How to inject a variable or custom data that can be used by a Deployment Project for Versioning.

[Casey Entzi]

Pre-Context: Currently the build scripts that bamboo runs, determines the version number which is external to Bamboo. I would like a version to be created and deployed when a build successfully runs under a certain plan. I need someway to communicate the version to the Bamboo deployment project. Currently, it appears that this is only works through plan variables or build variables.

I've tried this a couple ways already, I've tried the bamboo inject variables pluging, which only currently lets you do job varaibes and doesn't work in this scenario. I've downloaded the source to the code (which looks like it's supposed to support plan variables) and it also doesn't work. I've also tried using VariableDefinitionManager.saveVariableDefinition, but it appears to save the plan variable so that it can be used on consecutive builds, but doesn't update the current build (there is a defect or feature request written up on this).

Is there another plugin type I can implement or a way I can pass the version number to the Bamboo Deployment Project?

[Felipe Kraemer]

Hello Casey,

I've discussed this issue with our development team, and we've realized that this is a feature that we don't have in Bamboo at the moment.

I have created a new issue in our development issue tracker for this functionality to ensure our development team is aware of your request:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BAM-14441

I would suggest adding any comments to the issue above as well as voting on the issue to create it's popularity and likelihood of being implemented in a future release.

For more information on how Atlassian implements new features and improvements please see the following document:

http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DEV/Implementation+of+New+Features+Policy

My apologies that I don't have a solution for you at this time.

Kind regards,
Felipe Kraemer
Atlassian Support

[Dan Carter]

I'm having a similar issue. I want to be able to pass the variable created by the inject variable plugin to the versioning system for a deployment project, but cant find a way to do it. I did managed to get the version number into the deployment job though..

I created a shared artifact which was is the text file that inject variables pulls in. I then shared this artifact so the deploy job could download it, and then ran the inject variables job again on the deploy task to get the variable in.

The text file gets changed on a per build basis using an ssh script (the script runs echo -e "current_version=`git describe`" > current_version.txt)

Sadly, the release version number thing eludes me still though!

[Casey Entzi]

Finally figured out a work around to this... If you deploy your releases to environments in a specified order.. dev, qa, etc...

You can add a console utility that updates the bamboo database with the proper version name as step in the dev deployment.

Our commandline utility takes in the Deployment Project Name (${bamboo.deploy.project}), Current Version Name (${bamboo.deploy.version}, this will be the wrong auto generated version), and the New Version Name.

It then queries the deployment_project table of the bamboo database with the project name passed in, what you need is the long id from the deployment_project table.

Then you need to query the deployment_version table with the id and the current version name (the wrong auto generated one). Then update the entry in the deployment_version table with the correct version name.

When you refresh your page, the name is correct. We were able to turn auto deployment on, and everything works flawlessly.

This also has the added benefit of stomping on and making sure the version is in fact correct programmatically and not allowing someone to make it an invalid name.

[Xabier Davila]

I find unbelievable that we have to hack in the DB in order to be able to properly use versioning. Even more frustrating considering releasing from JIRA won't propagate the version name to release/deployment projects

[Casey Entzi]

Yeah, this is the same thing I ran into before, the code in Maven Pom Plugin will change the Plan Variable, but it doesn't change the variable in the context of the current build, so if the build changes the version from 1.0.0.15 to 1.0.0.20, when you go to deploy it, it will still try to version it 1.0.0.15. It won't try to version it 1.0.0.20 till the next build. So it will always be a build behind what the version should be. I pulled the code out of here:

https://bitbucket.org/dehringer/bamboo-maven-pom-extractor-plugin

assuming that was the plugin you were talking about. I just wired that up to the Inject Variables plugin, which as I stated does indeed change the plan variable, but only does it in context of the next build that will run, not the current one.

If you have a specific scenario of being able to change a plan variable in the context of a build that is currently running, let me know. That would be awesome!.

[Casey]

Hm... I'll have to go back and check the source for the Maven Pom Plugin and maybe I can port what it's doing to the Inject Variables Plugin. So you've gotten it to actually automatically set the deployment release? I tried everything to get that to work modifying the Inject Variables Plugin Source Code, I wonder if they changed anything in some of the latest releases to make this possible. Or I was doing it wrong. But if Maven Pom works then I can compare that source code and get the Inject Variables Plugin to work with Plan variables.

[Guillaume Dupéré]

I have been able to do so using the Maven Pom plugin and bamboo 5.3+.

If you are using maven, it is a plus since the pom extractor gets the version variable and includes it as part of the plan variable and is therefore usable by the deployment project.

Have a try !

If you don't use maven, nothing prevents you from creating a dummy pom file (xml) and update that version using any xml reader/writer (libxml on linux or perl is good enough).

If you need more info , please let me know !

[Guillaume Dupéré]

Can someone from atlassian answer the question? I am having the same concern and it looks like it is the weak point of bamboo... Thanks Guillaume