We start with Windows XP SP2 (doesn’t really need to be a ‘server’). My requirement is to rely on the .NET framework and open source tools – i.e. not requiring a Visual Studio Licence. We’re using .NET 2.0 so everything will be in reference to that.
I assume here that you’ll be familiar with the actual software below and just want to get a Build Server up and running without having to install Visual Studio. If you’re not familiar with Continuous Integration then start by looking at Martin Fowler’s Continuous Integration article and then the info on CruiseControl.NET, as that’s the tool that pulls everything together.
There’s help on each of the sites below for installing and using each of the tools, so I won’t go into detail about each one. The order of the list isn’t critical, but you’ll probably have some issues unless all are done.
- Install IIS from Add/Remove Windows Components (used for CruiseControl.NET) if not already present
- Open up a command prompt and run C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i (to install ASP.NET in IIS)
- Install CruiseControl.NET (1.4) from http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Download. NOTE: If you’re using a remote SubVersion repository (as in my case) then you’ll need to run the CruiseControl.NET Service as a domain user that has access to the network location of the repository rather than LocalSystem. This is because CruiseControl will be using the SVN client to poll for changes.
- Install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=029196ed-04eb-471e-8a99-3c61d19a4c5a&displaylang=en
- Install latest SubVersion (1.5) from http://www.collab.net/downloads/subversion/
- Install appropriate NUnit from http://nunit.org/index.php?p=download (targeting .NET framework 2.0 – I have 2.4.6)
- Install latest FxCop from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3389F7E4-0E55-4A4D-BC74-4AEABB17997B
- Install .NET Framework 2.0 SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=fe6f2099-b7b4-4f47-a244-c96d69c35dec&displaylang=en (you’ll need this to get around a NAnt bug whereby it can’t resolve an internal property to load the .NET framework)
- Download latest NAnt from http://nant.sourceforge.net/
- Download latest NAntContrib from http://nantcontrib.sourceforge.net/ (You’ll need this to run MSBuild)
- To save getting errors when building Web Projects (and other types) the easiest thing is to copy c:\program files\msbuild from your dev machine to the build server (otherwise you’ll have to alter the path of where the targets are in each project).
Once you’ve got all of these set up then you’ll be able to add some builds to your ccnet.config file ( most likely c:\program files\CruiseControl.NET\server\ccnet.config)
Test CruiseControl’s happy by going to http://localhost/ccnet It should come up OK but basically show ‘no projects’.
I’m not going to go into detail about setting up the builds here but may cover that in a follow up article, as it requires some more setup with SVN and a ‘standard’ project structure (to get benefit from reuse of build scripts). If you’re still with me then I’ll share one last thing which might help…
Some people choose to have NAnt in a standard place and just reference it from the PATH, but I now use the power of svn:externals to drag in NAnt, NUnit and other common external dependencies like MS Enterprise Library from a shared SVN location to each project. This means you just get latest of a project and it has ‘everything’ needed to build – no installations or assumptions about locations of tools.