How to clone a template

[Marius Ciotlos]

Hi guys, 

I wanted to write this topic for those interested in Cloning a template. There is a ruby script that you can find here: https://github.com/oanastoia/go-config-management that exposes this functionality in a way that is really easy to create a nice workflow around it. Credits for the script go to Oana Stoia which is the script owner. 

 

How we've used it:

• Create a new Pipeline that will have a stage with a job with a task that will contain this script

Example:

<pipeline name="GoCloneTemplate">

  <environmentvariables>

    <variable name="SOURCE_TEMPLATE">

      <value>Source_Template</value>

    </variable>

    <variable name="DESTINATION_TEMPLATE">

      <value>Example_Clone</value>

    </variable>

    <variable name="API_PASS" secure="true">

      <encryptedValue>[your_encripted_pass]</encryptedValue>

    </variable>

    <variable name="API_USER" secure="true">

      <encryptedValue>[your_encripted_user]</encryptedValue>

    </variable>

  </environmentvariables>

  <materials>

    <git url="https://github.com/oanastoia/go-config-management.git" />

  </materials>

  <stage name="CloneTemplate">

    <approval type="manual" />

    <jobs>

      <job name="clone_template">

        <tasks>

          <exec command="ruby">

            <arg>TemplateClone.rb</arg>

            <arg>clone</arg>

            <runif status="passed" />

          </exec>

        </tasks>

      </job>

    </jobs>

  </stage>

</pipeline>

• Set the repo as material for your pipeline (as seen above)
• Make sure that on your pipeline you have correctly set in the secure environment variables, a user that is a Go System Admin so it can use the api to save a config.xml back to the server

How will this look?

Cheers,

Marius

[Ken Mugrage]

Cool info, thanks Marius.

Please consider submitting a pull request to the go.cd blog space for this info. You can fork the website from https://github.com/gocd/gocd.github.io. All you would need to do then is create a file in _posts following the same naming format and front-matter that's already there.

Thanks again,
Ken

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[Marius Ciotlos]

Will do, thanks. 

[Marius Ciotlos]

I've submitted a Pull Request

[Marius Ciotlos]

This topic is now available on the blog here: http://www.go.cd/2014/08/19/cloning-templates.html

[Jason D]

Sorry for being a bit late to the discussion. 

 

I'm confused as to how this is easier than just going into the config and copying the template xml.  The only thing easier than that would be to add a simple button in the UI to do so (same workflow as cloning pipeline).  Am I missing something here?

[Marius Ciotlos]

Imagine you have in the config XML around 3k lines and the template you want to clone is complex enough to have 10 stages with around 3 jobs each with 1-2 tasks per job. The way most people do it is copy the XML out of GO, edit in a different tool and paste it back in. 

You have to know XML, it's prone to error and when you have to do this more than once it's not the best way. 

The workflow specified here allows you to setup this cloning pipeline once, and then just use it. You enter source and destination name and trigger it and you get the clone automatically done without having to interact with text editors and copy / pasting.

If it doesn't work for you it's fine, but many people found this more useful than editing inline xml.

Of course I would also find having a Clone button directly in the UI just like for pipelines the best, but someone has to implement that and the feature has to make it out into a release and then you have to upgrade your server which might not be in the near future. 

The solution presented here is a temporary solution until such functionality makes it inside GO. 

Marius