Being an open source continuous integration tool, Jenkins is renowned these days. It is created using Java and is forked from Hudson after a dispute with Oracle. Jenkins offers continuous integration services for software development. Moreover, it has the capacity to support source control management tools such as Perforce, Mercurial, Subversion, Git, Clearcase and CVS. It is proven to be able to execute Windows batch commands and arbitrary shell scripts as well as Apache Maven and Apache Ant.
Being free, Jenkins was primarily developed by Kohsuke Kawaguchi which was released under MIT license. Regards continuous integration, one should understand what it actually does. Not all software codes are written by a single person. The merging of these codes from different computers might take time but with the help of continuous integration, it can be rendered in no time. These are used by most of the software engineers who need to integrate information from several computers through channels to a main computer. Jenkins with the help of plugins can extend its importance where it can read programs that are written in other languages. It also provides email extensions and upstream committers facility when plugins are used.
Here are a few of the best Jenkins Plugins for a highly productive server. They are as follows:
White Source’s Agile Open Source Management Jenkins Plug-in
Almost all software developers rely on open source to boost productivity and avoid reinventing the wheel. To keep away from improper use, they usually track their open source components, and make sure to comply with licenses.
Tracking and updating open source licenses is one of the most tedious and least favorite tasks for developers. White Source, provided through an easy to deploy Jenkins plugin, makes it easy to keep track of open source components, their licenses, risks, and requirements without burdening developers.
The plugin continuously and automatically updates the White Source repository whenever a new open source component is added, to ensure that all the components are immediately reported, analyzed, and reviewed for approval. It also automatically verifies that new open source conforms to your acceptance policy, starts an approval workflow if necessary, and informs decision makers of all license information, risks, and requirements. Moreover, it notifies you when a new release is available for any of the open source components you use, so that you are aware of fixes to security vulnerabilities, performance issues, and other bugs.
The service is very simple to use and takes seconds to deploy. Once deployed, the service will immediately analyze existing open source components, and will provide you with a full picture. From that point on, it will update automatically whenever new components are added on your end, and whenever there is any change with the open source, e.g., new version, license change, etc. In case you were concerned, the service uses hash codes to identify open source, and will never upload your proprietary code to the cloud.
White Source is a cloud-based service. The service offers a free version that provides all the basic functions that you can use easily and quickly. It only takes 15 minutes from sign up to having a full mapping of open source used in a given project. The paid service is very affordable too, with immediate ROI if you just consider the work it saves.
Jenkins Git Plugin
Having a plugin for a computer will help extend the facility available on it, but the system has to be configured as per the requirement of the plugin. It might be hard to make a plugin work for Windows. When a Jenkins Git Plugin is introduced to a computer, it will start running by default as it does not use the actual user account. It creates a local system account on its own to run. But this local system account might not last long as it won’t be having the SSH key which is required to make it run continuously. On the other hand, creating an account with .ssh directory will help to make the plugin run as expected. For anyone who is looking to make it fast can just copy the Jenkins building SSH key to the C: program and make it run. Without having a plugin, one might end up writing unstable codes for a project. Git plugins are often used in projects to know whether the codes written are stable or not.
Jenkins SVN Plugin
Detecting the changes that is necessary to be made in a set of codes can be known by using the SVN plugin of Jenkins. These plugin subversion repositories check this error but take about one minute. To speed up the process, one can also set a Post Commit Hook which helps to improve the speed. The scanning of repositories will be delayed with the server SVN plugin but the scan can be improved by enhancing the timeout limit. If one slows it below the limit, the computer might hang or might show Error 502. Increasing the timeout might help one to fix this issue.
Jenkins SSH Plugin
These plugin is used to run shell commands through SSH on a remote machine as they are derived from SCP plugin. The plugin has to be used by first visiting the global configuration page where one can add the SSH site. The next step is focusing on a configured site which can be done by entering the shell command which is needed before the build and also after the build.
Jenkins JIRA Plugin
Since it is important to track any project according to the plan of the team to process the project, building the project with a list of codes and launching a new product, having a method to organize it is necessary. For this, many companies choose JIRA which help to handle all these activities without any issue. All one has to do is to make the Jenkins system configuration screen know where JIRA is. Since the Jenkins build up page will have a back pointer, it will help to update JIRA and make use of it. With the help of fingerprint feature, the other projects build up can also be recorded in JIRA. This helps one to maintain a proper, organized way of working on a lengthy project and can minimize the mistakes that occur without JIRA.
Jenkins Sonar Plugin
With the help of this plugin, one can trigger Sonar Qube Analysis which helps in two ways. First of all the setup will trigger the analysis of codes and other programs in the system with the SonarQube runner. Later, the post build action takes place which also triggers the analysis of Maven. This takes place by configuration, triggering, upgrading, development and reassign of jobs; all these will be rendered stepwise and these jobs are basically assigned to the Sonar Plugin.
Jenkins Email Plugin
The extension of email account might be necessary when dealing with huge projects. This can be brought with the Jenkins email plugin. This can be done in three simple steps of triggers, contents and recipients. The configuration for email has to be done through different ways, for instance for global configuration and project configuration. There are different options that one has to set before getting an extension. There are several versions and one can go for the version according to his or her needs.
Artifactory
It brings Artifactory’s Build Integration support to Jenkins. Though the build jobs contain deploy, one might not be able to recognize it. This requires Artifactory which help to deploy artifacts automatically. Additional information is recorded by the plugin which provides full visibility of deployed artifacts.
Summary
Jenkins is suitable for those who are looking for a highly productive and continuous integration server which has loads of features and is developer-friendly. To begin with, the easy installation makes one get it running in no time. Additionally, Jenkins can be easily upgraded and has script ability as it provides different means to communicate. Moreover, Jenkins integrates filters which help to reduce the workload by organizing them. The power to copy artifact is another unique feature of Jenkins. Hence, Jenkins plugins can significantly reduce workload as almost every manual job will be done by this plugin.