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: jenkins...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> [mailto:jenkins...@googlegroups.com<javascript:>] On Behalf Of P Sent: June-27-17 03:17 To: Jenkins Users <jenkins...@googlegroups.com<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 jenkinsci-use...@googlegroups.com<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 jenkinsci-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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.
