How do you organize your build configurations?

I'm using TeamCity for the first project I tried to apply CI and I created build configurations as below:

• Trunk
  Development build configuration, it will run if files are checked into trunk. No code coverage, no artifact, it should run as fast as it can
• Nightly
  It will run nightly and produce code coverage and artifact
• Release
  As its name, just for releasing. It also supports to deploy the release to remote server

How do you organize your build configurations?

Download TeamCity 5.0 now

Even JetBrains didn't update TeamCity's web site yet, maybe because they didn't finish to update its document yet, but you can get it here: http://download.jetbrains.com/teamcity/TeamCity-5.0.exe

Enjoy CI with pleasure :-)

Configuring TeamCity with SQL Server 2008 Express

I tried to configure TeamCity with SQL Server 2005 (both Express & none Express versions), but I haven't ever try with SQL Server 2008 Express. So when I install Windows 7 RTM, I think it's the time to update to SQL Server 2008 Express. Based on David's post, I update the configuration process as I did.

• Install SQL Server Express 2008
• Configure SQL Server Express 2008 to use a static port (default port for SQL Server is 1433) 'cause it uses dynamic port by default.
• Create an empty database for TeamCity, example "TeamCity", with _CI_AI collation as mentioned here
• Install TeamCity (you can grap the latest EAP of TeamCity here)
• Download Microsoft's JDBC driver from here, extract it then copy sqljdbc.jar, but not sqljdbc4.jar, to [TeamCity installation folder]\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\lib (I'm not sure why David mentioned that we need to copy auth/x64/sqljdbc_auth.dll to that folder, but even I didn't copy it, seems TeamCity still works well on Windows 7 RTM x64)
• Create/replace database.properties in [TeamCity Build Server folder]\config with this content
  

      driverName=com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver
      connectionUrl=jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;database=TeamCity;user=[your_user_name];password=[your_password];
  
      maxConnections=50
      poolPreparedStatements=false
  
      connectingTimeout=10000
      connectingAttemptsInterval=1000
      validationQuery=select 1
  

  I don't know why connectionProperties.user and connectionProperties.password don't work and I need to add the user name and password to connection string
• Start TeamCity Web Server service, TeamCity should use SQL Server 2008 Express as back-end data storage from now on

How to create a SQL Server database by command line

In previous post, I show you how to attach a SQL Server database by command line, and here I want to show you how to create a SQL Server database by command line.

    C:\>sqlcmd -S .\SQLEXPRESS -E
    1> use master
    2> go
    Changed database context to 'master'.
    1> create database teamcity collate Latin1_General_CI_AI_KS
    2> go

Code Progression

Just found a blog about automation building with TeamCity and enjoy reading it :-)

TeamCity 4.5 was released

While I was having a team building tour with my colleagues, JetBrains released TeamCity 4.5.

Here are some of the release highlights in this new version:

• LDAP integration with automatic user profiles synchronization
• User groups management engine allowing to fine-tune team members’ roles and access rights, set up groups hierarchy and notification rules
• CVS and Perforce plugin version 2008.2 support in Eclipse plugin
• Perforce support in Microsoft Visual Studio plugin
• Build Agent compatibility with Mono testing framework as a .NET platform for continuous builds
• Test results grouping letting you filter tests by suites, packages/namespaces, and classes
• Handling external tools reports in XML format (ANT’s JUnit tasks, NUnit, Surefire, PMD, and FindBugs)
• Git integration

For more details, you can see them here.

TeamCity 4.0 is released

JetBrains released TeamCity 4.0 today. For the new features of version 4.0, you can find out here.

Hope that I will have more chances to use TeamCity because, from next year, I will apply SCRUM, TDD and CI in practice with new job :-)

First touch TeamCity

Yesterday I tried TeamCity the first time, and also it's the first time for CI (continuous integration). My first impression about TeamCity is it's very easy to use. But if you're new to TeamCity and CI (like me), you need to read the description for each fields carefully and consult TeamCity document when creating a build configuration.

After creating a build configuration, I fire up VS2008, write a test, run the build but it fail with an error message "Could not locate the assembly nunit.framework...". I don't understand why. I added reference to NUnit assembly to test project. I could compile and run the test on my PC. But why TeamCity cannot locate NUnit assembly?

After some tries, I found that I can fix the problem by adding nunit.framework.dll to test project manually (create a "lib" folder, copy nunit.framework.dll into it, add reference to the "local" nunit.framework.dll and commit to server). Seems TeamCity cannot resolve dependencies if the assemblies were not in GAC.

OK, now I'm happy with adding NUnit assembly to project manually. But it will better if TeamCity can resolve it for me.

And one thing maybe you will interested in, JetBrains is now developing their own issues tracker. I imagine that someday when I go to office I will fire up my favorite IDE (IntelliJ IDEA), receive my tasks, reports from my issues tracker (in my IDE), write code and run tests in conjunction with my CI server (Team City). I think that day will come soon ;-)

Let's continue with CI :-)

PS: You can read here to find out how TeamCity roooocks.

TeamCity 3.0 is released with a FREE version

These days continuous integration (CI) becomes popular in software development 'cause it aims to support software developers to produce higher quality products. To apply CI in your project, usually, you need to use a CI server. There are many CI severs you can found: CruiseControl, Hudson, Luntbuild, Parabuild,... and most of them are free.

If you've ever heard about IntelliJ IDEA - the most intelligent Java IDE - is from JetBrains, you should know that they also have a CI server which has many innovative features, TeamCity. And today, JetBrains releases TeamCity 3.0, especially there is a free version.

For more information about TeamCity 3.0, you can find here: http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/

Try it out and have fun :-)