[This article was written by William Gautier.]

 There's a lot of interest in using Stackato in conjunction with continuous integration tools, and the most popular of those tools is Jenkins CI. Until now, the only ways to deploy your applications to Cloud Foundry or Stackato from a Jenkins build were to:

• install a command line client on the Jenkins server, then use shell commands as part of your build,
• use the Cloud Foundry Maven plugin (if you're using Maven) or
• use the proprietary Jenkins Enterprise by CloudBees.

With the new Cloud Foundry Jenkins Plugin (MIT License), you can deploy applications to any Cloud Foundry-based PaaS just by installing this free plugin.

Installation

The Cloud Foundry plugin is available from the jenkinsci/cloudfoundry repository on Github, so you can install it on any Jenkins instance. Go to the Plugin manager on your Jenkins instance, and search for “Cloud Foundry” in the “Available” tab.

Usage

You will find the plugin in the list of post-build actions in your build's configuration page.

Enter your target URL and your credentials, then test your connection to make sure you won't have problems during the build. Check the "Allow self-signed certificate" if you're using a Stackato micro cloud, or any other PaaS without signed SSL certificates.

If your application already has a manifest.yml in its root directory, you can leave the “Read app info from manifest.yml” checked. Unchecking it will reveal additional settings that you will need to fill out.

That’s it! Start a new build, and your application will be pushed at the end of it.

Try it out

Jenkins itself can be deployed to Stackato in a couple of clicks from the App Store. So if you're already working with Stackato, deploying Jenkins CI with Cloud Foundry integration is just a few clicks away!