SDK installation (linking to copy of production server)?

[Walter_Zambotti]

I have worked through a  number of the Jira Server SDK tutorials and kind of get the picture.

The tutorials however all appear to have sandboxed environments which contain their own sample Jira Server installation.

This is fine for tutorial purposes but eventually linking the SDK to a development copy of the production Jira Server would be the intention!

Is there a guide on how to install the SDK against an already installed instance of Jira Server (say a development copy of the production server)?   

[DPKJ · Accepted solution]

@Walter_Zambottithere are couple of things you need to do to achieve this,

1. Setting up test environment
2. Deploying plugin to staging server

Test Environment,

• Atlassian provide free licenses for this.
• Setting this is straight forward, you just need to consider
  • Notification,
  • Proxy setup (if any)
• This link will help you - https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/creating-a-test-environment-for-jira-966063324.html

Deploying plugin,

• To deploy plugin during development is easy,
• You can use 'atlas-package' command to package plugin, and
• altas-install-plugin command to deploy for validation on test instance (this take url, admin username and password as parameter)

What I do for in house non environment agnostic plugins,

• Develop plugin to the stage where it is independent of my environment and other plugins,
  • I simply atlas-run, and QuickReload for quicker and simpler developer loop
• Once plugin has passed above stage and is dependent on environment and other plugins,
  • I use 'atlas-install-plugin' against my test server.
  • This loop is time consuming, but is best work around so far.
• Once I am satisfied on test server, I deploy plugin on production.

[Walter_Zambotti]

>Develop plugin to the stage where it is independent of my environment and other plugins

When you say "independent development environment" do you mean a clean environment created with : atlas-create-jira-plugin?  (Which means basically follow the tutorial then use atlas-package and atlas-install plugin to get the plugin where you need it!!!)

[DPKJ]

By clean environment I mean, using atlas-run, this run development Jira instance with no data. You need to fill data in this. But developer loop is faster here.

For example if you are creating a Custom Field plugin that is going to aggregate and values from other plugin custom field.

• You just create Custom Field without data source in Atlassian provided development environment, (atlas-run)
• Once your work on Look and Feel etc of Custom field is complete, stop 'atlas-run' instance and simple use 'atlas-install-plugin' against test environment every time you make change to code base of plugin. And you write aggregation code with 'atlas-install-plugin'.

[Walter_Zambotti]

That's the specific situation I was trying to avoid.  Having to replicate all the necessary customisations in the sandbox environment for every single plugin has so far proven tedious.  So I was hoping I could create one custom test DB and have the atlas-create-jira-plugin link/reference that test DB.

If that cant be accomplished then it's "Hello Jira, welcome to tedious SDK"

It must be possible!!!!

[Walter_Zambotti]

Can't I do this instead?

atlas-create-jira-plugin m   !! Just once

Enter all my customisations to that instance, just once.

Then use

atlas-create-jira-plugin-module  !! multiple times to create all my plugins

and finally

atlas-package and atlas-install plugin !! when required

I assume atlas-package will package every module!

[DPKJ]

@Walter_Zambottiyes you can do that.

Till the time you execute 'atlas-clean' all your data will preserved in development instance.

[Brant Schroeder]

Once you have the copy of your production instance you would just install the SDK per the normal instructions found here: https://developer.atlassian.com/server/framework/atlassian-sdk/set-up-the-atlassian-plugin-sdk-and-build-a-project/ (Install the Atlassian SDK on a (Windows) or (Linux or Mac) system)  This would then allow you to develop on that server. 

[Walter_Zambotti]

Thanks, ran through those instructions (already) which resulted in a sandboxed environment.