IzPack & CruiseControl

I have CruiseControl configured to run IzPack after successfully compiling and testing my code. Thanks to ant integration this is very easy, see here. Izpack has a few other tricks, namely izpack2app and izpack2exe. These python scripts wrap your newly created installer.jar into either a Mac OS X application or a Window executable. Users of these platforms can now run them without the command-line. I've added these steps into CruiseControl so after each build my artifacts tab gives me 3 versions of my installer. The Mac OS application is actually a folder, so zip that up as CC won't have a folder as an artifact.

Edit your config.xml to include something like this:

<schedule interval="3600">
<composite>
     <ant antworkingdir="checkout/${project.name}" 
           buildfile="build.xml" target="izpack" />
     <exec workingdir="checkout/${project.name}/dist" 
     command="/usr/bin/python" 
     args="/Applications/IzPack/utils/izpack2app/izpack2app.py
     installer.jar installer.app"/>
     <exec workingdir="checkout/${project.name}/dist" 
     command="/usr/bin/tar" args="cvfz installer.zip installer.app" />
     <exec workingdir="checkout/${project.name}/dist" 
     command="/usr/bin/python" 
     args="/Applications/IzPack/utils/izpack2exe/izpack2exe.py
     --file=installer.jar --output=installer.exe --no-upx />

</composite>

</schedule>

The four steps are compile from your build.xml, giving your installer.jar. Create the Mac app, zip it, then create the Windows executable. You need 7Zip for the Windows part, Mac users get it via MacPorts: sudo port install p7zip. Don't forget to add the new files to your artifactspublisher.

Subversion with CruiseControl

As we use subversion for our version control we need to do an extra step as CruiseControl only has limited subversion support (e.g. it can't checkout a project, I'm sure it should but has never worked for me).

To give it the power to do so you need to download SvnAnt. Copy the three jar's from the lib folder into the the lib folder in your installation: /cruisecontrol/apache-ant-1.7.0/lib. This way everything that keeps CruiseControl happy is in one place.Now you need to define a property file defining the location of SvnAnt, something like the file svn-build.props:

svnant.version=1.0.0

lib.dir=../apache-ant-1.7.0/lib

svnant.jar=${lib.dir}/svnant.jar
svnClientAdapter.jar=${lib.dir}/svnClientAdapter.jar
svnjavahl.jar=${lib.dir}/svnjavahl.jar

You need to ensure the lib.dir value is valid, depending where you call this file from (in this example /cruisecontrol/project). As you will see we make a wrapper script to grab the code from the repo, before launching the project ant script. The wrapper script may be in /cruisecontrol/project, but defines it basedir as /cruisecontrol/checkout.

A sample script can be found here (Blogger doesn't want to display it). To use it save to /cruisecontrol/project and edit the sample_project and subversion path. Your project will be checked out to /cruisecontrol/checkout, where it is built, tested, compiled etc. For the first time I had to checkout manually otherwise CruiseControl would kick a fuss up.

In your main config.xml call the new wrapper script (/cruisecontrol/project/sample_project.xml) in the schedule section. This way a fresh copy of the code is checked out before the CruiseControl commences the build.

Deploy your software with IzPack

In terms of free software packagers there are two contenders for me NSIS and IzPack. NSIS is restricted to Windows, so on its own isn't suitable for my needs. IzPack is Java-based, so instantly suitable for every major platform. Granted it is ideal for Java software, but it is not at all restricted to it. Obviously you need a Java runtime environment (JRE) installed to run, but that is common enough nowadays.

A run down of the features:

• Open source
• Cross-platform
• Fully customisable
• Native integration (Shortcuts for Windows and Linux)
• Ant integration
• Uninstaller
• Unattended mode
• User input
• Translations

Just like ant all your settings are stored in a XML file and parsed to create your customised package.

One of the advantages of IzPack being Java-based means you can add it directly to our continuous integration environment, using the Ant integration. That of course runs using CruiseControl, as the final step after compiling and testing our code (courtesy of JUnit), IzPack can step into package my software. So for each build I can take away an ready-to-deploy package.