CC Dashboard

[Matthijs ter Woord]

I'm a fan of CCnet. I like the ease of use, customization of the dashboard etc.

Recently I've come across the Google Summer of Code 2013 page, and I saw that the dashboard was mentioned. I want to get started at that job. I had a brief chat with Daniel Nauck this morning and he adviced me to post here with my thoughts.

The v2 dashboard will be based around a REST api, written using ServiceStack. It'll allow configuring agents (build server) and projects on agents. Future will allow nice wizard-style configuration of projects, but for now, text-based. Each agent will have a plugin which communicates with the dashboard, to retrieve project configuration. (and a final step which pushes xml logs to the server. This way, the agent can go down after a build)

Dashboard site will be built using AngularJS, communicating with the REST api. My initial focus would be to allow simple management (add/remove agent and projects, but edit them only with text configs, no wizards).

Above are some rough thoughts. I intend to fully contribute the sources to the project, although initially I'll work on my own repository, as it'll be a learning project for me on ServiceStack (and later on angularjs).

Any thoughts?

[Leszek Ciesielski]

Sounds very ambitious, but if CC.NET is to stay relevant, it definitely needs agent-based build farms support. Best of luck to you, and please keep posting here - there are some developers dormant here, we might be able to help or at least offer explanations for the existing code.

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[Dennis Jakobsen]

Hey Matt,

Sounds great, we've been using ccnet for ages and it could really use
some polish on the dashboard.

I hope you'll recreate the layout from scratch and think some
responsible web design into it. I think the existing layout might be
some nested tables layout from the 90's, horrible and rigid. :)

If you need any help on that let me know.

regards,
Dennis

[Ruben Willems]

Hi

the most important aspects are specified on that page :-)

as long as it keeps easy to customize, we'll be very happy.

Thanks for looking into this massive undertaking.

with kind regards
Ruben  Willems

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[Mateusz Knyć]

Hi All,

maybe little bit off-topic, but some time ago I've found alternative dashboard version of CCNet here:

https://github.com/marektihkan/CC.NET-Kaizen-theme

I found it much better than the regular one and started using it. I've added some changes on my own,

though see they were not merged, they're available here:

https://github.com/sinnerinc/CC.NET-Kaizen-theme

Maybe this theme could be a good start for new dashboard..

[Alex Vilela]

That is great to hear.

Are you considering changing the Dashboard purpose entirely? 

I mean, I really miss a pipeline visualisation, where I can see where each revision is.

Currently I use different projects for compilation/unit tests, another one for deploying to staging, another for smoke tests, another for complete tests, etc. 

It would be really good to be able to see one revision across these multiple projects.

[Matthijs ter Woord]

Mateusz, that seems like a different skin, but functionalities are the same then, i'd say...

[Matthijs ter Woord]

Alex, this would be a situation where 1 source control action would launch several builds based on the same checkout?

It's a very interesting approach, but I think it would require some changes in the CCnet server as well (but i'm by far not up to date enough on that to reliable yes/no that one. Anyone?)

I have some ideas to allow cloud-based vm's (for example windows azure) as build agents and kicking up those via the azure api from the web interface, but that's also for later.

My initial focus would be to have the new dashboard manage project administrations, which are pulled in by the agents, and the agents push build logs on finished builds.

Obviously I'm open for suggestions. (My concrete need is the ability to view build info from offline agents, and I'd be using the old user interface mostly initially)

[Alex Vilela]

It would launch several builds but not simultaneously, and not necessarily from the same physical svn checkout.

I can do it today by chaining project executions with project triggers, but the visualisation of a svn revision in the deployment pipeline is tricky. 

Currently I go after build numbers (mine contain the SVN revision) on each of the ccnet projects to find where something stopped.

[Ruben Willems]

Hi

since you're also looking into build agents,
maybe you can also take a look at Craigs work for this

that code is based in the playground sub-folder.

the link of his blog :
http://csut017.wordpress.com/tag/cruisecontrol-net-2-0/

lots of reading material :-)

with kind regards
Ruben Willems

[Matthijs ter Woord]

I intend to make a good step forward, without touching the ccnet server itself. My mention of build agent is merely a worker (ccnet server instance).

My intensions are, like i described, to make it possible to have agents offline while still allowing viewing the state. this is due to immediate needs at my dayjob. next step is somehow see if the agents can be "kicked" so they boot up (windows azure), again, possible day-job-usage..

then maybe in the future this whole stuff can grow towards a real multi-server build stuff thingy. but one step at a time..