How to promote a specific build number from another job in Jenkins? - build

Question

I installed the Promoted Build Plugin from Jenkins and now I'm facing some troubles to promote a build from an existing job. Here is the scenario:
There is an existing Nightly Build job that runs every night running all the tests and metrics needed;
There is an existing Deploy Build that accepts a parameter ${BUILD_NUMBER} and deploys the build that has the corresponding ${BUILD_NUMBER} from the Nightly Build
Say the [Nightly Build] ran and successfully built the artifact #39
Now I can just run the [Deploy Build] passing in #39 as a parameter
The artifacts from [Nightly Build] #39 are going to be deployed
So far so good. Now is the part where I want to add the Build Promotions...
Is there a way to promote the Nightly Build #39 (notice that it was already built before) from the Deploy Build? Or maybe even from somewhere else, quite frankly I`m kind of lost here :(
I don`t see them with a clear Upstream/Downstream relationship, because they don't have a: always runs this build and then the other during the execution - the [Deploy Build] is executed sometimes only and not always after the [Nightly Build].

Answer 1

Update as of version 2.23 of Parameterized Trigger Plugin:
With version 2.23+ behavior changed (thanks AbhijeetKamble for pointing out). Any parameter that is being passed by Predefined Parameters section of calling (build) job has to exist in the called (deploy) job. Furthermore, the restrictions of called job's parameters apply, so if the called job's parameter is a choice, it has to have all possible values (from promotions) pre-populated. Or just use Text parameter type.
Solution
Yes, I have the exact same setup: a build job (based on SVN commits) and manually executed deploy job. When the user selects any build from the build job (including older builds), they can then go to Promotion Status link and execute various deploy promotions, for example Deploy to DEV, Deploy to QA, etc
Here is how to setup the promotion on build job:
You will need these plugins: Parameterized Trigger Plugin, Promoted Builds Plugin
You will also need to setup default Archive the Artifacts post-build action on this build job.
Check mark Promote builds when
Define Name "Deploy to DEV"
Under Criteria check mark Only when manually approved
Under Actions use Trigger/call builds on other projects
In Projects to build enter the name to your deploy job here
Check mark Block until the triggered projects finish their builds
Mark this build as failure if the triggered build is worse or equal to: FAILURE (adjust according to statuses of your deploy job)
Predefined parameters (Code A)
Code A:
Server=IP_of_my_dev_server`
Job=$PROMOTED_JOB_NAME`
BuildSelection=<SpecificBuildSelector><buildNumber>$PROMOTED_NUMBER</buildNumber></SpecificBuildSelector>
Above, in the Predefined parameters section, the name to the left of = are the parameters that are defined in your deploy job. And to the right of = are the values that will be assigned to those parameters when this promotion executes. Defines three parameters Server, Job and BuildSelection.
The parameter Server= is my own, as my deploy job can deploy to multiple servers. However if your deploy job is hardcoded to always deploy to a specific location, you won't need that.
The Job= parameter is required, but the name of the param depends on what you've setup in your deploy job (I will explain configuration there). The value $PROMOTED_JOB_NAME has to remain as is. This is an environment variable that the promotion process is aware of and refers back to the name of your build job (the one where promotion process is configured)
The BuildSelection= parameter is required. This whole line has to remain as is. The value passed is $PROMOTED_NUMBER, which once again the promotion is aware of. In your example, it would be #39.
The Block until the triggered projects finish their builds check mark will make the promotion process wait until the deploy job finished. If not, the promotion process will trigger the deployment job and quit with success. Waiting for the deploy job to finish has the benefit that if the deploy job fails, the promotion star will be marked with failure too.
(One little note here: the promotion star will appear successful while the deploy job is running. If there is a deploy failure, it will only change to failure after the deploy job finished. Logical... but can be a bit confusing if you look at the promotion star before the deployment completed)
Here is how to setup deploy job
You will need Copy Artifacts plugin
Under This build is parameterized
Configure a parameter of type Choice (or Text) with name Server (this name has to match with configuration in promotion's Predefined Parameters in previous section)
Choices: Enter list of possible server IPs that would be used by the promotion's Predefined Parameters in previous section (see update note below)
Configure a parameter of type Choice (or Text) with name Job (this name has to match with configuration in promotion's Predefined Parameters in previous section)
Choices: Enter the name of your build job as default. This is only needed if you trigger the deploy job manually. When the deploy job is triggered from promotion, the promotion will supply the value (the Job= from Predefined parameters that we configured). Also, if there is no value passed from promotion's Predefined parameters, the first choice value will be used. If you have a 1-to-1 relationship between the build and deploy jobs, you can omit the Job= parameter in promotion's configuration.
Update: since version 2.23 of Parameterized Trigger, the available choices in the deploy job configuration have to have all possible values coming from the promotion's predefined parameters. If you don't want that limit, use "Text" instead of "Choice"
Configure a parameter of type Build selector for Copy Artifact with name: BuildSelection
Default Selector: Latest successful build
Under Build steps
Configure Copy artifacts from another project
In Project name enter ${Job}
At Which build choose Specified by a build parameter
In Parameter Name enter BuildSelection (without ${...}!)
Configure the rest accordingly for your artifacts that will be copied from build job to deploy job's workspace
Use the copied artifacts inside the deploy job as you need in order to deploy
So now, with the above deploy job, you can run it manually and select which build number from build job you want to deploy (last build, last successful, by build number, etc). You probably already have it configured very similarly. The promotion on the build job will basically execute the same thing, and supply the build number, based on what promotion was executed.
Let me know if you got any issues with the instructions.

Answer 2

Marked answer is great explanation for the question. But I would like to suggest a solution for those people looking for "how-to-promote-a-specific-build-number-from-another-job-in-jenkins"
We can use a generalized solution for doing force promotion using CURL and REST API. You can execute curl from Shell or Groovy scripts.
Shell Solution using CURL:
user_name="jenkins_user"
user_token="token"
promotion_name="Test_Promote"
jenkins_url="http://build-server.com"
JOB_NAME="job_name"
JOB_NO="job-no"
url="--silent -u $user_name:$user_token $jenkins_url/job/$JOB_NAME/$JOB_NO/promotion/forcePromotion?name=$promotion_name"
curl $url
Groovy Soultion:
user_name="jenkins_user"
user_token="token"
promotion_name="Test_Promote"
jenkins_url="http://build-server.com"
JOB_NAME="job_name"
JOB_NO="job-no"
def response = "curl -u $user_name:$user_token \" $jenkins_url/job/$JOB_NAME/$JOB_NO/promotion/forcePromotion?name=$promotion_name".execute().text
How to generate jenkins user token: https://jenkins.io/blog/2018/07/02/new-api-token-system/