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Liferay Cloud
Reference
Platform Services

Continuous Integration

Liferay Cloud uses Jenkins to power its continuous integration infrastructure service. When you send a pull request or push a commit to one of your pre-configured GitHub branches, an automatic and configurable build is triggered.

note

Liferay Cloud customers (using the customer login) have permissions to manage and review their builds, but do not have full administrative privileges.

By default, this automated build compiles code and can be configured to execute tests. Liferay Cloud builds your services and shows their status on your environment’s Builds page. If the tests fail, you can check the Jenkins dashboard and logs at https://ci-companyname-infra.lfr.cloud.

note

Continuous integration only works if you deploy from GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, not the CLI.

See the CI service limitations for more information.

Using the Default Jenkinsfile

The CI service includes a default Jenkinsfile used for your project’s builds. The default Jenkinsfile encapsulates all the logic that was previously stored on the Jenkinsfile and moves it to a Jenkins plugin. This means that all bug fixes, security fixes, and improvements can be applied without requiring any CI configuration.

Additionally, extension points are available to customize every step of the CI pipeline.

Extending the Default Jenkinsfile

To extend the default Jenkinsfile, you can add the following files to the ci folder in your project repository:

  • Jenkinsfile-before-all
  • Jenkinsfile-before-cloud-build
  • Jenkinsfile-before-cloud-deploy
  • Jenkinsfile-after-all
  • Jenkinsfile-post-always

Here is a basic overview of the steps in the CI build process:

  1. Load ci/Jenkinsfile-before-all, if it exists.

  2. Build the Liferay Workspace.

  3. Load ci/Jenkinsfile-before-cloud-build, if it exists.

  4. Create the Liferay Cloud build that you see in console.

  5. Load ci/Jenkinsfile-before-cloud-deploy, if it exists.

  6. If the current branch is the deploy branch, you can deploy the build to an environment in the cloud. The LCP_CI_DEPLOY_BRANCH environment variable sets the deploy branch, while LCP_CI_DEPLOY_TARGET specifies the deployment environment.

  7. Load ci/Jenkinsfile-after-all, if it exists. This runs when all build steps are completed.

  8. Load ci/Jenkinsfile-post-always, if it exists. This runs whether the build succeeds or fails.

To see how they are used in the default pipeline, monitor the Jenkins service startup logs. The full default Jenkinsfile is printed out in the startup logs.

Extra Pipeline Customization and External Calls

It is possible to use the additional steps in your pipeline to call external services. For example, you may call a third-party monitoring service through REST API, or call a script to run during the build process.

You can also create your own pipeline by defining your own Jenkinsfile in your repository’s ci/ folder. See the Jenkins website for more information.

warning

External services or custom pipelines should be used with discretion and are outside the scope of Liferay Cloud Support. Custom Jenkins plugins are not supported.

Reusing Code Between Different Extension Points

You will likely want a way to share code between these extension points. One basic way is to load a groovy script. For example, you could create a groovy file in the ci/ folder called util.groovy with these contents:

def sendSlackMessage(message) {
	println(message)
}

return this

Then you could insert the following in ci/Jenkinsfile-before-cloud-build:

def util = load("ci/util.groovy")

util.sendSlackMessage("About to create Liferay Cloud build...")

Environment Variables Reference

The following environment variables are only used in the default Jenkinsfile. To see what they do please refer to Jenkins documentation regarding pipeline options.

Name Default Value Description
LCP_CI_ARTIFACT_DAYS_TO_KEEP -1 Number of days that artifacts are stored
LCP_CI_ARTIFACT_NUM_TO_KEEP 1 Set the number of recent builds for which artifacts and stashes are preserved.
LCP_CI_BUILD_DAYS_TO_KEEP 14 Number of days that builds are stored
LCP_CI_BUILD_NUM_TO_KEEP 10 Number of builds that are stored
LCP_CI_BUILD_TIMEOUT_MINUTES 30 Set a timeout period for the Pipeline run, after which Jenkins should abort the Pipeline
LCP_CI_CLI_LOG_LEVEL If set to verbose, the CI service uses the --verbose flag when performing lcp commands. This provides more information for debugging when the commands are run.
LCP_CI_DEPLOY_BRANCH develop Specify the branch to use for automatic deployment. If not set to a valid branch name, automatic deployment is disabled.
LCP_CI_DEPLOY_TARGET Sets the environment automatic deployment will deploy to. Only used if LCP_CI_DEPLOY_BRANCH is set.
LCP_CI_LIFERAY_DXP_HOTFIXES_[ENV] The name of a hotfix (without the .zip extension) for CI to apply automatically when deploying the Liferay service. Replace [ENV] with the environment name (in all-caps), or COMMON.
LCP_CI_PRESERVE_STASHES_BUILD_COUNT 20 Set the number of recent builds for which stashes are preserved. Stashes cannot be preserved for more builds than allowed by the LCP_CI_ARTIFACT_NUM_TO_KEEP variable.
LCP_CI_SCM_MANAGE_HOOKS true Option to enable or disable automatic web hook management for code hosting platforms (such as GitHub).
LCP_CI_SCM_PROVIDER github Sets which source control management service is used for retrieving builds. Accepted values are bitbucket, github, and gitlab.
LCP_CI_SCM_REPOSITORY_NAME Sets the repository name used to retrieve builds (from GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab).
LCP_CI_SCM_REPOSITORY_OWNER The repository owner used to retrieve builds.
LCP_CI_SCM_TOKEN The personal access token needed to access and retrieve builds from Bitbucket, GitHub, or GitLab.
LCP_CI_USE_DEFAULT_JENKINSFILE false Option to enable or disable the Default Jenkinsfile
LCP_DATABASE_SERVICE The host name of the Database service.
Capability:
Cloud
Deployment Approach:
Liferay PaaS
Feature:
Cloud Platform Services