Integrating Jenkins and HCL Launch

Many teams use Jenkins for continuous integration but need to coordinate the deployment of builds through environments. You can use Jenkins to create those builds and pass new builds to HCL Launch for deployment. Optionally, you can choose to deploy builds automatically to a test environment.

Installation

1. Download the Jenkins Publisher plugin.
2. Upload the plug-in to your Jenkins server website.
   1. Click Manage Jenkins > Manage Plugins > Advanced tab.
   2. Click Choose File from the section Upload Plugin.
   3. Select publisher.hpi and click Upload.
3. Restart your Jenkins server to see the new plug-in by using https://jenkins-server:8080/safeRestart
4. Verify that the plug-in is installed and enabled.
5. Add a profile for your HCL Launch server.
   1. Click Manage Jenkins > Configure System.
   2. Add the profile with the following details,
      • Profile Name is launch-server.
      • HCL Launch URL is https://launch-server-host:8444/
      • Username is jenkins (note: especially because the post-build action may trigger a deployment, you should only use an account that cannot deploy to secure environments like production. Creating a service account like “jenkins” within HCL Launch is recommended.
      • Password is HCL Launch user’s password.
   3. Click Add.
   4. Click Test connection to verify the configuration and click Apply. 
6. Configure the Post-build Actions for each job.
   1. 1. Select the task Publish artifacts to HCL Launch in the section Post-build Actions.
      2. Specify the publishing properties, such as component name, base artifact directory, and so on.
      3. Click Save.
      4. Click Build Now. 

The plug-in is installed into the Jenkins server and publishes artifacts into the specified HCL Launch component.

Other Approaches

If a post-build action is not appropriate for your team, or you want to push artifacts from a single build into multiple components, you have some other options.

• Use the command line client as part of your build to push new versions.
• Deliver each component to an alternate repository that HCL Launch is monitoring such as a file system drop area, Maven repo or Rational Asset Manager.

Want a one-on-one demo of HCL Launch? Request one here.