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JFrog Platform User Guide
JFrog Artifactory 6.x Documentation
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Build Info Repository
Available from Artifactory version 6.6, the Build Info repository, is a local repository that stores your build info json files as artifacts, providing you with:
- user / group permission management equivalent to managing permissions on repositories with include/exclude patterns on build names
- build info replication to other instances, since they are stored as artifacts in a repository
- improved accessibility to the build info json files and overall performance of the Builds module
Whenever a new build is uploaded to Artifactory (either by a CI server plugin, directly using a Build REST API or from the Artifactory UI), it will automatically get deployed to this default artifactory-build-info repository.
Build info json files should be uploaded to the root of the repository. Artifactory will automatically place them in the repository using the following structure: artifactory-build-info > [build name] > [build number]-[deploy timestamp].json
Using the artifactory-build-info repository
The artifactory-build-info repository is automatically created and used by default. It cannot be removed. Removing it will cause all your build info to be deleted and a new default build info repository will be recreated.
Cleanup Policies
If you have existing cleanup policies, defined in Artifactory User Plugins, that delete artifacts from your local repositories according to a policy, they will also affect the artifactory-build-info repository and should be updated accordingly. Exclude this repository from your cleanup policies to ensure that your build info files are not deleted.
Migrating to the artifactory-build-info Repository
The migration process may be configured through the following system properties. The migration will run on the primary node.
Property Name | Function |
artifactory.migration.job.dbQueryLimit | [Default: 100] Specifies the number of rows that should be retrieved each time the migration job queries the database for build info json entries that exist in the database but not yet in the build-info repository values. |
| [Default: 10] Build info json artifacts are deployed concurrently in batches, then a sleep cycle is initiated. This property specifies the number of artifacts in each batch. |
| [Default: 2] Specifies the number of concurrent threads that should execute actual build info artifact updates. Each concurrent artifact update will incur a read from the database to retrieve the build info json, followed by an upload to the build-info repo. |
| [Default: 5000 milliseconds] Specifies the duration of the sleep cycle which is initiated after each batch of updates. |
artifactory.migration.job.waitForCluster.sleepIntervalMillis | [Default: 300000 milliseconds] The build-info repository migration can only start when the cluster has been fully upgraded and all nodes run the same minimal required version (6.6.0), where applicable. This parameter specifies the amount of time the master node will wait between each check for all of the other nodes' current version. |
Deleting a Build
To delete a build from the UI, hover over a version and click delete.
Inspecting Builds
Builds and Build History
All CI server projects that deploy their output to Artifactory can be viewed in the Build Browser module.
Selecting a build item to display all runs of that build reflecting the build history in the CI server, and a complete build-level information.
Permissions
To view build information you must have the 'deploy' permission on some repository path.
Build-level Information
You can select the Build Name to drill down into a specific build. This displays detailed information about the build, and enables you to compare it with another build as described in the following sections.
The build page is broken down into 3 sections: Build ID, General Information
The Build Info Details screen is divided into three panels:
- The Build ID panel displays all versions of the selected build.
- The horizontal panel along the top displays basic information about the selected version.
- The Build details. Select a file to see its details in the panel on the right.
There are three categories of information:
- General build information about the build and its environment.
- Build modules along with their artifacts and dependencies.
- Generic view of the build information in JSON format.
General Build Information
The horizontal panel displays general information about the build:
Agent | The CI server managing the build |
Build Agent | The specific version of build tool used |
Started | The time stamp when the build was started |
Duration | The duration of the build |
Principal | The factor that triggered this build. This may be a CI server user, or another build |
Artifactory Principal | The Artifactory user that triggered this build |
Published Modules
This tab displays the modules published into Artifactory as a result of the build, along with the number of artifacts and dependencies that they contain.
Module Artifacts and Dependencies
Selecting a published module that was built will display its artifacts and dependencies. You can group these by type or scope by clicking the corresponding column header.
You can click any item to download it directly, or click its Repo Path to view it in the Tree Browser.
Environment
The Environment tab displays an extensive list of properties and environment settings defined for the selected build. You can use these to reproduce the environment precisely if you need to rerun the build.
Issues
The Issues provides integration between Artifactory, Jenkins CI server and JIRA issue tracker. When using Jenkins CI, if you to set the Enable JIRA Integration option in the Jenkins Artifactory Plugin, the Issues tab will display any JIRA issues that have been addressed by this build.
Licenses
The Licenses tab displays the results of a detailed license analysis of all artifacts and their dependencies.
The Summary line displays the number of artifacts found with the following statuses:
Unapproved | The license found has not been approved for use Approving licenses You can approve a license for use in the Admin tab under Configuration | Licenses. For details please refer to License Control. |
Not Found | No license requirements were found for the artifact. |
Unknown | The artifact requires a license that is unknown to Artifactory |
Neutral | A license requirement that is not approved has been found for the artifact, however there is another license that is approved. |
Approved | All license requirements for the artifact are approved in Artifactory. |
Build Diff
The Diff tab allows you to compare the selected build with any other build. Once you select a build number in the Select A Build To Compare Against field, Artifactory displays all the differences between the builds that were detected including new artifacts added, dependencies deleted, properties changed and more.
Release History
The Release History tab displays a list of the selected build's release landmarks.
Build Info JSON
Generic BuildInfo
View
This tab displays the raw BuildInfo
JSON representation of the build information in Artifactory. This data can be accessed via the REST API or used for debugging and is also available in the Artifactory OSS version.
Exporting and Manipulating Build Items
You can view a build in the repository browser and perform actions on it as a whole with all its artifacts and dependencies. For example, you could promote it to another repository, copy it, or export it to a disk.
Repository View of Builds
When viewing an artifact within the Tree Browser, you can see all of the builds with which that artifact is associated, whether directly or as a dependency in the Builds tab
Moreover, if you try to remove the artifact you will receive a warning that the build will no longer be reproducible.
The association of an artifact with a build is retained even if you move or copy it within Artifactory, because the association linked to the artifact's checksum which remains constant, regardless of the its location.
Behind the Scenes
Behind the scenes, the Artifactory plug-in for your CI server performs two major tasks:
- It resolves all dependencies from a resolution repository in Artifactory.
- It deploys all the artifacts to Artifactory as an atomic operation at the end of the build, guaranteeing a more coherent deployment when building multi-module projects
(Maven and Ivy deploy each module at the end of its build cycle. If one of the modules fails, this can result in partial deployments). - It sends a
BuildInfo
data object to Artifactory via the REST API at the end of deployment. This is a structured JSON object containing all the data about the build environment, artifacts and dependencies, in a standard and open format.
Release Management
Artifactory supports release management through its plugins for Jenkins, TeamCity and Bamboo.
When you run your builds using Maven or Gradle with jobs that use Subversion, Git or Perforce as your version control system, you can manually stage a release build allowing you to:
Change values for the release and next development version
Choose a target staging repository to which to deploy the release
Create a VCS tag for the release
Staged release builds can later be promoted or rolled-back, changing their release status in Artifactory, with the option to move the build artifacts to a different target repository.
Inside Artifactory, the history of all build status change activities (staged, promoted, rolled-back, etc.) is recorded and displayed for full traceability.
To learn more about release management specific to your CI server, please refer to: