Jenkins | Build and Deploy a Groovy App

Introduction

Using Jenkins as an automation server for your development, you can automate such repeating tasks as testing and deploying your app.

Starting with a sample Groovy App (a simple calculator) with tests, you will learn how to integrate your app in Jenkins and build a pipeline, so that Jenkins runs the desired tasks every time, you change the code.

Prepare the sources

Clone the sample repository from Github.

You should clone the demo repository into you demo account, because you may change some file during this post., and you will not get write permissions for the demo repository.

Also, clone the repository to your local machine to see what our demo app looks like.

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Cloning into 'SampleApp_GroovyCalculator'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 194, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (194/194), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (138/138), done.
remote: Total 194 (delta 44), reused 137 (delta 23), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (194/194), 93.40 KiB | 817.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (44/44), done.

Go into the new create folder

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$ ls
Jenkinsfile      README.md        bin              build.gradle     gradlew          src
Makefile         SampleCalculator build            gradle           settings.gradle

The first task, Jenkins will do in our pipeline: build your app

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Because it’s the first time you start gradlew, the required software will be downloaded:

First: the current Gradle Version (Gradle is the Build Tool used by Groovy Projects)

<pre class="EnlighterJSRAW" data-enlighter-group="" data-enlighter-highlight="" data-enlighter-language="generic" data-enlighter-linenumbers="" data-enlighter-lineoffset="" data-enlighter-theme="" data-enlighter-title="">Downloading https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-6.2.1-bin.zip
………10%………20%………30%……….40%………50%………60%……….70%………80%………90%……….100%

Welcome to Gradle 6.2.1!

Here are the highlights of this release:
 - Dependency checksum and signature verification
 - Shareable read-only dependency cache
 - Documentation links in deprecation messages

For more details see https://docs.gradle.org/6.2.1/release-notes.html

Starting a Gradle Daemon, 2 stopped Daemons could not be reused, use --status for details

After this, your app will be tested

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Calculator02Spec > two plus two should equal four PASSED

Calculator01Spec > add: 2 + 3 PASSED

Calculator01Spec > subtract: 4 - 3 PASSED

Calculator01Spec > multiply: 2 * 3 PASSED

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 34s
5 actionable tasks: 5 executed

Perform the build again

No download is required. The build is much quicker.

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BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1s
5 actionable tasks: 5 up-to-date

Now, test our app:

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> Task :test

Calculator02Spec > two plus two should equal four PASSED

Calculator01Spec > add: 2 + 3 PASSED

Calculator01Spec > subtract: 4 - 3 PASSED

Calculator01Spec > multiply: 2 * 3 PASSED

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 4s
5 actionable tasks: 5 executed

Create a Jenkins Pipeline

Start by clicking on the BlueOcean menu item.

You have to install the corresponding Plugins.

Select Manage Jenkins → Manage Plugins.

Then, select the tab Available and enter in the Filter box: Blue Ocean.

Install all plugins, that will be listed.

Be sure, that you cloned the demo repository

Hint: If you click on Save, all changes are pushed back to the repository and Jenkins starts the Pipeline again.

Run the Pipeline

If you want to run your pipeline, click on the rerun icon for your pipeline