Zuul user documentation

Note

This is a lightweight documentation intended to get users started with setting up CI pipelines and jobs. For more insight on what Zuul can do, please refer to its upstream documentation.

Zuul is a commit gating system for continuous integration that ensures that repositories are always in a healthy state. It is up to repositories managers to define what constitutes a healthy state: for example passing all unit tests, success in building software, etc.

• In Zuul’s terminology, a project is a gated repository
• Jobs can inherit from the zuul-jobs repository base jobs.
• Pipelines and jobs are stored in repositories.
• Github was added as a possible repository source for gating projects, enabling Software Factory to act as a third party CI for repositories hosted on Github.

In addition to the upstream documentation, the Software Factory team published a series of blog post called Zuul Hand-On that showcases some Zuul use cases.

Adding a project to the zuul service

Note

Since version 3.1, Software Factory enables automatic generation of the Zuul tenant configuration from the config repository resources description. The definition, below, is then no longer needed, see the Zuul tenants from resources section for more details. Note that Zuul’s tenants definition file, like below, take precedence over the auto generated.

A project file must be submitted to the config repository, under the zuul directory. For example, config/zuul/project-name.yaml can contain the following:

- tenant:
    name: local
    source:
      source-name:
        untrusted-projects:
          - project-name

• Leave the tenant name to local.
• Replace source-name by the location of the repository: for example, gerrit for Software Factory’s internal gerrit. Other source names, if available, will depend on Software Factory’s configuration.
• Replace project-name by the repository’s name.

Tip

Why is my project “untrusted” ?

For each source, Zuul defines two categories of projects:

• Projects listed under config-projects hold configuration parameters for Zuul, for example pipelines or base jobs definitions, or secrets used by these jobs.
• Projects listed under untrusted-projects are the actual repositories for the software being tested or deployed. Zuul runs jobs for these projects in a restricted environment.

Everything the “config-projects” do is already taken care of by Software Factory in its config and zuul-jobs repositories, meaning you should not have to add any repository under this category. Therefore repositories should always be declared under the “untrusted-projects” category.

After merging this change, the config-update job will reload the zuul scheduler.

Adding a predefined job to a project

A project’s CI configuration is happening in repositories, a project can define jobs and pipelines contents by having a file named .zuul.yaml at the root of the project’s repository:

---
- project:
    name: project-name
    check:
      jobs:
        - linters
    gate:
      jobs:
        - linters

• name is the name of the project, same as the one defined in Zuul’s configuration file earlier
• check, gate are pipelines defined in Software Factory.

A default deployment of Software Factory comes with a copy of the upstream zuul-jobs library. But SF can be configured to import the master openstack-infra/zuul-jobs jobs library. A list of the jobs in this library can be found here.

A full list of all the jobs that have been built at least once on Software Factory can be accessed at https://<fqdn>/zuul/local/jobs.

Defining a custom job within a project

It is possible to define jobs specific to a project within its repository. This is done in the .zuul.yaml file at the root of the repository. Jobs are based on Ansible playbooks.

For example, the following .zuul.yaml file will define a job called unit-tests to be run in the check pipeline along the linters:

---
- job:
    name: unit-tests
    parent: base
    description: this is running the unit tests for this project
    run: playbooks/unittests.yaml
    nodeset:
      nodes:
        - name: test-node
          label: dib-centos-7

- project:
    name: project-name
    check:
      jobs:
        - unit-tests
        - linters

• setting parent: base allows this job to inherit from the default pre and post playbooks which are run before and after the custom job’s playbook. These playbooks prepare the work environment and automatically publish artifacts and logs on Software Factory’s log server, so while not mandatory, it is advised to add this setting to make use of Software Factory’s integrations.
• nodeset defines the nodes that will be spawned to build the job. Label refers to nodepool label definitions, see the nodepool documentation for further details. Name is the name of the node as it will appear in the job’s playbook inventory.

The previous example expects the Ansible playbook “playbooks/unittests.yaml” to be present in the project’s repository. Here is an example of what this playbook could contain:

---
- hosts: test-node
  tasks:
    - name: install tox package
      yum:
        name: python-tox
        state: present
      become: yes
    - name: run unit tests
      command: tox
      args:
        chdir: "{{ zuul.project.src_dir }}/tests"

Further documentation can be found online:

• Ansible playbooks, modules documentation
• Predefined variables available in jobs

Export logs artifacts to the logserver

After a job ran, Software Factory exports the job’s console log to the internal log server.

When a job generate extra artifacts, such as log files, a post-run playbook can be written to export the artifacts to zuul.executor.log_root. Then Software Factory base job’s post-run will push these artifacts to the internal log server.

An example of a fetch-logs.yaml playbook.

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: Upload logs
      synchronize:
        src: '{{ zuul.project.src_dir }}/logs'
        dest: '{{ zuul.executor.log_root }}'
        mode: pull
        copy_links: true
        verify_host: true
        rsync_opts:
          - --include=/logs/**
          - --include=*/
          - --exclude=*
          - --prune-empty-dirs

A job can use that playbook as post-run then each files in the zuul.project.src_dir/logs/ will be exported to the log server.

---
- job:
    name: build
    parent: base
    description: My job
    run: playbooks/run.yaml
    post-run: playbooks/fetch-logs.yaml

Export logs artifacts to logstash

A job can be configured to export specific artifacts to logstash to make them available to the search via Kibana. The ELK stack must be activated on the Software Factory instance.

The job variable logstash_processor_config need to be provided as follow:

---
- job:
    name: build
    parent: base
    description: My job
    run: playbooks/run.yaml
    post-run:
      - playbooks/fetch-logs.yaml
    vars:
      logstash_processor_config:
        files:
          - name: logs/.*\.log
          - name: job-output\.txt
            tags:
              - console
              - console.html

With this definition, zuul will export all the generated artifacts located in the logs/ directory to logstash. The logstash_processor_config variable definition overwrites the one from the Software Factory base job, that’s why, the job-output.log (console) must specified too.

Create a secret to be used in jobs

Zuul provides a public key for every project. This key needs to be used to encrypt secret data. To fetch a project’s public key:

curl -O https://<fqdn>/zuul/api/tenant/<tenant>/key/<project>.pub

The zuul-client tool, from the Zuul repository ( more information can be found at zuul-client documentation ), can be used to create the YAML tree to be pushed in the project .zuul.d/ directory.

zuul-client -v --insecure --zuul-url https://<fqdn>/zuul/ encrypt --infile secret.data --outfile secret.yaml --project <project> --tenant <tenant>

Then <name> and <fieldname> fields that are placeholders must be replaced in the generated secret.yaml file.

The script will return an output similar to this one:

...
writing RSA key
INFO:zuul-client:Public key length: 4096 bits (512 bytes)
INFO:zuul-client:Max plaintext length per chunk: 470 bytes
INFO:zuul-client:Input plaintext length: 31 bytes
INFO:zuul-client:Number of chunks: 1
...

And create a secret.yaml file with a content similar to this one:

- secret:
    name: <name>
    data:
      <fieldname>: !encrypted/pkcs1-oaep
        - ez1qa4gmsXYfazEP42XnXfNRqbevuT1kCGFReFxTbiLTGGPTdoElF8On5/LXb+yqlRI/V
          30jB3ZfS/12PX5e4V/IhdG/oSfDP8nLoQQEX+Fj5e6rKoszuwFAc4WLAEztBNGdnTHkTu
          Fjo9knexVXl/4a2yNtsaRajdNWYkAVQ+ozrKUeztv8UHn8Fsjtom60zzEG9id2WvTOgKI
          DM/zIgkQqfR2UNJ2pdCMJafwnaZfSOZFkHSAEFbIc3OjwGf6T0/kUDFYLFE7PaoJL78Iz
          yAySsFEcsParHiZFL8gTA8hFcOIEgIzgse0zQMzq8iDzemos3N4UbkcE5k6PHj/xAns0T
          y1VFCkwKl0vFYq1hgIdscIHMH31PCODY1eQCZJAQSwi0wwQNnSfwpfPg+H5HypClec5IA
          HCtzVlNadKdgGpObdChEVspXMFqgtKD9QsXTqXTNdVzAMe48BNJTa83ZkmrRGqq3qelFf
          aCNbt7pwaD/rK3Nu03ep7nQ8IEcmTHICboeZTf31T7X1z+IDMa7/1GIHSlo8G2OdcQqXG
          kNM3bYL4CG4CW1Vge+oBrjB2e3gGDfYWc0AudY9GKqkWoW4vZV4MWBpSUF9e+iBt2aAFw
          eA4zs2b5N8ywnRX7rBhNiUjWrzTWXY8MseZokE7t8C7x6ogq+7MV9glqBegD+s=

You can now edit the YAML structure in the secrets.yaml file and adjust the <name> and <fieldname> values.

A secret used in a job must be defined in the same project than the job is defined. The user should read carefully the section about secrets.

Web Interface

Zuul comes with the following web interface:

Status

Zuul’s status can be reached at https://<fqdn>/zuul/t/local/status

This page shows the current buildsets in Zuul’s pipelines. Filtering options are available.

Each buildset can be expanded to show the advancement of its builds. Clicking on a build will open a stream of its logs in real time.

Jobs

Zuul’s Jobs dashboard can be reached at https://<fqdn>/zuul/t/local/jobs

This page lists all the jobs that have been built at least once by Zuul. Filtering options are available.

Builds

Zuul’s Builds dashboard can be reached at https://<fqdn>/zuul/t/local/builds

This page lists all the builds and build sets that have completed. Filtering options are available.

Install a GitHub App

After a GitHub Application is created and configured in Software Factory (see this guide), to add the application to your projects, follow this documentation:

• Visit the application page, e.g.: https://github.com/apps/my-org-zuul
• Click “Install or Configure”
• Select your GitHub organisation
• Select the repositories to install the application on
• Click “Install”

Then you’ll be redirected to the Setup URL with the instruction to finish the configuration, checkout the Zuul user documentation:

• Update the config repository to add the projects to the zuul main.yaml file.
• Create a Pull Request to add a .zuul.yaml to your project and verify it works.

Configure branch protection

After the GitHub Application is installed, you must configure branch protection to enforce proper Zuul gating:

• Visit the project setting page, e.g.: https://github.com/<org>/<project>/settings/branches
• Click “Edit” for the branches to protect, and enable these options:
• “Protect this branch”
  • “Require pull request reviews before merging”
    • “Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed”
    • “Require review from Code Owners”
  • “Require status checks to pass before merging”
    • “local/check” status (this may need a initial PR to be created first)

Then in the zuul tenant config, activate “exclude-unprotected-branches: true” in the tenant configuration.

Alternatively, since Software Factory 3.1, Github projects can be configured via the resources engine. See this section).

Zuul CLI

If you are authorized to do so (ie an authentication token was handed to you by a Zuul operator), you can perform administrative actions on Zuul with its command-line interface. It can be also used to encrypt secrets for a project.

Installation

The easiest way to install the CLI is to use its official container image.

Use

A list of available actions through the CLI can be found in upstream’s documentation.