Continuous Integration using Jenkins

Overview of Jenkins

Jenkins, originally called Hudson, is an open source Continuous Integration tool written in Java. Jenkins is used by teams of all sizes, for projects in a wide variety of languages and technologies, including .NET, Ruby, Groovy, Grails, PHP and more, as well as Java.

Jenkins is easy to use and the user interface is simple and intuitive.  We will see how to get started with Jenkins in the next section. Jenkins is also flexible and extensible as many open source plug-ins are available for Jenkins. 

These plugins cover everything from version control systems, build tools, code quality metrics, build notifies, integration with external systems, UI customization, games, and much more. And installing them is quick and easy.

We used Jenkins for continuous integration for BizTalk 2009 and SharePoint 2013 Projects. It is also used to invoke code review tool to analyze the code and schedule the build options.

Pre-requisites for using Jenkins for BizTalk projects

Configuring Jenkins

In this section we will explain how to install and configure FxCop Plugin to invoke FxCop(BizTalkCop) rules from Jenkins for a BizTalk project. The steps for configuring are:

1. Adding FxCop & SVN Plugin to Jenkins
2. FxCop Configurations
3. Adding a project into Jenkins from SVN
4. Building Application from Jenkins
5. Workspace & Changes

1)Adding FxCop & SVN Plugin to Jenkins:

1. Go to Manage Jenkins->Configure System. Check whether configurations for FxCop and sub version are available.                                                                                                                                                                 
2. In this case we have configurations for SVN to be listed and configurations are not listed for FxCop. Now we have to install FxCop.
3. Go to URL: updates.jenkins-ci.org/download/plugins. List of plugins available in Jenkins will be listed.            
4. Click fxcoprunner/ plugin and download the latest .hpi file.                                                                                
5. Then go to Manage Jenkins->Manage Plugins->Advanced
6. In the upload Plugin select the .hpi file downloaded and click submit.                                                               
7. Now the plugin is installed and you can see the fxcop configurations in the system configuration                       

2)FxCop Configurations:

1. Install FxCop and BizTalkCop in your system.
2. Use the setup files to install Fxcop and BizTalkCop - FxCopSetup_1_36.exe/BizTalkCop_1.0.0.1.msi                 
3. First install FxCop and then install BizTalkCop. Installing BizTalkCop will add BizTalkCopRules.dll into Rules folder in Fxcop.
4. Go to Manage Jenkins->Configure System. Add FxCop installations                                                                  
5. Enter a name for FxCop plugin and give the installation path of FxCop Plugin. Click Add FxCop and click Save.
6. FxCop Configurations are done. Follow the same procedure for installation of other plugins too.

3)Adding a project into Jenkins from SVN:

1. Select New Item. Options for including the project into Jenkins are displayed. Select  the type of project(here we will select freestyle project), enter the name of the project to be displayed in Jenkins. Click OK.                                                                                                                                                                        
2. Under Source Control Management select Subversion and enter the repository URL                                        
3. Under Build Trigger select POLL SCM and in schedule enter the polling interval. We have specified the schedule in the below figure as 5 mins. 
4. Under Build, select ‘Add Build step’ button, and select FxCop exec in the dropdown. Now enter the FxCop plugin details. Here we have given build step as command line arguments.                                                      
5. The command line argument given:                                                                                                                      
   BAT

    /d:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft FxCop 1.36\FxCopCmd.exe" /file:"%WORKSPACE%\OrderProcess\bin\Deployment\OrderProcess.dll" /rule:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft FxCop 1.36\Rules\BizTalkCop.Rules.dll" /out:"D:\OrderProcess\OrderProcess\FxCop_Result.xml"                                   

   Installation Path of Fxcop: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft FxCop 1.36\FxCopCmd.exe"     Project dll:  "%WORKSPACE%\OrderProcess\bin\Deployment\OrderProcess.dll".                                                                   This dll is picked from the Jenkins  workspace.                                                                   Installation Path of BizTalkCop: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft FxCop 1.36\Rules                                                                                             \BizTalkCop.Rules.dll"                                                                   Path where the report has to be placed:"D:\OrderProcess\OrderProcess\FxCop_Result.xml"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
6. Then select “Add Build Step” under Build and select “Build a visual studio project or solution using MSBuild”.
7. Select the name of the MSBuild plugin from the list available and give the command line arguments as given below:                                                                                                                                                            
   BAT

   MSBuild.exe "D:\BAM\BAM\BAM TrainingLabFiles\OrderProcess\OrderProcess.sln"                              Path of the solution file: "D:\BAM\BAM\BAM TrainingLabFiles\OrderProcess\OrderProcess.sln"

8. Else you can select the MSBuild plugin name and give the path of the solution file as shown below                
9. Click Save.

4) Building Application from Jenkins:

1. To build an application click on the project in the dashboard and click Build Now.                                            
2. Build report can be seen from the build history. Inside the build history click on the arrow near the build and click console output.                                                                                                                                      
3. Here you can see the console ouput.                                                                                                                    

5)Workspace & Changes:

1. To view the entire code click on the project->workspace.                                                                                    
2. To view the change history, select the project and click changes.                                                                        

Setting up of Jenkins for TFS projects

This section describes the procedure to setup the Jenkins tool specifically for building projects from TFS.  In addition to retrieving the source code from TFS, BizTalk projects are validated using BizTalk Cop rules for an automated code review and results are written in a configured output path. 

Following are the various steps that are involved in creating a project in Jenkins.  More details are provided under each of the items mentioned. 

Pre-requisites: Before going through this, ensure that all the pre-requisites for building BizTalk and SharePoint projects should be installed and the machine should be ready.

Steps to set up project in Jenkins:
1.    Install and configure TFS plug-in
2.    Install and configure FxCop plug-in
3.    Create global environment variables to be used in the projects
4.    Create project in Jenkins that builds using msbuild command line
5.    Configure TFS source location for the project
6.    Configure FxCop command line for BizTalk Cop rules validation
7.    Setup the build schedule for periodical builds
8.    Specify users to receive emails in case of failures
9.    Specify upstream and downstream projects to maintain project build order

1.      Install and configure TFS plug-in

Go to Manage Plug-ins link from Jenkins and install the TFS plug-in.  

After installation, the TFS Plug-in will appear in the Installed tab as above. 

Go to Manage Jenkins -> Configure System page to configure TFS settings. 

Under Team Foundation Server, specify the TFS command line executable path.  Eg. C:\TEE-CLC-12.0.2\tf.cmd

Now the TFS plug-in should be installed and configured and the TFS source can be accessed from the Jenkins build project.

2. Install and configure FxCop plug-in

After installing FxCop plug-in as mentioned in the link in the step 1, the FxCop plug-in should appear in the installed plug-ins tab. 

In the Configure System page, under FxCop installations, give the path of the FxCopCmd executable, so that it will be used by Jenkins during build process.  See below for the path specification in the configuration page.  

3. Create global environment variables to be used in the projects

We can create global variables to be used across all the Jenkins projects.   We have created few variables for specifying the Workspace paths, and the path where the BizTalk cop results are written.  We can create any other necessary environment variables which might be commonly used in multiple projects.  

4. Create project in Jenkins that builds using msbuild command line

Create a new Free Style project and specify the name which is same as the project name in BizTalk.  This will enable us to use the JOB_NAME variable in our commands and configurations.  If we want to create a new project, there is an option ‘Copy Existing Item’ where we can specify the project whose settings will be used initially.  This can be easily modified as per the new project.  

Initial settings used in the project created:

Click on the ‘Advanced Project Options’ and check ‘Use Custom Workspace’.  We have used custom workspace in order to build the projects in our specified location rather than using default location.  

Add build step and specify ‘Execute windows batch command’. 

Specify the necessary commands to build the project in the Execute Windows Batch command window.  

In msbuild command, /p:"ReferencePath" parameter can be used to specify dynamically the location of dll's which this built solution is dependent on.  

5. Configure TFS source location for the project

Specify TFS details under Source Code Management.  We need to give Server URL, Project Path, Login Name and User Password.

Now the Jenkins should take the code from TFS and invoke msbuild and do a build.  

5. Configure FxCop command line for BizTalk Cop rules validation

Add Build Step and FxCop Exec.  Select the ‘BizTalkCop’ from the dropdown for FxCop Name. 

Specify the following in the command line arguments:

/file:"%WORKSPACE%\%JOB_NAME%.Pipelines\bin\Release\%JOB_NAME%.Pipelines.dll"

/rule:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft FxCop 1.36\Rules\BizTalkCop.Rules.dll" 

/out:"%BizTalkCopOutPath%\FxCop_Result_%JOB_NAME%.Pipelines.xml" 

/directory:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies\Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes.dll" 

/directory:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009\Microsoft.XLANGs.BizTalk.ProcessInterface.dll"

/file – Path of the Dll file to be validated by FxCop

/rule – Path of the BizTalkCop.Rules.dll

/out – FxCop Result path

/directory – Directory where any dependent assemblies are present

Similarly add more build steps for validating additional BizTalk dlls like Maps, orchestrations etc and modify the properties in the command line arguments accordingly.  

Now TFS, msbuild and BizTalk Cop rules are configured.  If we click on ‘Build Now’ the project should get built, taking the latest code from TFS.  

7. Setup the build schedule for periodical builds

The project can be scheduled to be built daily, by specifying ‘@daily’ in the ‘Build Triggers’ section by checking the ‘Build Periodically’ checkbox.  

It will be built on a daily time schedule chosen by Jenkins.                                                                                   8. 8.Specify users to receive emails in case of failures

<o:p>You can specify users to send error alert emails in case of build failures for the projects.  In the ‘Add Post Build Action’, choose Email Notification.  Enter the list of usernames who wish to be notified separated by space.  

9. Specify upstream and downstream projects to maintain project build order

In order to build multiple projects and enforce order of building projects, we  need to use UpStream and Downstream projects.  A downstream project is a project that will be built after the current project is built.  An Upstream project will be built before the current project is built.  For upstream project, you need to specify the project in the ‘Build Triggers’ section.  

For the downstream project, specify in the ‘Post Build Actions’ and ‘Build Other Projects’

See screenshots.  The build order for these 3 projects in this case will be:

1. msbuildtest
2. OrderProcess
3. sampleSVNTest

In this way, we can specify the build sequence for the entire set of projects.  

Summary

Explained about the Setup of Jenkins and building a project using that. Used SVN and TFS to configure Jenkins for periodic builds.  Also saw how to send error emails on failures.  Build sequence can be specified for a set of projects.  

History

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