Jenkins accessing Window Server

2
votes

I have the following problem: I have an ANT-task in Jenkins-CI that (apparently) needs access to OSX' window server (it needs to show a window). After doing some research, it appears that only the currently logged in user and the 'root' user (or SUDO) can access OSX' window server. The ANT task (Adobe ADL) is one that actually 'runs' a build, so it has to popup a screen.

I'm on a macBook running OSX 10.7.something (Lion), Jenkins 1.487, Ant 1.8.4.

What i have tried so far:

  • to start with, tried the 'barebone' < exec > task to invoke ADL. Works, but getting error that means that Jenkins running as daemon (with homedir /Users/shared/Jenkins/Home) cannot access OSX' Window Server.

  • Run Jenkins as myself, by changing USER_NAME, GROUP_NAME, JENKINS_HOME in the jenkins launchd.conf file: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Thanks+for+using+OSX+Installer this gives a lot of errors/trouble, which i tried to solve in communication with the creator of the Jenkins CI but, unfortunately to no avail.

  • Try to have Ant run an < exec > task (running a shell script) in which i try to sudo with a password using this sneaky way of passing a password to the stdinput: echo < password > | sudo -S < command > which is really bad, but as i'm running Jenkins locally (not reachable from the outside of my LAN) it's np.

  • Tried to have Ant run an < exec > task, using a 'redirector' with as inputstring my password. also superbad, but yea, i just want it to work. which it did not.

  • Tried a Jenkins SSH plugin: didn't work. I could, however, SSH to my own localhost using terminal, thing is, i don't know what the Jenkins SSH was trying to do (how can i figure that out anyway?) so i don't know why it wouldn't work.

  • Tried to have Ant run an SSHEXEC task (which, after some hours, finally worked. Ant for mac is borked, something with optional .jar tasks not being re-named correctly or something) but i'm getting a "com.jcraft.jsch.JSchException: Auth fail" which i googled for, and can't seem to resolve. only applicable solution is to have sshd accept password auths, did that, still got the same error.

I think what i want to accomplish was NOT worth the 2 days that i spent so far on this problem, although i learned a lot. However, i just want this to work and will not accept defeat, yet :)

My question: have you had to solve a similar problem, how did you go about it? are there any other methods i can try to solve this problem? Is there a method mentioned that should JUST _WORK_ and i did something wrong?

[edit] I have decided to go with the Jenkins standalone app, as i think (for me) this is a nicer solution in total, as my laptop is not a build server. Also, the Jenkins app can start at startup so it actually acts as a local server.

2
antairwindowjenkins
What about running this task outside of Ant. With Jenkins, you can launch a shell process and script. You could set up /etc/sudoers to allow your Jenkins user to execute the command as the user windowserver or root without requiring a password. Will that help? - David W.
@DavidW. that would definately be a solution, if i would not have chosen to use the Jenkins standalone App, i would have loved to know how i would do such a thing! - Michael Trouw
But, Jenkins can do this. Go to the config screen for your job. Under the Build section under the Invoke Ant step, click on the Add Build Step button. Select "Execute Shell". Now you can type in the sudo command directly in Jenkins. - David W.
hmm, this seems very obvious. Wonder why i did not try this earlier! thanks for the tip. - Michael Trouw

2 Answers

1
votes

Just a quick guess: if you don't want the interactivity of the script, and the script can do without it, you can try to set the headless mode on the java command-line:

-Djava.awt.headless=true
0
votes

I have decided to go with the Jenkins standalone app, as i think (for me) this is a nicer solution anyway, as my laptop is not a (headless) build server. Also, the Jenkins app can start at startup so it acts as a server too.