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Using jenkins as a task runner

Jenkins can be used a distributed task queue. It's not pretty, but it can work...

Creating a Build Job that qa will use​

  1. QA-Board needs to be setup with the ENV variable JENKINS_AUTH, in order to communicate with jenkins.
  2. Create a Build Job configured with:
  • Enable "Trigger builds remotely", note the token
  • Parametrized: task should be a String parameter that gets a command to run
  • Build > "Execute Windows Batch command"
# if you need to make sure shared drive are available...
net use \\server\share

@echo "%task%"
"%task%""
  1. qaboard.yaml needs to be configured with something like:
runners:
  jenkins:
    build_url: https://jenkins.example.com/job/my-team/job/WindowsExecutor
    token: "1234"

You can also use the QA_RUNNERS_JENKINS_BUILD_URL and QA_RUNNERS_JENKINS_TOKEN environment variables.

caution

The runner is named windows, while its configuration is under runners.jenkins. Set runners.default (e.g. to local): otherwise qa batch would try to use a runner named jenkins, which doesn't exist.

How to use this runner?​

Multiple options:

  • On the CLI: qa batch --runner=windows
  • As the default runner, with runners.default: windows in qaboard.yaml
caution

Choosing the runner per batch, with runner: windows in a batch, doesn't work at the moment: the CLI's runner (--runner or runners.default) always wins.