Push versus Poll - Cloud Foundry CI plugins

Out of curiosity I recently Google'd what Jenkins plugins are available for Cloud Foundry.

Interestingly - for me at least - the approach the developers have taken is quite different to the direction I approached for the Go CD Cloud Foundry plugin.

While my plugin is focussed on detected when an application has been pushed, the Jenkins plugin supports the process for pushing an application.

So, if you've made it to my github or this blog and you were looking for a plugin for pushing - sorry, my thought process was a little different.

In the interests of shameless self-promotion, here's a link to my github repo:

https://github.com/stephen-souness-springer/springer-gocd-cloudfoundry-plugin

Experimenting with Go Continuous Delivery

If you're working on a Mac you may encounter an annoyance when installing the Go Continuous Delivery server.  It blindly insists on finding a version 6 JVM - even if a compatible later version is available.
After an initial attempt at adjusting the config, and a bit of Googling around I gave up on trying to make it work.
A week or so later I found myself using some spare time at home to develop a plugin on a Mac.  After a couple of days of having to wait until the following day to try out the functionality on my work Linux setup I came across some instructions for installing and using a Vagrant virtual box which contains a fully operational Go server.

http://www.go.cd/2014/09/09/Go-Sample-Virtualbox.html

I haven't used it extensively but it has made plugin development easier for me.

Go CD Cloud Foundry plugin

In February 2015 I developed a Go CD server plugin to enable triggering of builds when a Cloud Foundry application has been deployed.

This post is intended as an introduction to how to use this plugin.

A starting assumption is that you already have the plugin installed on your Go CD server.

Update: Binary jars are available:
https://github.com/stephen-souness-springer/springer-gocd-cloudfoundry-plugin/releases

The source code is also available on Github:
https://github.com/stephen-souness-springer/springer-gocd-cloudfoundry-plugin


Step 1

Navigate to the Package Repositories section of the Admin menu

Add a new repository with your CloudFoundry API credentials.

Update: In version 1.0.1 the password property has changed to be secured - so you won't see it in cleartext the way is is shown here.

To make sure that you have supplied the correct credentials - and confirm that your Go server can connect to Cloud Foundry you can use the Check Connection button before choosing to save the configuration.


You're now ready to include some Cloud Foundry configuration to a build pipeline with your newly available repository.

Step 2

The Check Package button will trigger a check on two levels - first that the supplied credentials can log in, and second that an application exists which starts with the specified App Name.

Step 3

The next step in your pipeline definition depends on what you want to do when a change is detected.  From the example settings above there will be an environment variable called GO_PACKAGE_MYCLOUDFOUNDRYDEV_SERVICEX_LABEL set with the latest matching detected app version.