Release Notes - Version 3.6.0

Overview

3.6.0 is a significant release for AnthillPro 3.

Because of extensive agent-server communication changes made for version 3.6, if you are upgrading to AnthillPro 3.6 the following applies:

• Manual restart of agents. You must manually restart all agents after running auto upgrade through the UI. Once the upgrade is complete, all agents will require manual restart. Agent upgrade will work for all subsequent upgrades of AnthillPro 3.6 without a manual restart of the agents.
• Windows service. The upgraded agents must be reinstalled as a Windows service.
• Communication port. A new port needs to be opened to the server (default value of this port is 7915) for agent communication.

See Upgrading AnthillPro for more.

Major Features

• Preflight builds. At the push of a button, preflight builds integrate the developer's changes with a snapshot of the latest source code, and then run a build in the build environment, not on the developer's machine. If a Preflight Build fails, the developer is immediately notified and the changes are not committed to source.
• Test and coverage metrics and trending. Discover test and coverage trends from the current Build Life and previous Build Lives.
• EMMA integration. Run EMMA and publish coverage reports with the EMMA integration. In addition, AnthillPro users can generate a coverage report for every project that uses EMMA.
• Mercurial integration. Set up AnthillPro projects that use the Mercurial repository to check out code, build, tag, and more.
• Optimized server-agent communication. The server-agent communication layer has been reworked for better performance. The new approach also supports the use of a Relay Server that acts as a proxy for agents behind a firewall or in another location.
• Workflow definition. The job pre-condition, the agent selection, working directory, and lock scope are now displayed on the Workflow Definition page for every job. This allows the agent and working directory to easily vary for a shared job between different workflows. This also allows the locking of a agent and directory for the during of the workflow and not a single job.

Additional Features

• Agent restart. Agents may be restarted in one of two ways: Either by clicking the Restart All Agents button at the top of the page, or clicking the Restart icon under the Operations menu.
• Artifact digest. View the file and hash for all Artifacts on the Build Life page.
• Build Life properties. Holds variable data used during the build (such as compiler version, etc.) or to create an audit trail. Once set on the originating workflow, Build Life properties are available to all workflows run on the Build Life, and are unique to the Build Life.
• Cascading request properties. Automatically pass properties of a build request to dependent requests.
• Copy steps between jobs. Job steps may be copied between projects and other jobs using the clipboard.
• Download Artifacts Sets as a single Zip file. All artifacts in an Artifact Set may be downloaded as a single Zip file, or they may be downloaded individually.
• Enable or disable Dashboard graphs. The Source Activity, Build Activity, and Average Test Success graphs may be disabled on the Dashboard Main, Project and Workflow pages.
• Job Pre-Condition scripts. Custom Job Pre-Condition scripts may be created that are based on events such as status assignment, etc.
• Lockable Resources. New options to exclusively lock an environment, add multiple resource locks, and dynamically select lockable resources for a workflow.
• View all issues with dependencies. See any issues in AnthillPro's issue tracking system that are associated with a Build Life, including all the dependencies.
• View all source changes with dependencies. Determine every source change that went into a build between the current Build Life and any previous Build Life, including all dependencies.
• Workflow priorities. Use priorities to determine the workflow execution order.

Improvements

• AccuRev stream pooling. AnthillPro can now automatically generate and manage a pool of AccuRev streams, making configuration and maintenance easier.
• Agent list page. Agents are displayed in a paginated form with sortable columns and an automatic refresh.
• Agent selection. When numerous agents are selected by different jobs at about the same time, AnthillPro will now do a better job of distributing the load according to agent resource availability.
• Agent variable helper. Use the AgentVarHelper class in scripts to lookup and set agent variables and resolve agent properties.
• Archiving/restoring build lives. Having a label on the source is no longer a requirement for archiving nor necessary for restoring. It can be done on any build life.
• Build Life Coverage tab. The coverage tab displays information gathered from your coverage testing tools. The coverage data can be trended over time as well.
• Changeable workflow property types. Once a workflow property is created, the display type may be changed to a different type. Additionally, you can now set a default for the Checkbox Workflow Property Type.
• Command output logging. Write to the command output (instead of using log4j) with a commandOutput object. Once enabled, the output log will be available on the Dashboard Job Trace page.
• Copy Workflows and Jobs to other Projects. Copying of existing workflows and jobs to other projects has been added in the Administration tree.
• My Builds tab renamed My Activity. Now, the My Activity tab details Operational projects and Preflight builds in addition to detailing recent project builds.
• Push dependencies. Push dependencies now respect the stamp and status filters for build triggering.
• Run dependency workflow step. Run workflows in parallel even if the parent workflow failed. Additionally, choose to execute the step on the entire dependency tree instead of only running on the current project's immediate dependents.
• Security updates. Role can be granted permission to newly created resources based on default permissions of the resource type. These are managed under Permissions by Resource Type in Security.
• Stamps shown on Current Activity. If stamps are used, they will replace the Build Life number when displayed on the Current Activity page to allow for easier identification when building very similar projects.
• Status History search tab. When refining a search by project, only the statuses pertinent to the select project are available.
• Support for Windows 64-bit JVM. For those on a 64-bit Windows platform, AnthillPro now supports it with a 64-bit JVM.
• Team Foundation Server. Explicit support for both 2005 and 2008 versions. Tightened integration with TFS issue tracking.
• Text (secure) property. Use to present a text input where a secure value must be entered. The value is obfuscated in any output.
• Workflow definition. Clicking the job name goes to the job configuration page.
• Workflow security. A 'task execute' permission has been added to workflows that only allows the workflow to execute by completing a task (such as the Yes/No Task or Workflow Choice Task).

Bug Fixes

The following issues have been fixed with version 3.6:

• Agent upgrade on Windows silently fails.
• Anthill3 server fails when running with non-sun JRE/JDK.
• Assign Status Step does not set the date value.
• Bugzilla versions have different date formats which breaks the bug report.
• Can't change repository for existing Synergy source configuration.
• Can't set MSN ID for another user.
• Cleanup type defaults to delete instead of inactivate upon upgrade.
• Creating a working directory script in the same process as creating an originating workflow fails for MKS and Subversion.
• Creating triggers with names which have the character 'ü' can create an unreadable XML clob in the database.
• Custom reports that use the bar chart template do not work publicly without authentication.
• CVS changelog publisher can show passwords in some configurations.
• CVS Remote Label step does not work if using a date instead of replace an existing label.
• Dashboard date formats not in the user's time zone.
• Dates incorrect on build life search.
• Editing mail server erases password.
• Import/Export does not handle assign status step script.
• Importing project with "CVS Populate Workspace" step doesn't save "Clean Workspace" flag.
• Invalid character in a changelog.
• Invalid characters in marshaled XML.
• JUnit report publisher does not escape XML characters in the test errors.
• Migrating the life-cycle model can lose the transitive flag on dependencies.
• Multi-selects are simple drop downs on workflow trigger page.
• No Codestation logging for resolves in Anthill.
• Project import fails if life-cycle model has more statuses than the current.
• Project life-cycle migration does not change the entries on the project jobs and workflow definitions.
• Property resolution for dependency path doesn't work when done out of the context of a build.
• Requests lock up if a dependency is inactive.
• Restarting a workflow with job iterations fails.
• Resolve artifacts steps including the filter **/* fail.
• Server does not start when installed in a directory with a space in the name on Windows.
• SOAP activity queries do not return accurate information.
• Synergy Password is not required in configuration.
• Unable to abort workflow, requiring server restart.
• Unable to delete build lives with Cobertura reports.
• Upgrade fails on db version 147 when attempting to insert large job configuration.
• Upgrade using MySQL fails while running groovy script to update stepPreConditions.
• Upgrading a MySQL instance fails if old tables use MyISAM storage engine.
• View all changes with Dependencies incorrect.
• Windows service does not run when using a JRE.