In a previous post I discussed how we created a build pipeline using Jenkins to create application binaries and move them into our Nexus repository. (Blog post here)  In this post I will show how we are using Jenkins to pull a versioned binary out of Nexus and deploy to one of our remote test, staging or production Glassfish servers.  By remote I mean that the Glassfish instance does not live on the same box as the Jenkins CI instance, but both machines are on the same network.

In a previous post I also discussed how to set up Glassfish v3 to allow deployments pushed from remote servers (Blog post here), so if you haven’t explicitly configured your Glassfish to allow this feature, you will need to do so before you get started.

On our Jenkins CI box we have an Ant script, which will be executed by a Jenkins job manually kicked off by a user. The script defines tasks to perform the following operations:

• Ensure all needed parameters were entered by the user. (app name, version number, admin username/password, etc).
• Copy the specified version of the application from Nexus to a local temp directory for deployment to a remote Glassfish instance.
• Undeploy a previous version of the app from the target Glassfish instance.  (Optional).
• Deploy the app from the temp directory to the target Glassfish instance.
• Record the deployment info in a deployment tracking database table.  Historical deployment info can then be viewed from a web app.

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Ant Script

Below are some of the more interesting code snippets from our Ant script that will be doing the heavy lifting for our deployment pipeline.  The first code snippet below defines the Ant tasks needed for deploying and undeploying applications from Glassfish.  These Ant tasks are bundled with Glassfish, but not installed by default.  If you haven’t installed them, you will need to do so from your Glassfish update center admin page.

<taskdef name="sun-appserv-deploy" classname="org.glassfish.ant.tasks.DeployTask">
   <classpath>
      <pathelement location="/nas/apps/cisunwk/glassfish311/glassfish/lib/ant/ant-tasks.jar"/>
   </classpath>
</taskdef>

<taskdef name="sun-appserv-undeploy" classname="org.glassfish.ant.tasks.UndeployTask">
   <classpath>
      <pathelement location="/nas/apps/cisunwk/glassfish311/glassfish/lib/ant/ant-tasks.jar"/>
   </classpath>
</taskdef>

Once we have the tasks defined, we create a new target for pulling the binary from Nexus and copying it to a temporary location from where it will be deployed to Glassfish.

<target name="copy.from.nexus">
   <echo message="copying from nexus"/>    
   <get src="http://cisunwk:8081/nexus/content/repositories/Lynden-Java-Release/com/lynden/${app.name}/${version.number}/${app.name}-${version.number}.${package.type}" dest="/tmp/${app.name}-${version.number}.war"/>
</target>

Next is a target to undeploy a previous version of the application from Glassfish.  This step is optional and only executed if the user specifies a version to undeploy from Jenkins.

<target name="undeploy.from.glassfish" if="env.Undeploy_Version">
   <echo message="Undeploying app: ${app.name}-${undeploy.version}"/>
   <echo file="/tmp/gf.txt" message="AS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${env.Admin_Password}"/>
   <sun-appserv-undeploy name="${app.name}-${undeploy.version}" host="${server.name}" port="${admin.port}" user="${env.Admin_Username}" passwordfile="/tmp/gf.txt" installDir="/nas/apps/cisunwk/glassfish311"/>
   <delete file="/tmp/gf.txt"/>
</target>

Next, we then define a target to do the deployment of the application to Glassfish.

<target name="deploy.to.glassfish.with.context" if="context.is.set">
    <sun-appserv-deploy file="/tmp/${app.name}-${version.number}.war" name="${app.name}-${version.number}" force="true" host="${server.name}" port="${admin.port}" user="${env.Admin_Username}" passwordfile="/tmp/gf.txt" installDir="/nas/apps/cisunwk/glassfish311" contextroot="${App_Context}"/>
</target>

And then finally, we define a target, which will invoke a server and pass information to it, such as app name, version, who deployed the app, etc.so that it can be recorded in our deployment database.

<target name="tag.uv.deploy.file">
   <tstamp>
      <format property="time" pattern="yyyyMMdd-HHmmss"/>
   </tstamp> 

   <!--Ampersand character for the URL -->
   <property name="A" value="&amp;"/>
   <get src="http://shuyak.lynden.com:8080/DeploymentRecorder/DeploymentRecorderServlet?app=${app.name}${A}date=${time}${A}environment=${deploy.env}${A}serverName=${server.name}${A}serverPort=${server.port}${A}adminPort=${admin.port}${A}serverType=${server.type}${A}version=${version.number}${A}who=${deploy.user}${A}contextName=${App_Context}" dest="/dev/null"/>

   <echo message="tagging deployment info to UV"/>
</target>

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Jenkins Configuration

Now that we have an Ant script to perform the actions that we need to do a deployment, we set up a Jenkins job to deploy to servers in each one of our environments (test/staging/prod).

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In order to kick off a deployment to one of our servers, the appropriate environment is selected from the screenshot above, and the “Build Now” link is clicked which presents the user with the screen below. In this case we are deploying to a test Glassfish domain named “bjorn” on unga.lynden.com

The user can select from the drop down list the server they wish to deploy to and the application they wish to deploy.  The version number is a required entry in a text field.  If the script can’t find the specified version in Nexus, the build will fail.  There are also optional parameters for specifying an existing version to undeploy as well as an application context in the event the app name shouldn’t be used as the default context.

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In the screenshot below we are deploying version 5.0.0 of the Crossdock App to the “bjorn” domain running on unga.lynden.com

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Once the job completes, if we log into the bjorn Glassfish admin page on unga.lynden.com, we see that Crossdock-5.0.0 has been deployed to the server.

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The screenshot below is an example of undeploying version 5.0.0 of Crossdock, and deploying version 5.0.1 of Crossdock.  Also, in this example, we are telling the script that we want the web context in Glassfish to be /Crossdock, rather than the default /Crossdock-5.0.1

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The screenshot of the Glassfish admin page below shows that Crossdock-5.0.0 has been unistalled, and that Crossdock-5.0.1 is now installed with a Context Root of /Crossdock.

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Deployment History

Finally, as I mentioned previously, the Ant script is also saving the deployment information to a historical deployment table in our database.  We have written a simple web application which will display this historical data.  The screenshot below shows all of the applications that have been deployed to our test environment. (We have similar pages for Staging and Production as well).  Included in this information is the application name, version number, date, and who deployed it, among some other miscellaneous info.

We can then drill into the history of a specific application by clicking the “Crossdock” link on the screen above and get a detailed history about the deployments for that application including version numbers or dates.  We maintain more than 60 different web applications serving various purposes here at Lynden, so this has been a great tool us to see exactly what versions of our applications are currently deployed where, as well as see the history of the deployment of a specific application in the event we need to roll back to a previous version.

As we have learned firsthand, Jenkins is a very useful and versatile tool that is easy to extend for purposes beyond automated builds and continuous integration.

twitter: @RobTerp