Jenkins Perforce workspace question

[Martin]

Hello, it's the first time to setup Jenkins Perforce Plugin. I just wanted to setup a simple project to test the automatic build feature in Jenkins. On my local machine, my project is:

/home/martin/p4/test

I created a workspace named jenkins_test, whose root is /home/martin/p4/test. I can test syncing with Perforce.

However, in Jenkins, whenever a build finishes, it changes my root directory of my workspace from /home/martin/p4/test to /var/lib/jenkins/jobs/.... on the Jenkins machine. This isn't the expected behavior, right? Otherwise, I have to change the root of the workspace back to /home/maritn/p4/test on my local machine after each build. 

In Jenkins, I created a user named "jenkins" and use that user name to login Jenkins to start the build and do the configure.

I have a few questions here:

1) What' the problem here? 

2) Does the user "jenkins" on Jenkins have anything to do with the Linux user who installed Jenkins and P4?

Thank you for help.

 

[Martin]

Also, the Jenkins doc says user can change JENKINS_HOME directory:

https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Administering+Jenkins

I don't quite understand this either. How can we change its home directory after it is installed? Like Java installation, $JAVA_HOME has to always points to the Java's installation directory, not any other directory. Can $JENKINS_HOME point to some place different from its installation directory? 

[lata]

1) What's the problem here? 

1. Jenkins Perforce Workspace at /var/lib/jenkins/jobs/...

- The name of this P4 workspace is whatever you have typed in the 'Workspace' field of your Jenkins project configuration -> Perforce section. I'm guessing you typed in 'jenkins_test'.

- The P4 root of this P4 Workspace would be relative to your slave's Remot Root or your Jenkins Master (if you are running your project directly on Jenkins Master, and not on a slave).

- Default behaviour is that Jenkins updates the P4 workspace with the Root and Host values, you can override this by checking the 'Don't update client workspace' option in the Advanced section.

2. Your Perforce workspace, 'jenkins_test', with root /home/maritn/p4/test

Jenkins is not aware that you have such a P4 workspace created, and that you want to use it. As mentioned above, it will override Root and Host unless you ask it not to.

Reco: 1. If you really can't go with the Jenkins chosen workspace to sync your p4 code to, don't use the option 'Don't update client workspace', instead use the 'custom workspace' in the Advanced project option, and change the workspace location to /home/martin/<somedir>, if you need to. Don't manage this Jenkins created P4 workspace outside this environment, let Jenkins manage it. (I'm assuming you can't get a slave machine, and need to run your jobs on the Master itself? Otherwise you can straightway set your Slave's remote root location to the right place that you want)

2. If you really need to use your Perforce client created outside for some reason, then use the command line within Jenkins config shell and do a manual sync such as P4 -c $yourclient

2) Does the user "jenkins" on Jenkins have anything to do with the Linux user who installed Jenkins and P4?

No

[Ginga, Dick]

Martin, Jenkins and Perforce both have a concept of “workspace”. The Jenkins workspace is the folder that the job will run in. This will be named typically Remote Root/job name. Then Perforce has a “workspace”. Jenkins creates its own Perforce workspace based on the values you set in the Jenkins job. You do not need to create a workspace in Perforce first. Jenkins sets the root of its Perforce workspace to the Remote Root of the machine you are building on (again typically plus the job name). This is what you are seeing. It then pulls all the sources as defined in the view box into that folder location and you build from there.

 

If your build process is not relative to the root folder Jenkins creates (that means you reference files with absolute paths) then this will not work for you.

 

To get Jenkins to use the Perforce workspace you defined, you need to tell Jenkins NOT to manage the Perforce workspace, and to run in your folder, not the one it would normally use. To confuse things just a little, there are 2 Perforce plugins. You appear to be using the one I do not use, so I can’t tell you how configure the Perforce plugin to do this.

 

Use the 'custom workspace' in the Advanced project option, and change the folder location to /home/abigail/p4/test/ to tell Jenkins where to run.

 

From: jenkins...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jenkins...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Martin
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2015 2:50 AM
To: Jenkins Users
Subject: Re: Jenkins Perforce workspace question

 

Hi, Iata:

 

Thanks for your detailed info. But I still have some questions.  To keep it simpler, I did the following:

 

I created a super simple test case. It would be great if you can point out where I may be wrong. I just want to have a simple test of using P4 Jenkins plugin.  My steps are below:

1) Following the P4 wizard, I created a workspace named "test", which point to the root of the directory /home/abigail/p4/test/test1 on my local machine. 

    Please see the attached "p4-workspace.png"

 

2) In the P4 depot there are two projects, "test1" & "test2", and test1 maps to the workspace "test". 

    Please see "p4-depot.png"

 

3) In Jenkins, I typed the workspace name "test" and the view map "//depot/test1/... //test/...". 

    Please see "P4-jenkins.png"

 

4) admin@Jenkins:~$ p4 info

User name: admin

Client name: test

Client host: Jenkins

Client root: /home/abigail/p4/test/test1

Current directory: /home/admin

Peer address: ...

Client address: xx.xx.xx.xx

Server address: xx.xx.xx.xx:1666

Server root: /opt/p4d

Server date: 2015/07/22 01:42:32 -0400 EDT

Server uptime: 00:32:40

Server version: P4D/LINUX26X86_64/2015.1/1171507 (2015/06/30)

Server license: none

Case Handling: sensitive

 

My Jenkins is installed by default /var/lib/jenkins/....

 

Event time the Jenkins build finishes, the root of the workspace "test" changes to "/var/lib/jenkins/..." from /home/abigail/p4/test/test1 on my local machine. This is not the right behavior, or not the good practice, right? I need the root directory "/home/abigail/p4/test/test1"  on my local machine because all my project resides in this directory, and I can sync with P4, but this root is not known by Jenkins, so it copies all files from my local workspace root directory to Jenkin's default installation location /var/lib/jenkins... for each build. I guess my setting of workspace root isn't quite right? But I just followed the P4 wizard to create the workspace, and I can syc with P4 correctly. The problem is when Jenkins comes into play.

 

Please use simple or step-wise language to help me get this configured properly. This is a simple typical setup. I want to configure nothing Unique or Special. Thank you.

Martin

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