I take a snapshot as the pristine image, and for convenience make it the same name on all nodes. Then I configure a build cloud for the vsphere cloud instance (I use 3 for various purposes) and then configure a new node running as a slave computer running under your new vsphere cloud (instead of as a dumb slave for instance). Run the tests provided by the plugins, as it needs good vcenter and vsphere connectivity, and it just works. One caveat, I usually set the nodes up to snap back to the snapshot at the start of a job, which extends the job by 2 - 3 minutes. This allows me to debug after a job has failed, by locking the node offline and then digging into what was left. Doing it at the and of a job speeds things up, by makes it nearly impossible to diagnose a build problem.
On Mon, 2017-07-03 at 04:07 -0700, P wrote: Hi John, thanks for sharing your experience with this kind of "issues". Based on what you have sent I am giving up (at least for now) with creating new VMs and follow your steps. How do you use vsphere plugin to reset the slave back ? Are you using VM snapshots ? I would be grateful if you could send me your config changes :-) Best regards P. On Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 2:01:24 PM UTC+1, John Mellor wrote: P asked: > So how do you guys use jenkins slaves on VMware ? Do you use existing VMs ? I use vsphere slaves extensively, but only as existing VMs. I never managed to get a dynamically-constructed slaves to actually work, but perhaps there is some magic combination of undocumented incantations that does it. I have many Developers who leave all kinds of cruft around from their builds, install prereq packages, reconfigure ssh keys, ntp, dns, etc in their build steps. I use the vsphere plugin to reset the slave back to a known-good condition at the start of the next build (that leaves the slave as the previous build left it, so I can debug what went wrong). Its somewhat unfortunate that the plugin only uses vcenter api, as otherwise I could use the free version of esxi and also not need the $12k vcenter licence in this stack. The software licences cost about 3x what the hardware costs, so you know something is wrong with that model. For many job types, I also use the CloudBees Docker plugin to build jobs that do not build Docker images and do not require a different kernel or libc to build correct product. It seems to be the only one that actually works, and provides the pristine environment for a lot less overhead. I wish there was some kind of quality information associated with each Jenkins plugin, as there is a *LOT* of crap in the library. I used to use the Debian pbuilder containers with a pretty large set of scripted wrappers in the C++ builds, but Docker images are an improvement. If you need, I can send you my config changes that I use to thread the needle… From: [email protected]<javascript:> [mailto:[email protected]<javascript:>] On Behalf Of P Sent: June-27-17 03:17 To: Jenkins Users <[email protected]<javascript:>> Subject: Re: vSphere Cloud Plugin - does it work ? It looks like VSphere Cloud plugin is not very widely used .... So how do you guys use jenkins slaves on VMware ? Do you use existing VMs ? I am a bit surprised nobody is creating dynamically VMs for Jenskins ... Best regards P. On Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 12:34:19 PM UTC+1, P wrote: Hello all, I am trying to use vSphere Cloud Plugin to create new VM for some test deployment. Unfortunatelly it doesn't work and I don't really know why. Below is the error message I get when I press "Check Data" button while defining "vSphere Build Step": https://gist.github.com/anonymous/b355bed14171f8afa066dd18e8191179 I also include the configuration I use. Can anybody have a look and tell me why it is failing ? Kind regards P. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<javascript:>. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-users/7a37767a-285d-4b18-8ee6-2ac684a48e11%40googlegroups.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-users/7a37767a-285d-4b18-8ee6-2ac684a48e11%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-users/1499174621.13800.1.camel%40esentire.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
