NI VeriStand Custom Device Build Tools

The niveristand-custom-device-build-tools repository provides a common set of tools to automate building NI VeriStand custom devices using the Jenkins automation server. The intended audience includes custom device developers and integrators.

Usage

Two files are required in order to use this pipeline for a given repository, a Jenkinsfile and a build.toml file. Additionally, the pipeline assumes each executor node on the Jenkins server is tagged with certain labels.

Node Labels

Each node capable of building a custom device must have the label 'veristand' and a label for each version of LabVIEW/VeriStand installed. A node that is capable of building a custom device for VeriStand 2016 and 2017 would have the labels veristand, 2016, and 2017.

Jenkinsfile

The pipeline is used by a Jenkinsfile defined in other repositories in this organization.

The Jenkins server must be configured to load this library implicitly, either by the Jenkins Pipeline Global Library or as a Shared Pipeline Library within a job folder. To build a custom device for LabVIEW/VeriStand 2016 and 2017 if the library name configured in Jenkins is vs-build-tools:

// Jenkinsfile
@Library('vs-build-tools') _
List<String> lvVersions = ['2016', '2017']
ni.vsbuild.PipelineExecutor.execute(this, lvVersions)

Build-Time Dependencies

Some custom devices require builds of multiple repositories. This system allows a Jenkinsfile for one repository to specify a dependency on other repositories. Dependencies will be built before the pipeline for the top-level repository. Dependencies are an optional parameter to the PipelineExecutor.execute() method:

// Jenkinsfile snippet
List<String> dependencies = ['dep1', 'dep2']
ni.vsbuild.PipelineExecutor.execute(this, lvVersions, dependencies)

build.toml

The build.toml file defines the pipeline configuration and stages used during the build.

For a custom device that has only one LabVIEW project and simply needs to build every build spec in that project, the build.toml file will be fairly simple:

[archive]
build_output_dir = 'Built'
archive_location = 'C:\MyCustomDevice'

[projects.cd]
path = 'Source\MyCustomDevice.lvproj'

[[build.steps]]
name = 'Build My Custom Device'
type = 'lvBuildAll'
project = '{cd}'

Stages are ordered by the pipeline. Steps within the codegen and build stages are executed in the top to bottom order specified in build.toml. For a complete description of the available TOML configuration options, see the build.toml specification.

LabVIEW Version

The LabVIEW source for this repository is saved for LabVIEW 2015, but is forward compatible to newer versions.

Dependencies

The following top-level dependencies are required on the build machine to use the repository:

The following plugins are required on the Jenkins server:

Git History & Rebasing Policy

Branch rebasing and other history modifications will be listed here, with several notable exceptions:

Branches prefixed with dev/ may be rebased, overwritten, or deleted at any time.
Pull requests may be squashed on merge.

License

The NI VeriStand Custom Device Build Tools are licensed under an MIT-style license (see LICENSE). Other incorporated projects may be licensed under different licenses. All licenses allow for non-commercial and commercial use.

rtzoeller/niveristand-custom-device-build-tools