Setting up Continuous testing and Continuous Integration(CI) with Jenkins in localhost

Jenkins is one of the coolest open-source tool. As a developer I write many codes in a day and performs many commits, pulling the code a day. I like Travis CI for opensource projects, but when it comes to private projects they charge me. So I was exploring Jenkins and realised that’s what I want for my localhost.

Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. (Source: Wiki)

continuous integration (CI) is the practice of merging all developer working copies to a shared mainline several times a day. (Source: Wiki)

Step1: Create a free style project

Create a free style project

Step2: Configure settings

In this step, we will tell Jenkins, which git repository it should worry about. In our case, .git project is in our machine. So select git as Source Code Management and give the absolute path of the git repository.

Specify the branch it should monitor, by default it will be master, but in continuous testing, you might be worried about develop branch also, in that case give * in Branch Specifier.

Configure settings

Step3: Setup Build Triggers

You can trigger a build by sending Authentication Token in a GET request of the url http://localhost:8080/job/challengeX/build?token=1234567890.

Setup Build Triggers

Doing simple curl http://localhost:8080/job/challengeX/build?token=1234567890 in the terminal should trigger a build :D. But it’s not over yet, so still need to tell jenkins how to create a build.

Step4: Configuring Build Process

In this step we will tell Jenkins, how to create a build and post build scripts.

Configuring Build Process Configuring Build Process 2

If you want to run a script npm run tests in the shell, update the settings as mentioned above.

Step5: Configure post-commit hook for git project

Now we need to tell when this test should trigger. Lets say, we want to trigger the build creation process on post-commit. You should add a hook to git project, something <project_path>/.git/hooks/post-commit. Copy the following lined into post-commit hook.

#!/bin/sh
echo "trigerring the post commit "
curl http://localhost:8080/job/challengeX/build?token=1234567890

Configure post-commit hook for git project

Where challengeX is your project name.

Step6: Tweak you Security Settings

This is need for making the http://localhost:8080/job/challengeX/build?token=1234567890 as anonymous user. Go to http://localhost:8080/configureSecurity/ and check the Allow anonymous read access option.

Tweak you Security Settings

All set for continuous testing, When you perform a new commit, a new build will be triggered and all the reports of the build generation, both success and failures can be found from http://localhost:8080/job/challengeX/, where challengeX is your project name.

Jenkins UI

I’m not a fan of Jenkins UI, but there are plugins out there that will change the skin of Jenkins :). http://arji.me/jenkins-neo-theme/ is one the themes I found cool, but Im sure you can find much better themes. jenkins-neo-theme will give you UI like this, and how cool is that.

Jenkins neo theme

Last modified on 2017-03-24