Jenkins Documentation Office Hours, 17 Aug 2020

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From YouTube: 2020 08 17 Jenkins Docs Office Hours

Description

Jenkins documentation office hours for July 17, 2020. Topics included wiki migration progress and configuration as code plugin use.

A

Okay, this is being recorded. This is the jenkins documentation office hours, it's the 17th of august, thanks for being here, so I've got uh agenda topics that have been placed. I think they were. They came mostly from you jonathan, so let's take a look at them and we can add additional topics as needed. Sharing my screen now.

A

Okay, so google season of docs announcement issue monitoring so update, missing redirects and the v hosts that didn't change. Those are two good topics for sure.

A

um Any other topics that people would like to put on the.

A

A

I was just doing some work on the wiki migration sheet, and so we we can look at the slow but steady progress. There.

A

Any other topics you'd like to put on the list.

B

Well, I wanted to um discuss if it is appropriate for this meeting mark something related to our configuration of code, because I was working last week and I don't quite understand the purpose of tools, for example, or section inside configuration and specifically when I was putting special tools. I thought they will be appeared in that docker image, but they didn't so. Just maybe I misunderstood the purpose of.

A

Tools section: that's a very good one: okay, so I'm going to list tool configuration choices as as the alternatives, and there are choices like jenkins tool, installers.

A

Docker image includes the.

C

Tool just helm, chart count.

A

Oh helm, charts another good one. Yeah helm chart includes the tool.

A

Static agent includes the tool.

A

Good those are, those are all excellent. uh Those that's an excellent topic, any other tips.

C

Do we count cli, do we count scripts and.

A

Or google, I would, I would not put scripts in an oh, oh I see. Well, that's.

C

I could write a script. That's going to install it.

A

I'm not recommending.

C

A

um Okay, all right, so I'm also going to put meg's crazy ideas for crazy, crazy groovy system. Groovy ideas, that's great, and I, like those, those are brilliant. That's those are a lot of fun because, as sure as meg suggests it, we know that there is someone in the world who has done it and done it and loves it. So absolutely good sister groovy script.

C

Meg is not that person. Meg just knows people who tend to do things like that.

A

Exactly that's brilliant.

C

And part you know and there's some questions to how much we want to encourage those people or do we want to just you know, don't ask, don't tell we know they're there, but let's not encourage anybody else to join lives.

A

Right, good, okay, any other topics.

C

um If the tool was a plugin, then cask is an option right or is that jenkins tool installers.

A

uh Well, so plug-in plug-in is a different thing, so let's put that I'm going to put that separately as at least in this context, comparing a plug-in and a tool in jenkins vocabulary.

C

A

Because there's a there's, a distinction there and the distinction is. It may actually be quite important to understanding why there are so many ways to do tool, installation.

D

A

A

A

Okay well so then, let's get started all right, so we've got um google season of docs. uh Zinab has been abubakar.

A

Has been accepted as the google season of doc's writer for jenkins, the community bridge projects.

A

Whoops bridge and other projects are still under consideration, and so we're not we're not giving up on those right now they would. They have the same challenges. They did before, need funding, etc, need mentors, but looking forward to this- and this one is jenkins and the focus will be on kubernetes jenkins on kubernetes.

B

And just to clarify this.

A

Is not related to jenkins sex project. It is not that's a good point, so uh not related to jenkins x, because jenkins x is a different, a very different approach to how we how you do kubernetes. It's really absolutely cloud native, whereas jenkins looks an awful lot like a large application, you deploy to kubernetes and it's a different, a very different paradigm, very different way of working yeah there.

A

There is a google season of doc's project for jenkins x as well, and it has a writer assigned to it also, but that's a it's a different project.

E

uh Mark are you saying that china proposal acceptor was about to the jenkins on coverage.

A

Yes, even though, even though google season of docs says the wrong project description, oh yeah, are you a warning about this? Yes,.

E

A

Is another topic there right g-sugg made and they made a mistake in describing the wrong project: okay, okay and- and we've already clarified- that we've asked them to make the correction we've confirmed with zenob that she understands that the project she's working on is kubernetes related, not plug-in, related, yeah, good, good catch and extra points for being attentive. That's very, very good.

D

It's important.

A

Sunday night, when I read it, I was completely dismayed. That's great! I'm glad that you, but that's the wrong project. We absolutely that is not the project we chose, as as as the mentoring team, etc. So yeah nice.

A

Yeah all right anything else on google season of docs before we go on to the next topic,.

A

Okay issues: monitoring jonathan, thank you again for your attentiveness to those so missing redirects. So let's take a look at this.

A

Okay, so this one is a v host change for oh right right. This is and this one inspires. Okay, so jonathan I'm going to go ahead, I'm not sure if you can see my screen, I'm going to go ahead and apply my proposed change. The redirect.

C

A

C

A

How to view in your language- and it was pointing to just the using book, whereas we've got a page in the using book now on using it in your local language. Oh.

E

Some may miss type, I guess could have been yes yeah.

D

Redirect or specific page, we should directory them to the page. Okay,.

A

What was your question meg? Oh.

D

I'm just editing your comment. Ignore me.

C

Directory is a verb, is intriguing.

A

No, no, in this case the okay. Now I have to show you that the commit message redirect, which is a very specific term in the http protocol,.

D

Yes, okay, but directory is not a verb.

A

uh No correct right, yes, okay, so I and this one this one, I'm also going to go ahead and commit it, because this jenkins, behind proxy page, I had initially incorrectly classified it as part of a reverse proxying thing, and it's not. This is a proxy, not a reverse proxy, and you don't want to get me started on how that how crazy that makes me to think that we have two two concepts that use the word proxy that are radically different from each other.

A

So this one I'm just going to remove the remove redirect for page not yet converted.

E

Okay, so behind proxy and reverse proxies as different style to use.

A

Right yeah, so so, okay, in this context, a proxy is, is a a hint of okay. This is now I'm going to stay.

E

Man in the middle- I I know.

A

E

A

Like a balancer.

E

A

Well, or or a 15 20 years ago, corporations were very frightened of giving their their employees access to the internet and therefore they would install proxies that everyone has that channel all their traffic through. That's what jenkins behind a proxy is talking about, whereas reverse proxying is something that's very close to. The application is connected to the application and handles traffic for exactly that application. So, okay, all right!

A

So now now the perplexity here that I I think this is ready to approve, but the challenge I've had is that the previous preceding changes- and I think you noted it here jonathan- was that we've got changes that are somehow not having the effect that we expected.

E

Exactly exactly I I it's the the previous lines. If you go to the hostess, uh I don't put the line numbers.

A

Yeah, so so yeah. This is a this is the perfect example of it. This url is absolutely being redirected, and yet, if I open that page, isn't it work exactly, and I don't know how I can't explain why either I am completely perplexed by it, because it everything I know about how it's supposed to work seems like it should, and yet here we'll even prove it one more time.

A

So this is one that I may have to discuss with olivier bernin or with somebody.

D

A

Who understands apache redirect? Because this should redirect automatically? And in fact it does not. It stops on the wiki page. Okay,.

E

And when I I wrote right on the pr I put these links as duplicate ones, so I observated they already exists. So I put the on our agenda to disgust, because this.

A

Excellent, thank you yeah, and I wish I could tell you why it's doing it, but I just don't understand it, but it is clearly it's flawed. It's wrong and I just don't get it. I don't understand.

A

And yet this this link the 3204. That is the issue that we originally used to track. The reverse proxy configuration page improvements and it's closed because the page has the new content and I think it's exactly the right kind of thing that we did. However, the redirects are still incorrect. They just they aren't, they aren't improving our.

A

They aren't helping our users get to the the better pages.

E

Okay, so uh with these updates, I already update our weak migration control, so maybe we have another graphic images on the the second tab with that.

E

Okay. So let's take a look on the bottom on the bottom, the statistics there.

A

E

Okay, oh wow autograph is missing. Oh it's up here. No.

A

Nice, okay, now.

E

A

Is this, this data is computed, live from the from the contents of the sheet from the first tab.

E

Yeah that tab yeah. So if you update this stats there, the graph is updates here. So we can it's following the our progress.

E

Now we have a lot of don and alastar available to work and blue one.

A

So and available in this case means there is an issue recorded in github.

E

Yeah there are, there is issues, so we, the issues, are available to contributors, the yellow one. It's waiting for issues, yeah.

A

So so, for for me that means available. Someone has has created an entry as a github issue, and that issue is probably good.

D

A

That a new contributor could actually start work on it. So when october, when we, when we enter october and hacktoberfest this set of right now, 17 would be a good, a good starting point.

E

Exactly I'm planning to visit the another waiting issues planning the place to to migrate the pages. What places need to be splitted in several ones, so we can stay prepared for the next hack october, fest or new contributors. What did you get think about.

A

I like that, a lot that is that sounds wonderful. We know that, beginning october 1st and continuing through october 31st there's a major initiative promoted by digitalocean called hacktoberfest, and last year we had over 50 contributors. No, do I take it back. I think it was over a hundred contributors during that month.

A

So we we need to arrive at the start of that month with probably 20 or 30 or 40 um ready to go instead of the current 17.. So the your your progress in helping us triage review and create.

E

A

Well-Described.

E

Issues is very, very valuable okay, so I will start to work on this topic in the next days. Excellent. Thank you. Nice.

A

Now, on the suspended- and these are- I believe, these are ones where their work has been started, but they're waiting for a change. So these are usually actions for me or for oleg right.

E

Yeah, it's suspended, it's like a plugins that was uh the breakout or pages that is not more important to documentation. Oh.

A

Okay, sorry so suspended got it so suspended is something where we're not going to do anything with it. It's anymore right, it's a it's a con! It's a it's another form of done. It's a done with us doing nothing! Okay! Yes,.

E

A

If I've, given it up right right, so no more work to be done. Great, no.

E

More work, there is a issue. It's not closed. You can see the line. Six yeah. Yes, it's everything. Okay, they're redirecting is working, but the issue is: it is open. Oh okay,.

A

So I should be able to see that if I go here and filter to status, column, yeah, clear all and then done not closed exactly okay, so monitoring oh see, and I oh okay. This is when we could discuss with vlad. So that's excellent. Let's look at this, so vlad we're gonna! We're gonna, put you up for a question here: okay, so this is convert the monitoring wiki page to jenkins.io.

A

Yeah we started.

B

But not finished yet.

A

ah Okay, so this one is all right, so this one has an attached port request, but the pull request I assume, has not yet been merged. Oh no! Okay. We did murder to us.

A

A

Okay, okay, so well so wait a sec. Let me look: let's look at the content. Why did we not close this then? Because, okay, it's the page, is still under development, but there's a ah okay. This provides links to various monitoring gap, but I think that's all that the original page, all the original monitoring page, did. If I remember correctly, let's look at it and see.

A

Okay, everyone close your eyes in shame as mark hacks, the url to get past the redirect.

A

Okay cat, like oh that's interesting,.

A

This is something completely different than.

B

Yeah I I can just provide slight comment on this. I was working on monitoring page, which is part of our current documentation and uh created the national uh release of that page, but it is not related. I guess to this page, because it is, I thought, a little bit outdated.

A

Maybe well it's not even just outdated. This is a. They are both monitoring concepts, but my initial interpretation of the phrase monitoring jenkins before seeing the program was a tool like datadog or like let's see- and we've got the examples here on the page that you you provided for us a data dog or prometheus and grafana or java melody.

A

Those are tools that that watch, the health of the jenkins server itself of the jenkins controller and- and those are things that an administrator uses to say is my jenkins running well right now, whereas this page monitoring jenkins is talking about tools that developers place on their desktop to pop up a notification that that their job had a problem and they're they're, completely different facets of the notion of learning something from your jenkins server.

A

So so I understand why this one is not is not closed, then, because yeah, so that one I would, I would shift it to to be done. Let's see, what's what's the correct status for that jonathan, can you help me? It's.

E

It's uh uh you, you close the issue or not no.

A

Because because you progress.

E

Well so in this case, it's not.

A

Even it's, it should just be available because it's, I don't think anyone started the writing on it to say. Oh, this is how you use these build notification tools.

E

Okay, so maybe it's interesting, but some notes on the comments so because.

D

E

Is it's oops there has a ap closet, all right, ah okay, and so that may indicate the comments on the the each github.

A

Not in the week right- and so this one is, let's do that and go to the github.

A

Issue: okay, so here we want to to break the link and I'm not sure can I am, I allowed to break the link. Yes, okay, good break the link to the pr, so there isn't a pr matching it and I'm going to put a comment here in the text.

A

This is. This is a a really terrible awful example of how not to do how not to describe one of these issues. So so jonathan, please don't take this as the right of the example it's this should have been much better described than it was the um monitoring.

E

Vlad will keep it working on it or not, because.

A

It certainly good point yeah, so vlad. I assume you would not continue working on this. You you've picked other things you're working on you're. Okay, if I take it away from you, uh yeah, it's okay, okay, great, very good. No.

E

A

Fact it's available right. The monitoring page concept in this page is related to developers being notified of a change of status in one of their jobs.

C

So why isn't that renamed? Something like monitoring, jenkins job status,.

A

Monitoring jenkins.

C

A

Yeah I agree yeah. It should be so so, for example, if a test fails in a job that, from a recent.

A

Change the developer needs to investigate. Why.

A

All right, so what we should really say is use the document conversion instructions to convert monitoring from the wiki to a jenkins.io, a new jenkins.io page.

A

um Notifying developers.

A

Of job of changes- or maybe we just call it notifying developers, what do you recommend notifying users? Even better? That's good, yes, very good, because it's not the only developers using right, yes, notifying users of the new page describe, should describe the various tools available, provide desktop notification.

A

Of status changes, let's see things like uh pass or succeed, success.

A

Failure success to unstable.

A

Unstable to success, etc,.

C

Should we specify status changes for the job we, oh.

A

Yes, job status changes very good. Yes,.

A

Don't need that so this is not about monitoring the health of the jenkins controller.

A

Reuse, um let's see agent failures.

A

Etc, a better description now everybody, okay with that, is the better description and correctly not assigned that's. Okay,.

E

E

A

Good, okay, so it's it's been updated to show that it is now available and.

E

It's zero! It's okay! Oh oh cool updates to zero. It's automatic.

A

Excellent, so it recomputed all by itself. That's great okay, yeah.

E

It's the next tab. It's a a issue maker generator to the next one and just put output.

A

Okay, anything else that we need to do with regard to wiki conversion, progress, jonathan, any topics you wanted to be sure we covered here that we haven't yet touched. No, it's completed to agenda.

E

A

A

Right so vlad configuration is code, question and discussion.

B

Would you like me.

A

To start with this, yes, please or you could you can start or I can. I could go on blathering about the difference between a plug-in and a tool, but tell us tell us what your experience has been so far help us understand and that way that way we make sure we give good get a good conversation started.

B

Yeah, thank you very much, and I would be glad in case if you correct me, if I'm wrong. Okay, you have much longer and better experience on this.

B

So in general, my understanding by watching all these videos on youtube and like watching different uh recordings uh that uh configurations code as code is the modern way and current way of uh uh configuring. The generations instance which we are trying to configure- and this is the way to go basically so inside configuration is code uh which is quiet basically, and it is for again resources on github there is uh inside.

B

I believe it is jenkins yaml file, it is called, uh there are different sections uh and one in the section is called tools, and maybe I misunderstood the purpose of this section, but uh my understanding that what at least was my understanding that whatever we put inside the tool section, these two will be installed automatically uh inside.

B

For example, I was playing with docker image uh inside the docker image of the gentiles and we'll find out that too. So I was exploring two alternatives. Basically, one is installing this tool by modifying joker file and creating your own personal docker file and kind of manually uh includes installing this specific tool, for instance, jdk specific version of madden uh as the tool and so on, uh and I thought that in case, for instance, just in case, if we put certain tool inside that section, it will be also installed. But maybe I misunderstood.

B

The purpose of this.

C

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I believe that the tools and configuration configurationist code is installing for where you can put tools on the jenkins controller itself, which I believe is like not the recommended way to go, but on the I think system am I right mark the on the system. Configuration page, I believe, there's a place where you can. You can configure tools.

A

Yeah you're certainly close meg, so there's yeah.

C

A

There's some subtle subtle things happening there, so vlad you you've, you've got a really really interesting combination of things that you're considering right. So, on the one hand, docker images and the the promise and the benefit of a docker image is it can provide us a stable and static set of initial files in the file system that we're going to use for that image.

A

So the the common pattern is, I want to build a piece of java code. I need to build it with maven. I will reference the docker image that the maven project provides called maven colon 3.6.3, and that will assure me that the the image I'm running starts with maven already installed and so in. In that case, the docker file is is doing what you were describing initially, as it's already got the tool inside the docker file. However, there are people, oh go ahead.

B

Well, I was just trying to add what he exactly mentioned. One approach is to base this image docker image on maven, which uh ensures that maven as the tool exists over there or base from, for instance, our lts image of jenkins and manually, install maven inside docker file as the tool and provide our own docker docker image.

A

uh Right and now the there that's that's a good place to clarify if, if I've got a jenkins ma jenkins controller, gotta, quit staying master, a jenkins controller and the jenkins controller, we we generally prefer to not run builds on the controller we want, builds to run on the agents, so installing maven on the controller actually won't help.

A

So because we don't want to run builds on the controller. We want builds to be run on agents, and so so we don't install maven on the jenkins controller because we want we want to keep builds off the off the controller. The build should run on agents that are separate from the controller and.

B

I like saying maven as an example, because it may be any tool and also I was planning, uh and maybe I have drawn approach. Please correct me uh as very simple example of running jenkins doing agentless instance if it is possible so running just controller and enabling docker inside that controller.

B

So we can use pipeline, for instance, declarative pipeline and installing through plugins.txt file, blue ocean or whatever plugins need, and inside pipeline. We can specify whatever tools they will need by doing agent, so another docker agent, the docker agent, will be, and inside that pipeline we can specify whatever tools we need. But so this is like approach. I was trying to follow when creating something like for future tutorial for uh uh like showing how to deal with not production, of course, how to deal with pipelines and to show irresponsible.

E

Welfare vlad uh just to share uh how you use jenkins, docker and github here, all together and our company. We keep jenkins working and orchestrate all jobs so, for example, our assistance we jog when we commit something github jenkins, just just to get the the push notifications so start to building the docker image and using ephemeral containers in a build server, not inside the masternode, so just check out the project there build the fed container.

E

Put the application aside, commit the fed container in our another repositories about the versions, and then we publish and the final final job work is clean up the build server. So because we are using ephemeral containers, there is no garbage to work on it's just temporary, so just uh jenkins on the master and agents use dockers, just to build applications and close everything at the end, and we keep the jinx fire configuration at the gippy hub 2 and the docker's fire there's another opposite or too.

E

So it's everything working together.

B

Right so you have classical kind of controller agent configuration where executing all execution are done by the agents, but controller manages everything well,.

A

And- and I think that actually you were also angling- you were also moving towards that same kind of thing, as you were talking about docker in docker, because even if you configure a controller, if you allow it to run docker inside that controller,.

B

A

It launch when it launches a new docker image. It will treat that as an agent, and so so you were actually doing agent-based development as well. It's just well hidden from you, so you you ask the controller start a job. The controller starts a job and the first instruction the jenkins file, says docker file this and what jenkins does is, creates an agent using that docker file and connects that agent to your controller and so now now it's all on the file system of your of your of the computer, that's hosting your controller!

A

So in terms of execution capacity, you actually didn't get any extra execution capacity, but the file system is completely isolated by the docker container and and it's as jonathan said, it's ephemeral. It lives only long enough to do the work and then goes away so so the technique, you're envisioning, is actually a good example of the technique of using don't build on the master, build on agents.

E

So, for example, when I say ephemeral containers because it's a small container, you just have the maven style, so I call them containing mirror as a cute heart. I need to do and throw away all right. It's the same foreign composer or any kind of.

B

Well, thank you for pointing this out and the uh reason why I explored this solution because I thought well. It's another reason to uh amplify that. Well, jenkins is smart enough to do this job, communicating between controller and agent by itself you, as the user, don't need to establish and think about how this controller and agent will communicate, which uh ports they will be used and so well socket communication.

B

The way how you run this docker image important, but but not much of work, so jenkins does a lot of work because it is like very good software.

B

But uh here I well uh wanted to mention that I was trying to explore um configurations code plugin, which is kind of separate from docker or like the different plugin and different thing, and when I was trying to put some tools in two sections, it was not appearing to inside docker container.

C

B

Is it because it is controller, or is it because of I'm doing something wrong.

C

It's because that's not yeah.

A

Well, well so it's there, there are some subtleties there that it's, it's probably important, that you understand the subtleties so that you know when you would use which so a doctor image is generally assumed that it will contain all the tooling already.

A

But jenkins tool is a concept from well before the days of docker. uh Docker wasn't even a glimmer in some people's in in their the architect's eyes, when the concept of a jenkins tool was created and what a jenkins tool is is a a chunk of java code. That knows how to install a tool onto an agent.

A

If requested to do so, and- and it's the, if requested, to do so, the the way we make a request to install a tool is we we either refer to a label that says: oh, I want an agent, that's labeled. With this or in pipeline. We might use a with tool, name like with ant or with maven wrapping block, and then then jenkins will look. Do we have maven? Oh, we don't I'll go grab the installer that matches the the label that you just gave to make sure you have that installed.

A

So I use I use tools and labels all the time with my relatively static agents, because it lets me say I need maven 3.6.3, here's a tool for it and the installer is located on this http server. If you don't already have it copy it from there and install it and jenkins will do that for me.

A

So so the distinction is docker. Images don't need that they are, they could use it conceptually, but ultimately you would have to inside the the build steps with docker. You would have to make a request for with ant or with maven, and then it would go. Do the oh now install a new copy of maven.

B

Right mark this part, I understand how to do this, but I was referring to jenkins, has code the tool section, so the true section- um or maybe I should address different, like people who developed this plugin. What is the purpose of tool section inside jenkins source code.

A

So it's used to define those tools. uh Maybe I can show it. Would it be? Okay, if I show you a demonstration of a of a configuration is code file that has tools in it yeah.

A

So, let's, let's go ahead with that because I yeah so let's look at and- and this is a public repository, so I can embed the link to it. Let's see so, let's look here.

A

Here and if we look at the lts with plugins.

A

Okay, so here is a jenkins.yaml file.

A

Okay, and is that text readable, do we need to go a little bit larger there? Maybe that's better.

C

Yeah, that's good enough.

A

And it was tools.

A

Get to okay: where is oh here we go okay. So what this jenkins configuration is code definition file shows. Is it's going to define a tool named ant with one of the tools? One of the ant tools will be labeled ant dash latest and if someone asks for ant dash latest it will into a subdirectory named apache ant 1.10.8 unzip, the thing it downloads from home.markway.net such and such and install it.

A

So so, but I think that's that fits the concept that you've already got of. What is a tool installer right.

B

I see because I was like uh doing this without without any properties. I guess that was using name and home. I think something that is specified for jitter, but thanks for pointing this out. Well, so so.

A

Meg go ahead. You had a couple.

C

This is what this is for. The tools configuration that appears in the ui and I think the system configuration page right. I've never seen in the documentation any place where it explains well what that tool definition is agree. I think it and I think, cask you you can see and cast what they put together. Was they sat there and looked at the system configuration file and tried to pick up everything that was there so and and the other slight one is that apparently, the only documentation for cask is the read me to the github repo.

A

Well, there's there's lots of documentation on configuration as code, but yes, it is. It is still not nearly enough for what all the people what people would like about it. So this is the the page that meg was referencing the system configuration page and when I click the ant installations button here, you'll see the ant dash latest with an install, automatically check box, and here is the downloader that or the file that will be downloaded and the subdirectory that will be created when it's downloaded.

B

I see so I guess, if I understand correctly, whatever we put over there, it will be it will dynamically create portions of ui, which user can use while configuring the jenkins instance.

A

Right right, yes, so so this and and the configuration is code. If we look at configuration as code, it will even do one step better for us and it will. Let's see where is oh here, it is right here.

A

So if we view the configuration, it will show me the definition of.

A

All those things that I just showed you so that that thing that I did was is here in this configurationist code thing that I can just view and and it's ready to copy and paste so that I can copy it right from here and paste it into a text file.

A

Now you you mentioned git, and I I have to apologize, I maintain the get plug-in and the git plug-in is has some flaws and some problems in its use of the notion of tools that I have to just apologize to for outright.

A

So I I get specifically is has some has some interesting strangeness and I apologize for that you'll you. You mentioned it. One is this this thing here where it says home and name and that's all it has, and that's that's legitimate or just a name, but there is no other tool in the system that has that strange and bizarre behavior, so jdk behaves much more normally maven behaves much more normally, so vlad does did that, help at all. Yes, yes, it helps mark.

A

Now, meg your your point on that there there isn't really a a clear description anywhere in the documentation that I recall of this notion of tools and how tools can be used well and effectively and when they should be avoided right that if you've got docker images or you've got kubernetes containers, then tools are are typically not used at all. If you've got static, agents or you've got agents where, where you can't really put them in kubernetes, for instance, you've got a bunch of raspberry pi's or you've got uh cell phones attached as agents.

A

Somehow, cool installers are quite helpful right.

A

C

But yeah, I know when I first started looking, I thought. Oh, if I want to use maven in my for my pipelines, then I need to get this configured on the system, configuration page that just made sense and then it's going to float on down and and wouldn't it be lovely when I you know doing docker, I say pick up all the tools that are configured for this jenkins instance.

C

That all makes great logical sense to me, but I don't think it has anything to do with how jenkins works right and- and I don't know any place that ever explains that.

A

Yep good, very good point that the the notion of tools, the concept of tools and how they are used well and effectively has evolved from the original jenkins to today's dockerized and kubernetes containerized. But the documentation doesn't describe that evolution.

B

And I guess it is like a very complex task to just well describe it correctly.

A

Yeah, I I would, I think I think so at least you've you've listened to to me and to meg and to jonathan attempting to describe various facets of it right and we've. We've described three or four or five different pieces of the of the puzzle. Now getting that into a clear, comprehensible, well-ordered, well-organized, well-structured thing yeah, that's that's! That's hard work.

E

Yeah, but I guess uh when I I started to work with you, I studied the jenkins documentations and there is a point there. For example our documentations, it's like kind of a book of uh union of our experience, the users, it's not. For example, let's describe the first screen on jenkins, described the first, the photo then second bolt on the first page, the second page, it's not like a a manual, a a user manual. It's so it's like more a book.

E

So maybe because this we we miss points like this- the vlad and mega this text for us, because it's not a user manual. In fact,.

B

Well, but this uh well well taking this point, but this is related to this specific uh plugin and we have like one.

E

Yeah, it's because that plug and it become a page inside the jenkins. Once we started the this sections for that, so maybe in the future we need to uh have another kind of documentations guided by pages and features.

A

Yeah, so so the concept that- and I don't know if it's the right concept, the concept I would I would make it somewhat similar to the notion of we. We have the concept of solution pages, it's pretty weak right now, but we have the concept of solution pages and configuring. Your jenkins server might be an entire solution page with the whole, because it's there are multiple ways to do it right, there's.

A

Yes, I can configure with the configuration as code plug-in that has certain strengths and weaknesses I can configure with groovy system scripts I can or or another solution page using github well with jenkins, where it's really the combination of six or eight or ten plug-ins.

A

That gives you a really great solution uh and- and those are sort of solution focused, but right now, you're right that the documentation is is certainly not yet solution. Focused.

C

Mark on the um on the actual ui for tools, what does the tooltip say? Does it even tell you that, like, if you're going to use docker for your agents, just ignore this.

A

Oh no, no, it doesn't give you anything nearly that kind of guidance. So if I hover.

C

Through a bug at the software to click, the tool tip.

A

Yes, yeah that that's a that's an interesting idea. I.

C

Mean in a very without detail just to warn them, you know what is what exactly is this used for, and I think it's primarily used for builds that you do on the jaqen's controller itself, not the agents which you shouldn't be doing. No.

A

No, for me it's it's almost exclusively used for agents, so but it's it's biased towards static agents, not ephemeral agents.

C

Okay and non and non-containerized agents.

A

Right most most ephemeral agents are containerized, so yeah, it's yeah, but, for example, this this setting right here, this global tool, configuration for maven configuration is, is actually a nicely applicable thing for even dockerized environments. So there are things inside this page that help with dockerized environments.

A

But it's it's certainly not this button for jdk installations right that one. If you need, if you need to install a jdk, you should just ask for the docker image. That is, that jdk version.

B

Right and it's up to the user to decide which part to go, but I thought well. Maybe we can make some recommendation at least for a new novice user who haven't right.

A

And it's: this is back to the same this, the the condition we I shared last week from a brand new jenkins user, who was familiar with gitlab ci, who came to us and said, came to the issue tracker and said: hey. I don't understand what you're doing here and- and I was looking for this this way to do things with docker and have agents and the user didn't realize that they were getting agents just by using docker, and it was what did that mean? We had a very poor description of what they were experiencing.

A

We gave them detailed steps. Do this do this, but didn't tell them at all what the results were of what they were doing. So I just yeah. We we need better documentation in those tutorials for sure.

B

So, just to summarize what we spoke about is it are fair to say that. Well, we can use jenkins code, and this is very good too, but mainly in case. We want to configure the engines, not the controller. Why is it.

A

Well, configuration is code is actually very, very good at controlling the jenkin at configuring. The jenkins controller, this the tool configuration here is most commonly used when we have agents that are static right that are that they they live for a very long time and we don't mind that they become contaminated and we worry about them so so configurations code is, is actually primarily focused on controller configuration on the master except tools right, yeah tools.

A

I would guess most jenkins installations that are using configuration as code are probably also doing what jonathan's team is doing of using ephemeral agents and therefore they probably don't use tool configuration because they rely on their ephemeral agents to already have the tools.

C

Right but it would be nice if something I mean. That's almost a high level discussion, a conceptual thing: it's almost a blog right right, yeah.

A

C

Easier, I mean you could write it up to then have the specific details for everything, but it would be harder to get the big picture right yeah. We need a big picture thing about agents, the same thing too.

C

You know what are all your different ways of doing agents and what are the pros and cons for each one.

B

Right well, at least we are have consensus on their term to use.

A

We have made progress on getting a consensus term, although now we've got to do the do the hard work of making the change in all the documentation locations, daniel beck submitted a pull request just for security advisories, and it was what several hundred changes just in the security advisories.

A

So yeah there's a lot a lot to be done to make that change.

A

All right we have, we have hit our hour, are there and we have, I think, covered all the topics that were on our agenda. Anything else before we.

A

A

So we maybe we should take these other topics for a future session, because helm charts are a different, a different technique and system. Groovy script is yet another technique, so let's remember those for a future session vlad. If that would be okay.

C

Great all right thanks everybody, and we should because okay, if I'm not a jenkins person, I was just gonna say: if I'm not a jenkins person, a lot of those plugins look like tools to me.

C

I know enough now that I know what jenkins means by a tool, but.

D

C

Not in the outside world, I think a monitoring tool is a tool. Pipeline would be a tool. Lots of those plugins would be tools.

A

Yeah, exactly the the the word tool is completely overloaded and and danger dangerously close to incomprehensible.

A

Unless we put a lot more words near it.

C

Right, you know.

A

A jdk installation jenkins.

C

User understand that we are very careless with terminology if we.

D

C

A word and like it, we use that to apply to 22 different things, so we don't maybe.

D

D

B

And I second your opinion that terminology is very important and great.

E

C

It is, and we can't my thoughts in the writing. We need to get we we can fix. We can get more precise with the terminology, even though we're probably gonna have to use a lot of adjectives with nouns to make it clear what we're talking about, and we can hope that, as other people read that enough, that they'll learn to talk that way, but that may take longer people are gonna, be such swine.

D

A

People well we'll leave meg's quote in the in the in the recording. That was absolutely.

F

Huge thanks: everybody, okay,.

C

F

Thank you, bye.

C

Have a good week, everybody.

F

Bye. Everyone too, bye-bye.