0_Spec.adoc

pingback step

The idea for a pingback step would be to account for delivery pipelines that are completed, or interacted with, by external services and tools.

The Problem

The jenkins-infra project is a good example of this, as would any other r10k-based Puppet delivery pipeline. The Puppet master (central server) is responsible for the "last mile" of delivery, meaning that code isn’t truly deployed until:

1. it is deployed to the Puppet master

2. Puppet agents pick up, and apply, the correspondnig catalogue changes

The solution

pingback could operate similar to input insofar as introducing a blocking step inside of the Jenkins Pipeline DSL. This would allow an external service to make a well-formed HTTP POST request to a URL, such as http://jenkins.example.com/job/puppet-delivery/pingback, and resume a delivery pipeline.

Jenkinsfile

#!/usr/bin/env groovy

import groovy.json.JsonSlurperClassic

node('docker') {
    stage "Lint"
    docker.image('rvm').inside {
        checkout scm
        sh 'bundle exec rake lint'
    }
    
    stage 'RSpec'
    docker.image('rvm').inside {
        sh 'bundle exec rake spec'
    }
}

stage 'Prepare Deploy'
node {
    checkout scm
    sh './some-magic-merge.sh'
}

stage 'Deploy'
pingback(timeout: 30.MINUTES, credentials: ['my-preconfigured-creds']) { url, body, headers ->
    echo "Pinged back at ${url}"
    def json = new JsonSlurperClassic().parseText(body)
    
    if (json['status'] == 'error') {
        step([$class: 'Mailer',
           notifyEveryUnstableBuild: true,
           recipients: "infra@lists.jenkins-ci.org",
           sendToIndividuals: true])
    }
}