This is going to be another short series (2-3 posts) about a build automation tool. I got using this during my internship at WaveNET. I don’t this this is going to be a very useful post to many ( I here some one saying when I write useful posts ), but it could be at least a reference for some one out there or to me some day.

Introduction

Luntbuild is a powerful build automation and management tool. Continuous Integration or nightly builds can be easily set using a clean web interface. Executed builds are well managed using functions such as search, categorization, promotion, patching, deletion, etc. It also acts as a central build artifacts repository and download area for your whole team.

Why Luntbuild?

You may ask why Luntbuild, while there are already many good build automation tools such as Cruise Control, Anthill, and others. Our answer is:

• Luntbuild aims at not only being build automation, but also build management system. Executed builds can be categorized, promoted, searched, patched, deleted, etc. This is very important for a nightly builds or Continuous Integration builds, which generate many builds over time.
• Luntbuild utilizes the project/schedule concept to easily provide build support for parallel development.
• No configuration files, all jobs are done using web interface. You can set your Luntbuild system in less than thirty minutes.

Luntbuild makes advantage of quite a few open source libraries and frameworks listed here.

Luntbuild homepage http://luntbuild.javaforge.com/

What Luntbuild does?

Basic unit of work in Luntbuild is a build. Build execution is triggered either by a schedule or it can be started manually. A build in Luntbuild performs following steps:

1. Checks out source code from the Version Control System(s) (VCS).
2. Labels the current source code based on the current build version.
3. Runs an Ant/Maven/Command/Rake build script in the source tree.
4. Runs an Ant/Maven/Command/Rake post build script in the source tree.
5. Publishes the build log and other build artifacts.

Build configuration, monitoring, and access to the build artifacts are all done using an intuitive web interface. Development and testing teams will have a central area to access the build information.

We shall see basic installation steps in the next post.