Raspberry Pipeline GUI Config

This project was born on the need of easily configuring an LED stripe - specifically LPD8806 - to display the build pipeline on a Jenkins box. The original project, created by my colleague Julian Kelabora, can be found here.

Since the project above was written in Python and I wanted to have the whole thing written in nodejs, this project was then born.

How to Jenkins

I'm assuming you have Jenkins installed. You don't need to have the Build Pipeline plugin installed but I recommend as it makes it easier to visualize your project in a series of hops or steps.

First, download and install this plugin. You will need Maven to build the Jenkins extension: simply follow the steps on the project and you will be fine.

Once the plugin is installed, then it's time to define your Pipeline and possibly rename your jobs - yes, it's not a good thing to rename your projects in Jenkins but you will want to do that for the sake of clarification of your pipelines and stages.

An ideal nomenclature is <PIPELINE> - <STAGE> e.g.: NodePipeline - Build, Node Pipeline - Functional, etc

Configure every Job related to that pipeline and add a Post-build Action for Amazon SNS Notifier. If you haven't added the Topic ARN reference when you were configuring Jenkins, then add the reference now.

Building a project using AWS

Add the following script under your project's bin folder. I named the script jenkins:

#!/usr/bin/env node

var sqs = require('sqs');

var q = sqs({
  access: process.env.AWS_KEY_ID,
  secret: process.env.AWS_SEC_KEY,
  region: process.env.AWS_REGION
});

q.push(process.env.AWS_SQS_NAME, {
  Subject: 'Build STARTED: ' + process.env.JOB_NAME + ' #' + process.env.BUILD_NUMBER
});

Then on package.json add the following line under scripts:

"init-pipeline": "node ./bin/jenkins"

The above will push a message to the queue on AWS for the purpose of starting the pipeline. The Node Pipeline will receive this message and execute an animation that relates to building.

The downside of the solution above is that you have to specify environment variables for that to run. So, in Jenkins, the first build step should be as follows:

export AWS_KEY_ID=<KEY>
export AWS_SEC_KEY=<SECRET>
export AWS_REGION=<REGION>
export AWS_SQS_NAME=<QUEUE>
npm run-script init-pipeline 

Features

• One LED strip, multiple jobs on your CI
• 4 animations to choose from
• Completely decoupled architecture
• No need to create complicated configuration files, use the UI and let the tool do the heavy lifting for you
• Play a sound on Success, Fail, Abort and Unstable build
• Compared to other build light solutions, value for money is indeed a feature! Just a bit over $100 with the Pi!

What you need

• Raspberry Pi Type B
• Occidentalis
• nodejs for ARM processor

And here's the full list of components copied from the Raspberry Pipeline project.

• Digital RGB LED Weatherproof Strip 32 LED - (1m)
• Adafruit Pi Cobbler Breakout Kit for Raspberry Pi
• 5V 2A (2000mA) switching power supply - UL Listed
• Female DC Power adapter - 2.1mm jack to screw terminal block
• 4-pin JST SM Plug + Receptacle Cable Set

Electronics

You will need to do some soldering if you want the whole thing to hang together without worries. You can still get around with a breadboard but soldering is the best bet.

You can follow the wiring and hardware setup instructions detailed here.

How to run

Once you have everything setup then run...

npm install -g rpipeline-ui

... and it will install the program. It may be required that you use sudo depending on your machine configuration.

After that execute...

sudo rpipeline

... and off you go. Browse to http://localhost:3000 to access the configuration page.

Note: you need to use sudo here to communicate with the LED stripe. As a matter of fact, all GPIO communication has to be done using sudo. There's a Linux project that masks this ability and you can install using the distro's package manager but I don't remember which it is now.

What you can do

The configuration is a single page divided in four blocks:

• LEDs
• Pipeline
• Sounds
• Queue

LEDs

You can configure the following items:

• Number of LEDs in the strip
• Colours for the following build status
  • Success
  • Fail
  • Aborted
  • Unstable
• Animation
  • Knight rider
  • Rainbow
  • Flashing
  • And a standard animation that is pretty cool
• Animation speed
• Animation colour

I also provide a feature for you to test your LED to check connectivity.

Pipeline

You can create as many pipelines and stages as you want up to the number of LEDs in your strip. You can name the pipelines and stages and test them individually.

Sounds

Upload one file per build status. It's completely optional.

Queue

By default we use AWS: enter your key, secret, region and queue name and the system will poll automatically for new messages.