Today I will keep working on part 2

Clone or Fork project folder

https://github.com/aks60808/AiGames

make sure you have this project in your repository!

Jenkins Plugin Install

Get into your Jenkins page http://YOUR_CICD_SERVER_IP:8080/

The followings are plugins we needed for this walkthrough

1. Ansible
2. Docker
3. Docker Pipeline
4. NodeJS
5. ThinBackup
6. Google Cloud Storage

GO TO Dashboard ⇒ manage plugins

Search and Tick all the required plugin to install (Click Download & install with restart)

Configure Global tool

once you had the required plugins installed, GO TO Dashboard ⇒ Global Tool Configuration

We are going to configure some useful tool while building pipeline

Name the NodeJS plugins ⇒ MyNodeJS (this should match your naming in jenkinsfile)

Name the Docker plugins ⇒ MyDocker (this should match your naming in jenkinsfile)

Configure Depolyment Server

to get into deployment server with ansible, we need to configure hosts/inventory again.

Generate ssh keys for cicd server

first open terminal and ssh into cicd server

ssh YOUR_CICD_SERVER_IP

in your home directory, run

ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa

read the public key file

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

copy the content on the terminal then paste to GOOGLE COMPUTE ENGINE page ⇒ metadata ⇒ ssh keys

then saved. (like what we did in part 1)

Put ssh private key into Jenkins

During Jenkins building process, I found that it is hard to get in user’s home directory unless you specify the absolute path. Hence, the more secure and well-managed way is to put credentials in Jenkins-managed Credentials.

Click Manage Credentials →SYSTEM → Global credentials → Add Credentials

CICD ssh private key

we need to put the private key we’ve created previously (~/.ssh/id_rsa).

select SSH username with private and specify your credential ID, ssh login username and private key content.

Please be noted that the ID should match the Credential ID setup in the Jenkinsfile pipeline script.

cat .ssh/id_rsa

copy the content of the private key put into key section then saved.

Configure hosts on CICD server

We will use ansible to configure Deployment server throughout the CICD pipeline.

Go to ansible folder

cd /etc/ansible/

Edit hosts file with sudo

sudo vim hosts

Put following content into the hosts file

[depolyment]
x.x.x.x 
# replace above with depolyment server IP address
[depolyment:vars]
ansible_user=tommylin   
# replace above with your login username
ansible_ssh_common_args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'

Don’t forget to put deployment server ip and your ssh login username in the file!

Configure Deployment server

in your local project directory, use text editor to open ansible_playbook/deployment_server_init_config.yml

---
- name: Install Docker
  hosts: depolyment
  become: yes
  vars:
    username: "tommylin"
    # replace the above username with yours.

Replace with your ssh login user name for purpose of adding $USER to docker group.

After that, in project directory run the following:

ansible-playbook -i inventory ansible_playbook/deployment_server_init_config.yml

The playbook will configure deployment server with docker installation.

Create a pipeline job

Enable Discard Old builds

We will create docker image release throughout building action, we don’t need to keep every build as it could be tons of large build increase the burden of backup.

Tick GitHub hook trigger

This is where our github webhook magic enabled on Jenkins’ side!

GET the pipeline Script from Github

Put your project repo URL into Repositories URL blank. If your repo is private then Credentials is needed(Can configure it using Jenkins managed credentials). Other box I just leave them as default settings.

GITHUB WEBOOK setup

In your GitHub Repo page, click Settings icon ⇒ Webhooks ⇒ Add webhook

PUT IN http://CICD_SERVER_IP:8080/github-webhook into the Payload URL blank.

DON’T FORGET to select JSON format as your Content type

Click Add webhook button then we are almost there!!

Configure the place where you store releases

go to Google Container Registry console to configure visibility to public.

Build Action triggered by GitHub push!

you can make dummy commit then push to the master testing the automation. You can click the build number to get detailed information as Console output.

Check the release on Google Container Registry after build success.

Well done! CHECK THE DEPLOYMENT SERVER!

you can go visit http://YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_IP:3000/AiGames/game/sudoku to have some fun with these games

Backup

Setup ThinBackup

In this walkthrough, Google Cloud Storage are used to backup jenkins.

GO TO JENKINS Dashboard and SCROLL DOWN, you will see the ThinBackup plugin we just installed.

Click Settings

Configure the following

Set Backup directory:

${HOME}/.jenkins-backup

Backup schedule ( I backup @7:00 AM everyday)

I only backed up build results, userContent folder and Backup plugins archives since I don’t need any build artifact being backup from Jenkins. I only backup my worksapce configuration.

after click SAVE button, thinbackup will backup jenkins on your VM.

Bring Backup to Google Cloud Storage

PUT Service account key into Jenkins-managed credentials

Specify you GCP project ID and service account key .json file then click create.

Create a pipeline job

This job will start 9:00 AM everyday, right after thinbackup!

In Pipeline Script section, Please copy and paste this snippet.

pipeline {
    environment {
     JENKINS_BACKUP_FILE_NAME = ''
         SA_KEY_CRED_ID = 'YOUR PROJECT ID(JENKINS MANAGED CRED)'
            GCS_BUCKET_URL='YOUR GCS BUCKET URL'
    }
    agent any
    stages {
        stage('Backing up Jenkins') {
            steps {
                script {
                    JENKINS_BACKUP_FILE_NAME = sh (
                        script: '''#!/bin/bash
                            # find latest backup
                            thinbackup_path="$JENKINS_HOME/.jenkins-backup"
                            latest_backup_folder=$(ls -t $thinbackup_path | head -n1)
                            full_path="$thinbackup_path/$latest_backup_folder"

                            # pack it up
                            backup_name="$latest_backup_folder.tar.gz"
                            tar cvzf $backup_name $full_path
                            echo ${backup_name}
                            ''',
                        returnStdout: true
                    ).trim().tokenize().last()
                }
                step([$class: 'ClassicUploadStep', credentialsId: "${SA_KEY_CRED_ID}",  
                bucket: "${GCS_BUCKET_URL}",
                      pattern: JENKINS_BACKUP_FILE_NAME])
                sh '''
                 rm '''+JENKINS_BACKUP_FILE_NAME+'''
                '''
            }
        }
    }
}

Go to Google Cloud Storage

you can directly click build now to run the upload mission. you should see these kind of backup files in your cloud storage.

Please be noted that in cicd_server.tf I’ve stated the lifecycle_rule age = 2 days for cloud storage. Dpn’t get confused if it only keep 2 copies all the time.

Cleanup

In the end, don’t forget to cleanup using:

terraform destroy

DONT FORGET ENTER YES !

Summary:

In part 2, I use Jenkins, Anisble, and docker to host a web on Google Compute Engine. I understand that there are tons of act can be improved to obtain a more resilient and reliable pipeline. This is the very first pipeline I had ever built. If you are a beginner as me, hope this walkthrough can get you some feeling about how a pipeline being constructed. Thank you for your time reading this :)