I want to build a better version of Jenkins in Rust. Part of the project is learning and understanding Rust better, while also learning and understanding the requirements of a CI/CD software project.

betterjenkins runs best on Kubernetes but can be tested using docker-compose as explained below. The reason for it being more well-suited for container orchestration is because betterjenkins is itself a container orchestrator, specifically for executing tasks described as shell commands (i.e. /controller/examples/sample.yaml), and a multi-service application. The permanent services betterjenkins runs is the controller, or betterjenkins-server, and the database server, or betterjenkins-db.

Create a Kubernetes cluster anywhere (i.e. minikube, AWS, GCP, microk8s, etc), properly configure the ~/.kube/config and set the current context to your desired cluster, make sure there are no existing namespaces called betterjenkins, then run kubectl apply -k kustomize/ to deploy all the resources for betterjenkins.

Run kubectl port-forward svc/betterjenkins-server 8080 to connect to the controller on http:https://localhost:8080. Similarly, the db can be connected to using kubectl port-forward svc/betterjenkins-db 5432.

An easy way to develop against a Kubernetes cluster is using mirrord to connect local binaries to remote k8s resources such as pods or deployments. Run cargo build && mirrord exec -t deployment/betterjenkins-db ./target/debug/betterjenkins to get your local version of betterjenkins running against k8s resources (such as the Postgres server).

docker-compose up to spin up a Postgres server and betterjenkins controller.

The executor is run independent of the server and database, to build and run its image once the DB and controller are up run the following:

cd /executor
docker build -t betterjenkins:executor .
docker run --network betterjenkins_default betterjenkins:executor

betterjenkins allows you to add tasks to be executed by defining them in task files, which further describe the order in which tasks should be executed. This will provide the basis for adding CI/CD capabilities to betterjenkins, allowing tasks to share access to a common workspace (such as files necessary to build an application binary).

Tasks to be executed are defined in task files such as those found in /controller/examples. Once the steps for deploying are complete go to the controller main page at http:https://localhost:8080. Task files can be uploaded here, tasks are then parsed out of the file and added to the Postgres database, and executors are automatically on Kubernetes launched by the controller to complete all tasks in the database.

• Create a Rust program which can parse a file (i.e. toml or yaml) for tasks, then add those tasks to a Postgres DB [done]
• Create a web server that allows users to drop .yaml files and add tasks to the queue. [done]
• Create a simple Python program which takes tasks off the queue and executes them (tasks are just shell commands) [done]
• Expand controller logic to interact with the Kubernetes control plane in order to automatically create new executor Jobs if there are any rows in the "tasks" table [done]
• Allow for "workspaces" to share files across different tasks or stages of a job [in progress]
  • This would enable CI/CD capabilities where one stage builds a docker image using the files in a workspace, another stage runs tests agains that docker image, and a final stage deploys the image
  • I'm thinking of some bucket integration, maybe use minio.
• Have all the executors write their stdout somewhere, either back to the database or into some bucket storage [done]
• Have server return data related to what tasks are in the table, logs from the executors, and a list of previous jobs. [not started]
  • Additionally add a webpage to display the data
• Create a Github Webhook handler so that the controller can watch Github repositories for task files and automatically pick them up. [not started]
• Improve logging for the controller. [not started]
• Move the complicated logic from the executor Python script into the Rust web server as endpoints. [not started]
• Add testing to Rust code. [not started]

• jobs
  • Schema: (id, name, job_count [if there are duplicate instances of the same job], author, description)
• tasks
  • Schema: (id, job_name, stage_number, definition)

/controller/src contains all the Rust files for the controller, this includes the web server, logic for parsing yaml task files and enqueueing to the task (as a PostgreSQL database), and interacting with the Kubernetes API

/controller/web contains any static files served by the web server

/controller/examples contains sample yaml task files and templates

/controller/k8s_manifests contains any K8s manifests the controller uses to create resources via the K8s API

/executor contains all files related to the task executor, this includes a Dockerfile to build the executor image and a Python script which simply takes a task from the "tasks" SQL table and runs it

/kustomize contains K8s manifests to deploy the betterjenkins and Postgres servers

This project welcomes contributions in the form of issues and pull requests.

betterjenkins is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.