We have multiple release branches in our product (currently this is unavoidable). For this question, suppose we have two:
master
release/r-858
Both have classic CI builds. Now I want to replace them with YAML builds. Our requirement is simple - have two distinct build definitions pointing to a YAML script - one for master, one for release/r-858
At the beginning I thought it is a trivial exercise:
Create YAML build script in master. Set the CI trigger to master.
Cherry-pick (never mind why not merge) to release/r-858 - set the CI trigger to release/r-858.
Not ideal, because the two scripts only differ in their CI trigger. But "I am learning, it is good enough for now" saying me to myself.
However, this simple scheme does not work! The build I created for release/r-858 is triggered on changes in master!
I double check every setting I know about builds - all look correct.
Please, observe:
The master build
The release/r-858 build
Uh oh, look at that. It shows the YAML on the master branch! Well, maybe it is an innocent presentation bug? Let us check the branch I am supposed to build from:
Yup, the file is different - I am playing with the trigger trying to solve the very same problem this question is about. The original code had release/r-858 instead of $(Build.SourceBranch) as the CI trigger, but since it did not help I started playing with all kinds of trigger values.
To remove any doubt, here is the proof the branch corresponds to release/r-858:
C:\xyz\58 [arch/shelve/798914 ≡ +0 ~17 -0 !]> git lg -2
cfdb6a9a86a | (HEAD -> arch/shelve/798914, origin/arch/shelve/798914) Rename azure-pipelines-ci-58.yml to azure-pipelines-ci.yml and sync it with the master version (68 seconds ago) [Kharitonov, Mark] (2020-08-14 09:09:46 -0400)
a931e3bd96b | (origin/release/r-858, release/r-858) Merged PR 90230: 793282 Work Assignments Merge (28 minutes ago) [Mihailichenco, Serghei] (2020-08-14 12:02:20 -0400)
C:\xyz\58 [arch/shelve/798914 ≡ +0 ~17 -0 !]>
Anyway, more build properties:
The problem
So a developer pushed some code to master and now the release/r-858 build is running:
Why is this? One of our guys asked a similar question in the Microsoft Developer Community forum, but that thread does not make sense to me.
What am I doing wrong here?
Edit 1
Imagine a big enterprise monolithic application. It is deployed in production at version 858. At the same time, developers work on the next version and also hot fixes and service packs for the version already deployed in prod.
A change can be made only in master or only in release/r-858 or in both (not at the same time, though). Many teams are working at the same time on many different aspects of the application and hence QA has many pods where the application is deployed. As I have mentioned above - about 150 pods for the bleeding edge (master) and about the same amount for the already released code, because there is active work to test hot fixes and service packs.
I appreciate this arrangement is not ideal. It is such not because we love it, but because one has to deal with decade old decisions. We are working to change it, but it takes time.
Anyway, the current process is to have 2 build definitions (in reality there are more for different reasons). So far we used classic CI builds, now we want to migrate to YAML (which we already use for micro services, but not the monolith).
Now I understand that we can have different release pipelines based off the same build definition, but different branch filters.
And maybe we will. But I do not understand why it is wrong to have different build definitions here, given that each branch is a long living release branch.
Edit 2
You can ignore $(Build.SourceBranch) and imaging release/r-858 instead. The net result is exactly the same. In the scenario I bring above code is committed to master, not release/r-858.
Edit 3
It is very confusing. Suppose I am creating a new YAML build. The dialog says "select YAML in any branch", but they point is that once selected this branch becomes the default branch of the build. That is the branch we can see here:
If I have a single YAML file in the master branch, the build with the default branch release/r-858 cannot even use it, unless it is merged to release/r-858. I tried it - I:
created a new YAML build
selected the YAML file from the master branch
ran and right away cancelled the build
then went to edit the build and changes the branch of the build from master to release/r-858 - it allowed me to save the build, even if the YAML does not exist in that branch
But then when I tried to run the build again I got this:
An error occurred while loading the YAML build pipeline. File /Build/azure-pipelines-ci.yml not found in repository bla-bla-bla branch refs/heads/release/r-858 version 5893f559292e56cf6db48687fd910bd2916e3cef.
And indeed, looking at the raw build definition, the process section contains the YAML file path, but not the branch:
"process": {
"yamlFilename": "Build/azure-pipelines-ci.yml",
"type": 2,
"resources": {},
"target": null
},
The branch only appears in the repository section of the definition:
"repository": {
"defaultBranch": "refs/heads/release/r-858",
...
},
It is clear to me that a single build definition can be used to CI build many branches. But this model I need to implement is build definition per release branch. I cannot have a single build definition for the following reasons:
Different release branches have different agent pools, because of the different development intensity. Remember, this is on on-prem Azure DevOps Server with self hosted agents. Can we express this requirement with a single build definition?
Different build variable values which we want to control without sending a Pull Request to YAML file repository. How do you do it with a single build definition? For example, one of the variables controls the version Major.Minor. They are different in each release branch.
So, I do not see any way to avoid multiple build definitions in our situation. The root cause for this are the release branches, but we cannot throw them away in the near future.
So, we have 2 build definitions. That forces us to have 2 YAML - one per branch, because a build definition with the default branch of release/r-858 expects to find YAML in that branch, otherwise we cannot trigger the build manually. Which is a must, even if the build has a CI trigger.
So, 2 build definitions, 2 YAMLs (one per branch). So far my hands were forced. But now I am told that the release branch build would be triggered by the master YAML just because the release branch build is linked to the same YAML file name ignoring the default branch of the build!
Because this is what happens - a commit is checked in to master and the release branch build is invoked in addition to the master branch build! Both build definitions build exactly the same branch (master) using the master YAML script. But because the release branch build has different set of variables the end result is plain wrong.
This is not reasonable. I am going to create a dummy repo to reproduce it cleanly and post here.
Edit 4
As promised - a trivial reproduction. Given:
master branch build test-master-CI
release branch build test-r58-CI
Since having two build definitions necessarily means two YAMLs (one per branch), here they are:
C:\xyz\DevOps\Test [master ≡]> cat .\azure-pipelines.yml
trigger:
branches:
include:
- master
name: $(BuildVersionPrefix).$(DayOfYear)$(Date:HH)
steps:
- script: echo master
C:\xyz\DevOps\Test [master ≡]> git co release/r-858
Switched to branch 'release/r-858'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/release/r-858'.
C:\xyz\DevOps\Test [release/r-858 ≡]> cat .\azure-pipelines.yml
trigger:
branches:
include:
- release/r-858
name: $(BuildVersionPrefix).$(DayOfYear)$(Date:HH)
steps:
- script: echo release/r-858
C:\Dayforce\DevOps\Test [release/r-858 ≡]>
Where BuildVersionPrefix = 59.0 for master and 58.3 for release/r-858
When I trigger each build manually I get this:
Now I commit a change to master. Lo and behold - both builds are triggered:
In both cases the YAML from the master branch is used. BUT the release branch defines BuildVersionPrefix = 58.3 and so the master build executed by the release branch build definition has bogus version.
Is this really how the feature is supposed to work? That makes the CI YAML trigger useless for my scenario. Thank you Matt for helping me to realize that.
I think I get where the confusion comes from. When you are configuring the pipeline, you are specifying the branch (notice the description says the file in any branch) and the file name.
What you are doing is just duplicating the monitoring though. If you were to really inspect it, I think you will see that when you push to release branch, it isn't trigger the master YAML pipeline ... it is just triggering the release YAML steps a second time. That is because the pipeline is just monitoring changes to the repo and responding based on the YAML configuration. In this case, you pushed to release and it evaluated that there was a YAML that matched that trigger (the release branch's copy) and triggered for both build definitions.
I verified this on a mocked-up pipeline. I had selected different branches on the creation, but the only thing that really impacts I believe is the default branch it would use for scheduled builds. I created a simple echo statement in both of these it was using the release branches YAML configuration.
I think if you really want to achieve the desired results you are expecting, you will want to use the override triggers that you define on the definition instead of relying on what is in the YAML trigger.
I had the same issue and Matt helped me solve this.
I'm only writing this as the only way to get this working for me was to create a build YAML file on one branch (with the correct configuration). Then create the other YAML file on another branch. And then create the pipelines in the new shiny YAML editor within Devops.
The key is, when in the "Configure" section of a new pipeline, select:
"Existing Azure Pipelines YAML file" which allows you to select a branch and a YAML file within that branch.
This allowed me to have the SystemOne branch build and test the system one site and the SystemTwo branch build and test the system two site.
I also added triggers inside the SystemOne.yml using a wild card. EG
trigger:
batch: true
branches:
include:
- SystemOne/*
And the same for the SystemTwo.yml.
I'd like to shelve old builds in all of my jobs for example
build numbers 1-10
I'm wondering if there is way to do that from the jenkins UI using a single command.
First of all in order to make changes to a bulk of jobs of I would use something called configuration slicer.
you can get to that from here: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Configuration+Slicing+Plugin
Also you want to delete your build? or archive them?! in case of deleting I would use the Log rotation eaither by date or number of builds. In the configure section of the job click on Discard old build and you will see the options.
and finally you can always use Artifact deployer and somether examples from that plug in.
Link Here: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/ArtifactDeployer+Plugin
Link on how to use the CLI in Jenkins : https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Jenkins+CLI
EDIT 1
In regards to the comments below where you are asking about "Shelving Jobs" .
I think the phrase you are looking for here is "archive" and not shelving - that is a very Visual Studio/TFS concept - so I am not personally aware of any anything that does SHELVING per say.
In terms of Groovy script I believe that you are now asking a different question and so this should be raised specifically as different question - but as far as groovy script go you can use the following link as an intro :
http://groovy.codehaus.org/
What I'm trying to achieve is the following:
I have multiple dependent configurations for a single, logical build. The very first configuration runs a script that does a bit of work and returns a value. You can think of this configuration as the setup step. I need to be able store this value and use it in subsequent steps. All dependent configurations for a single build should receive the same value.
Setup() computes a value x. I then have configurations B(x) and A(x) that run after Setup() and need to be fed the calculated value x.
Previously, I've managed to do something similar for things that are calculated as part of the TeamCity configuration. E.g. I generated a unique build id for the entire build chain and was able to access it via %dep.{team_city_configuration_id}.system.build.number%.
This time, the value I need to propagate is calculated in the guts of a build script and not as part of the TeamCity plumbing. I've managed to wrap the setup script in question and grep out the value I need, but I don't know how to propagate it between configurations.
Is this even possible, or am I barking up the wrong tree? If I cannot do this in a non-insane way, is there a better alternative I'm missing?
Thanks
Can a mod close this, please? It's a dupe. My colleague found this, which does exactly what we wanted.
I have several (15 or so) builds which all reference the same string of text in their respective build process templates. Every 90 days that text expires and needs to be updated in each of the templates. Is there a way to create a central variable or argument
One solution would be to create an environment variable on your build machine. Then reference the variable in all of your builds. When you needed to update the value you would only have to set it in one place.
How to: Use Environment Variables in a Build
If you have more than one build machine then it could become too much of a maintenance issue.
Another solution would involve using MSBuild response files. You create an .rsp file that holds the property value and the value would be picked up and set from MSBuild via the command line.
You need to place it into somewhere where all your builds can access it, then customize your build process template to read from there (build definitions - as you know - do not have a mechanism to share data between defs).
Some examples would be a file checked into TFS, a file in a known location (file share), web page, web service, etc.
You could even make a custom activity that knew how to read it and output the result as an OutArgument (e.g. Custom activity that read the string from a hardcoded URL).
Day 1 with using Hudson for our CI build. Slowly but surely getting up to speed.
My question is about run parameters. I've seen that I can use them to reference a particular run of a particular project - that's all fine.
What I don't understand (and can't find any documentation on - there's nothing at Parameterized Build) is how I refer to anything in the run defined by the run parameter.
Essentially I want to reference the %BUILD_NUMBER% and %SVN_REVISION% of the run that is selected in the run parameter.
How can I do that?
Do you really need to add extra property values, extra parameters for your job?
Since BUILD_NUMBER and SVN_REVISION are already defined as environment variables (see Building a software project), you can use those in your job.
When a Hudson job executes, it sets some environment variables that you may use in your shell script, batch command, or Ant script
or:
illustrates you already have those values at your disposal.
You can then use them to define other environment variables/properties within your shell or ant script.
When it comes to pass a variable value from one job to another, the Parameterized Trigger Plugin should do the trick:
The parameters section can contain a combination of one or more of the following:
a set of predefined properties
properties from a properties file read from the workspace of the triggering build
the parameters of the current build
"Subversion revision": makes sure the triggered projects are built with the same revision(s) of the triggering build.
You still have to make sure those projects are actually configured to checkout the right Subversion URLs.
Note: there might be an issue with the Join Plugin, which might not work when the Parameterized Trigger is in action.