build Trigger Badge plugin
+A simple and very well-described plugin. We use it just as it’s
explained – to know what is the reason for each job execution.
+In the instances when a job is started manually we can actually see
which user was responsible – all you need to do is to hover over the
badge icon.

62
Disk Usage plugin
+One of the few plugins whose version is below 1.0 – it’s been at
version 0.28 since 2015
+Allows us to keep track of the disk usage of jobs’ workspace
directories, as well as the archived artifacts of those jobs.

63
Active Directory plugin и Windows Slaves plugin
+I am putting these two in a single slide because may be they will be
equally interesting to you.
+The Active Directory plugin is straight-forward – enables all Jenkins
users to use their Windows credentials to access Jenkins
+Windows Slaves plugin – allows us to have slave/node Jenkins
instances on Windows machines. Again, pretty straight-forward

64
Green Balls plugin
The creator of Jenkins (and Hudson) is Japanese – in his contry traffic
lights use blue light to signal “go” instead of blue light.
Due to this reason Jenkins shows us blue balls when a job finishes
successfully. Since managers feel good inside when they see the
color of money (ha, ha), having green balls instead is a much better
way of communicating successful executions.

65
Customize Build Now Label
+The button starting a job manually is called „Build Now“, but not
every job is used for building something.
Thus we need to set a button label that will match the purpose of the
job.

66
View Job Filters plugin
Gives us a wide variety of filtering capabilities for what jobs to
participate in a given view. Mostly we rely on RegEx-based
conditions:
In this example we want only the „trunk“ build job, meaning we are
excluding the ones whose names do not contain numbers – the ones
for already delivered releases such as
“Build_Wombat_API_9.11.7543”

67
Nested View plugin
+ Allows us to have views which contain other views.
Thus we can have a hierarchical order based on specific traits/conditions.
In the example shown below we have a nested view called ‘Product3” which contains 3 regular views.
Each of these uses the View Job Filters plugin to show jobs with a specific purpose.

68
Summary Display plugin
+ Enables us to have reports which are based on XML files which are visualized directly in Jenkins.
As long as you take care of generating the XML file in the expected format, all you need to do is to add a post-build
step of this plugin to archive the XML file as an artifact.

CI from scratch with Jenkins (EN)

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