What if I want to deploy/upload several files to artifactory or nexus with Maven?

Regardless of the repository you are using to store generated artifacts, the default Maven configuration for, let's say, WAR file, is upload a WAR file.. interesting..

A common configuration commented here also uploads the source code as a jar file, and that is very recommendable for debugging.

Another uploaded or auto-generated file is a "pom.xml" project descriptor file for your artifact.

But we want to go further, we want to upload the sql file needed to generate our initial database, or the pdf with the documentation of this release.. how to get this?

<plugin>   
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>   
  <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>attach-artifacts</id>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals> 
        <goal>attach-artifact</goal>
      </goals> 
      <configuration>
        <artifacts> 
          <artifact> 
            <file>src\main\sql\initdb.sql</file>
            <type>sql</type>
            <classifier>create</classifier>
          </artifact>
          <artifact>
            <file>target\site\docs\document.pdf</file>   
            <type>pdf</type>
            <classifier>doc</classifier>
          </artifact>
        </artifacts>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>


With this plugin, you are associating with the same artifact the "document.pdf" file, the "initdb.sql" file, the war, the sources jar, the pom.xml file... all them with the same version, and with the possibility of declaring any of them as a dependency.

It will be executed in package phase, beware because you may mistake the phases and attach something not yet created, for example, the pdf may be created in pre-site phase instead of .. compile, for example.

In the case of multiple configurations, you can configure it like this:


<plugin>   
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>   
  <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>attach-artifacts1</id>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals> 
        <goal>attach-artifact</goal>
      </goals> 
      <configuration>
        <artifacts> 
          <artifact> 
            <file>src\main\sql\initdb.sql</file>
            <type>sql</type>
            <classifier>create</classifier>
          </artifact>
        </artifacts>
      </configuration>
    </execution>

    <execution>
      <id>attach-artifacts2</id>
      <phase>site</phase>
      <goals> 
        <goal>attach-artifact</goal>
      </goals> 
      <configuration>
        <artifacts> 
          <artifact>
            <file>target\site\docs\document.pdf</file>   
            <type>pdf</type>
            <classifier>doc</classifier>
          </artifact>
        </artifacts>
      </configuration>
    </execution>

  </executions>
</plugin>

In this case, if we execute "mvn deploy", only "initdb.sql" will be attached, if we execute "mvn site-deploy", it will be only attached "document.pdf" (because it is supposed to be created in pre-site phase, but I am not sure if it will be deployed in "artifactory" or "nexus", because you don't pass through "deploy" phase, I would say it won't.

The best, if you execute "mvn site-deploy deploy", firstly "document.pdf" is attached in "site" phase, then "initbd.sql" is attached in "package" phase, and finally all them are deployed in "deploy" phase. Really useful!

This is the solution for a problem we wanted to solve in my job, the solution was taken here, thanks!

Opinion: Simulated annealing algorithm, the ignored biological algorithm

This is a personal opinion article, based on my own experience and alienation.

I knew this algorithm for first time in Artificial Intelligence subject of my Master Degree in Computer Sciences in 2005. I liked it so much that I repeated one more year, only to increment my marks, a FAIL was not enough for me. I know, sometimes my ambition scares me the hell out too.

This algorithm models a universe where the solution to a problem does not try to be perfect, only good (my bro sometimes says that something good is the best enemy of the perfection). The approach is highly random at first, and, little by little, people (ups, I meant the search of the solution) go behaving as they are supposed to, and finally, it is like any other algorithm that reach a similar solution in a fashion way (faster, yes, but not better).

What I really love of this algorithm is not my implementation 5 years ago, I do not really remember what I solved, but it has not gone down in history. What I loved about that algorithm is the ease of application to the psychology of human life:

Example 1:

A child, with all that potential, could be anything in life, and, according with chaos theory, little changes makes big differences, an opinion, an idea or an image could make a child empathize or left aside a sport, a hobby, a passion...
Years later, with less  of that potential, it is not possible for a teenager to be the best in several fields, it is too late for him/her, but it is still headed for other disciplines.
Finally, the child grew adult, and the possibilities are within a cone that gets narrower and narrower. Of course, changes are always possible, my own mother got a job when she was 52 in something she never excelled. When she tried to poison my bro and me several times with her "cuisine", now she cooks very well in a restaurant.

Example 2:

A project, in its first design phase, it is a flower and fruit garden, a unexplored world full of possibilities, the childhood.
Only defining the base language, initial technology and a framework, most possibilities really disappear, and other grow strong. Java, Spring, AOP for Tomcat deploying weakens the possibilities of being portlet and destroys the possibilities of being a C++ desktop application. There are still many things to define and create with patterns and algorithms.
A month to deliver, what can we really change?

Those are my arguments for consider this algorithm essential for a global understanding of any creation, specially for engineers that makes of creation their primary task. Personally, I consider it a biological algorithm, until a God, Creator or BigBang algorithm category were created.


==========================================
Simulated annealing (SA) is a generic probabilistic metaheuristic for the global optimization problem of locating a good approximation to the global optimum of a given function in a large search space. It is often used when the search space is discrete (e.g., all tours that visit a given set of cities). For certain problems, simulated annealing may be more effective than exhaustive enumeration — provided that the goal is merely to find an acceptably good solution in a fixed amount of time, rather than the best possible solution.

The name and inspiration come from annealing in metallurgy, a technique involving heating and controlled cooling of a material to increase the size of its crystals and reduce their defects. The heat causes the atoms to become unstuck from their initial positions (a local minimum of the internal energy) and wander randomly through states of higher energy; the slow cooling gives them more chances of finding configurations with lower internal energy than the initial one.

By analogy with this physical process, each step of the SA algorithm replaces the current solution by a random "nearby" solution, chosen with a probability that depends both on the difference between the corresponding function values and also on a global parameter T (called the temperature), that is gradually decreased during the process. The dependency is such that the current solution changes almost randomly when T is large, but increasingly "downhill" as T goes to zero. The allowance for "uphill" moves potentially saves the method from becoming stuck at local optima—which are the bane of greedier methods.

The method was independently described by Scott Kirkpatrick, C. Daniel Gelatt and Mario P. Vecchi in 1983,[1] and by Vlado Černý in 1985.[2] The method is an adaptation of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, a Monte Carlo method to generate sample states of a thermodynamic system, invented by M.N. Rosenbluth in a paper by N. Metropolis et al. in 1953.[3]

From wikipedia

Roll your own Continuous Integration System (C.I.S.): Artifactory repositories configuration: snapshot, releases and security.

Roll your own Continuous Integration System (C.I.S.)

Content:

Abstract

Install Tomcat

Basic Tomcat configuration - Memory

Basic Tomcat configuration - JMX

Basic Tomcat configuration - Application Manager and permissions

Apache and uSVN

Installing Artifactory from WAR

Configure Artifactory and MySQL

Configuring Artifactory security and repositories

In order to ease the explanation about security and maven deploy, lets create the simplest Maven project possible.

Create a directory
Create a "pom.xml" file with the following content:

<project xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xsi:schemalocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelversion>4.0.0</modelversion>

<groupid>com.mycompany</groupid>
<artifactid>mavenproject</artifactid>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

</project>


Now that you have the out-of-the-box Artifactory installation and a Maven project, try to upload your project to the Artifactory repository manager.

Remember: You must have a Maven installation in order to run those examples. As far as you have followed this blog, you should have installed SpringSource Tool Suite, that brings with Maven. Maybe you need insert "mvn" executable in the PATH.

Try to execute "mvn deploy" in the same directory than "pom.xml".


[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building mavenproject 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-install-plugin:2.3.1:install (default-install) @ mavenproject ---
[INFO] Installing /home/***/NetBeansProjects/mavenproject10/pom.xml to /home/***/.m2/repository/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.pom
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) @ mavenproject ---
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.586s
[INFO] Finished at: Tue May 03 22:36:23 CEST 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 3M/74M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) on project mavenproject: Deployment failed: repository element was not specified in the POM inside distributionManagement element or in -DaltDeploymentRepository=id::layout::url parameter -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException


Read the bold, it means that either in your project or in other possible settings file, you are not specifying where are you willing to deploy your project.

Note: not explained yet, but there is a lifecycle somewhere in Internet that says "deploying requires compiling first" for instance. So, when you ask Maven to do "deploy", you are also asking it to compile, testing and some other actions.

Note: The examples are based in basic configurations and no network troubles. Everything in the same host and so on. Take it as it is, an example.

Go to Artifactory, "Artifacts" tabs, and click in the second repository, "libs-snapshot-local"

By clicking the repository, its information is displayed at the right side. We want "Distribution Management" section. 

Copy it to your "pom.xml" (your project, remember?)


<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>mavenproject</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

<distributionManagement>
<repository>
<id>dhcppc24</id>
<name>dhcppc24-releases</name>
<url>http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local</url>
</repository>
</distributionManagement>

</project>


Now execute again "mvn deploy", let's check the response: (Yes, it fails again, I do not like suspense)

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building mavenproject 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-install-plugin:2.3.1:install (default-install) @ mavenproject ---
[INFO] Installing /home/***/NetBeansProjects/mavenproject10/pom.xml to /home/***/.m2/repository/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.pom
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) @ mavenproject ---
Downloading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml
Uploading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110503.214739-1.pom
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.660s
[INFO] Finished at: Tue May 03 23:47:39 CEST 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 3M/74M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) on project mavenproject: Failed to deploy artifacts: Could not transfer artifact com.mycompany:mavenproject:pom:1.0-20110503.214739-1 from/to dhcppc24 (http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local): Failed to transfer file: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110503.214739-1.pom. Return code is: 409 -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException


This error means that you are not allowed to do the upload. That is because you are trying to upload an SNAPSHOT in a RELEASE repository. WTF?

See your pom.xml, <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>. That -SNAPSHOT is being read by Artifactory in order to determine whether it is a release or not.
Now travel to Artifactory. Log in (user "admin", password "password"), and go to Admin tab.

Inside Admin tab, Repositories menu and put your mouse over "libs-release-local", click "Edit".

There it is, the guts of the repository configuration. See how out-of-the-box "libs-release-local" repository can only handle with RELEASES, and you are trying to upload a SNAPSHOT. It is not possible!!.

First option, change <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> for <version>1.0</version>. Come on! do it! it will fail xD. Why? You do not have permissions yet :P
It is not a good idea anyway. Just do not release anything until you know what are really doing.

Second option, in that window, you can tick "Handle Snapshots" and it will fail, because of permissions. It is a matter of time.

Third option, see above now to copy the "distribution management" information of a repository, and take the information from "libs-snapshot-local". This is the best option right now. Your "pom.xml" should look like:


<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>mavenproject</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>

<distributionManagement>
<repository>
<id>dhcppc24</id>
<name>dhcppc24-releases</name>
<url>http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-release-local</url> </repository>
<snapshotRepository>
<id>dhcppc24</id>
<name>dhcppc24-snapshots</name>
<url>http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local</url>
</snapshotRepository>
</distributionManagement>

</project>

Now try "mvn deploy" in order to confirm that I was right, permissions are not set yet.


[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building mavenproject 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-install-plugin:2.3.1:install (default-install) @ mavenproject ---
[INFO] Installing /home/***/NetBeansProjects/mavenproject10/pom.xml to /home/***/.m2/repository/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.pom
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) @ mavenproject ---
Downloading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml
Downloaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml (359 B at 7.5 KB/sec)
Uploading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110505.213434-2.pom
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.637s
[INFO] Finished at: Thu May 05 23:34:34 CEST 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 3M/74M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) on project mavenproject: Failed to deploy artifacts: Could not transfer artifact com.mycompany:mavenproject:pom:1.0-20110505.213434-2 from/to dhcppc24 (http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local): Failed to transfer file: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110505.213434-2.pom. Return code is: 401 -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException


Now let's set the damn permissions!

"Admin" tab, menu "Permissions"

New (in the right side)

We are going to configure the permissions for all our local repositories:

Name: Local repositories
Include Patterns: Any
Exclude Patterns: None
Repositories: Any Local Repository

Users tab: Anonymous users must be able to Deploy, automatically will be able to Annotate and Read.

And "Create" it, it is done.

Repeat the operation, "mvn deploy", and it should be able to compile and deploy your project to Artifactory repository :)


[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building mavenproject 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-install-plugin:2.3.1:install (default-install) @ mavenproject ---
[INFO] Installing /home/***/NetBeansProjects/mavenproject10/pom.xml to /home/***/.m2/repository/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.pom
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-deploy-plugin:2.5:deploy (default-deploy) @ mavenproject ---
Downloading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml
Downloaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml (359 B at 5.7 KB/sec)
Uploading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110505.214558-2.pom
Uploaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/mavenproject-1.0-20110505.214558-2.pom (823 B at 3.4 KB/sec)
Downloading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/maven-metadata.xml
Downloaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/maven-metadata.xml (351 B at 8.6 KB/sec)
Uploading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml
Uploaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/1.0-SNAPSHOT/maven-metadata.xml (598 B at 20.1 KB/sec)
Uploading: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/maven-metadata.xml
Uploaded: http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-snapshot-local/com/mycompany/mavenproject/maven-metadata.xml (317 B at 4.1 KB/sec)
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.034s
[INFO] Finished at: Thu May 05 23:45:58 CEST 2011
[INFO] Final Memory: 3M/74M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------




Last travel to Artifactory, let's find the uploaded artifact.

In the "Artifacts" tab, navigate through "libs-snapshot-local" and you will arrive to your project.

By clicking in the artifact itself, you will get the Maven code for declaring it as dependency for other projects.


<dependency>
<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>mavenproject</artifactId>
<version>1.0-20110505.214856-1</version>
<type>pom</type>
</dependency>



The end... quite long, isn't it?

Surveillance testing

We are far from being experts in testing but we detected a necessity and we did not know how to name it exactly.

While we were creating a library for an easy use of a web service, and you may find it hard to believe but we were using unit testing in its creation. Finally we agreed in the next points.

- The WS we are using is a risky item, due it was done by others for us, and the service might change, fail or degrade its performance.
- Unit testing should not use the WS, because it must be unit, isn't it?
- The testing we need is close to "system testing", but system testing aren't so prone to automatize, and the compilation of a library shouldn't depend on a test against a remote server.

With those and several more ideas, we thought of automate it through unit testing a series of tests, using our library, against the WS server, so we could monitor the server, its response times, its availability. So we will finally create a different project only to check the server, using our library, and potentially that project will be completed with other test for other dependencies.

There will be multiple pros with this approach, going further than a monitoring tool could reach.
- Development department scope, for those companies that look a battlefield.
- Unit test executed regularly with Jenkins, no more software needed.
- Sometimes providers make mistakes, we must know the sooner possible.

Result:
A new source empty project, with some unit test using our library, using the external web service, and checking it is ok. This project is inside our software cycle, using SVN, Artifactory and Jenkins, and it is scheduled for a midnight execution. If a test fails, an email will be sent telling us about it.
Now we talk about a new kind of test in our department :)

Keep learning!

Book of the month: Ender's Game

It did not take me three months to read it, neh? Indeed, I have not finished reading it yet, but I have to make the most of my spare time and I will write as much as I could today.

Ender's Game tell us about the solitude of the power, the hard of being a highly-gifted person and the jealousies it brings. How respect is won through excellence and not by fear or threatens. It is a model where the best are isolated in order to get the most of them.

It is curious that, during the reading of this book, I have also read this:

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html
Explanation in Spanish: http://www.cookingideas.es/el-efecto-del-esfuerzo-20110424.html

They, a sci-fi book about highly-gifted and an English research, met in a similar way to educate children in order to keep high the motivation (or how to squeeze their brains up). The main idea, do not tag a child as bad, do not tag a child as good. Although a craft may be perfect, it is the craftsman can always learn. Do not tell your child he is in the top because he can stop learning.

ps: in the last months all I've read is Isaac Asimov's some novels, they are enjoyable, but except "I Robot", the rest of the Robots novels do not teach so much. That's the reason I have not write a word about book recommendations.

Roll your own Continuous Integration System (C.I.S.): Artifactory installation, Linux, MySQL and Tomcat 6.x

Roll your own Continuous Integration System (C.I.S.)

Content:

Abstract

Install Tomcat

Basic Tomcat configuration - Memory

Basic Tomcat configuration - JMX

Basic Tomcat configuration - Application Manager and permissions

Apache and uSVN

Installing Artifactory from WAR

Configure Artifactory and MySQL

Configuring Artifactory security and repositories

War installation

There are numerous well-formed tutorials about how to install Artifactory as the chosen Maven Dependencies Repository of our Continuous Integration System.

I will summarize their steps as concisely as possible:

• Create a directory with owner tomcat.tomcat (user/group) where Artifactory is meant to put all its information and artifacts. Let's say... /var/artifactory
• Edit /usr/share/tomcat6/conf/tomcat6.conf and add the variable anywhere in the file. I prefer at top. ARTIFACTORY_HOME="/var/artifactory"
• Download last version of OSS Artifactory (Or pay the license if you find it worthy, of course).
• Unzip and install artifactory.war into your Tomcat6, remember how?
• you may copy artifactory.war into /usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/ if you have direct control over the filesystem, or
• you may use the Manager (/manager/html) application if you installed it previously
• Once artifactory is copied, automatically is run, and you should see in your ARTIFACTORY_HOME how some directories have appeared. Now you have a secureless, derby-managed Artifactory installation not ready for production, but perfect for testing.

A trip to a default configured Artifactory

Some default features:
- It supports Maven, Ivy and Gradle systems. We will only use Maven here.
- Artifactory provide several remote dependency repositories, and it will act as a proxy downloading and storing from those repositories for you.
- A dead-simple security schema. It is possible only for admins to upload files. User:admin, Pass: password. Shhh, it's a secret ;)
- Search engine for classes, packages and other files.


Welcome Page:

Do you need more explanations?

Maven settings:

As said before, Artifactory can serve to Maven, Gradle and Ivy.
See the Home tab -> Left menu -> Client settings -> Maven Settings. (You are allowed to nose around Ivy and Gradle, but don't tell me :P )
Next, you have some sections to declare and put in your settings.xml configuration file. It's a bit early for this, don't worry, only keep it in mind.

Artifacts:

Some layouts to improve your feeling in searches (What the fuck, so much time reading Microsoft marketing), mainly they are offered to you both tree and list structure.

The tree layout is created through the groupId + artifactId, being the default repositories the roots of the trees, one for each repository.

Notice that if you click over a repository, you will get a Maven snippet for your pom.xml, for example:


<distributionManagement>
    <repository>
        <id>linux-wdx0</id>
        <name>linux-wdx0-releases</name>
        <url>http://localhost:8080/artifactory/libs-3rd-party</url>
    </repository>
</distributionManagement>


If you paste the snippet in your pom.xml (remember, only one distributionManagement per pom.xml, so, if you already have one, you will have to merge them), you will be able to upload (if you are authorized, of course) generated artifacts to that repository with "mvn deploy" in deploy phase.

Default repositories in Artifactory:
libs-release-local: Your libraries and products go here, only releases.
libs-snapshots-local: Your libraries and products go here, snapshots.
plugins-release-local: Your plugins, or plugins needed by you, releases, here.
plugins-snapshots-local: Your plugins, or plugins needed by you, releases, here.
ext-releases-local: 3rd party libraries, releases, needed by your projects. (i.e. Spring, ojdbc driver.. )
ext-snapshot-local: 3rd party libraries, snapshots, needed by your projects.

Artifact resolution in Artifactory:
I do not like to simply repeat what is already written and it is not improvable by me:
http://wiki.jfrog.org/confluence/display/RTF/Understanding+Repositories

Here finishes first chapter about Artifactory. Coming soon:  Simple security and customization of repositories.

Enhacing your Testing, Performance, Load, Stress...

I have been asked for something I wanted to learn. Stress testing of our applications before publishing them on the web.

I don't know a word yet about it, I have first to evaluate some tools, some methodology, and then design the test and ... by then, surely the application will have been already published.

First stop:

http://www.pylot.org

http://clif.ow2.org/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dieseltest/

http://java.net/projects/faban/

http://code.google.com/p/grinderstone/

http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/httperf/

http://iperf.sourceforge.net/

http://www.ixorarms.com/

http://jchav.blogspot.com/

http://jcrawler.sourceforge.net/

http://www.loadui.org/

http://opensta.org/

http://www.joedog.org/

http://tsung.erlang-projects.org/

http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/

 

I have much to read.