CI/CD Integration

Cloudify provides integration with various CI/CD platforms.

The cli Docker Image

With the exception of Jenkins, the integration between CI/CD tools and Cloudify is encapsulated in a Docker image. The Docker image contains the standard Cloudify CLI, as well as a wrapper script (called cfyci) that provides a few shortcuts and sugaring for simplified Cloudify access.

Specifying Cloudify Manager Access

(This section does not apply to the Jenkins plugin)

When using the standard CCloudify CLI, the user is required to create a CLI profile, describing the location of the Cloudify Manager as well as credentials. This is traditionally done by using the cfy profiles command:

cfy profiles use cloudify-host -u admin -p password -t default_tenant

In order to simplify working in CI/CD platforms, the cfyci utility handles profile creation automatically by inquiring your job’s environment variables. That way, users of the Cloudify CI/CD integration need not worry about creating a profile; cfyci does this for you.

The following environment variables are used:

Environment Variable Purpose
CLOUDIFY_HOST Host name / IP address of the Cloudify Manager
CLOUDIFY_USERNAME Username for Cloudify Manager authentication
CLOUDIFY_PASSWORD Password for Cloudify Manager authentication
CLOUDIFY_TENANT Cloudify Manager tenant to operate on (defaults to default_tenant)
CLOUDIFY_SSL false for non-SSL connectivity; any other value is considered as true, which is also the default)

In addition, you can define the CLOUDIFY_SSL_TRUST_ALL environment variable as true in order to bypass certificate verification. Note that this is generally a bad idea, especially in production environments.

Common Inputs

(This section does not apply to the Jenkins plugin)

The following inputs are widely used across the Cloudify CI/CD integration features:

Input Name Description
environment-name Name of Cloudify environment to create, delete or use. This maps to a Cloudify Deployment ID.
outputs-file Path to environment’s outputs and capabilities file (see below).

Default Input Values

(This section does not apply to the Jenkins plugin)

Occasionally, the value “-” is used as a default value for string parameters. This is done in order to simplify the construction of command lines.

Environment Outputs and Capabilities File

Certain CI/CD operations (such as “create environment”) can generate a JSON file containing the Cloudify Environment’s outputs and capabilities. This file can be used by subsequent steps, for the purpose of carrying out the rest of the CI/CD cycle (for example: obtaining the IP address of a created server).

The structure of the JSON file is as follows:

{
  "blueprint_id": "<blueprint_id>",
  "deployment_id": "<deployment_id>",
  "outputs": {
    "output_1": "output_value_1",
    "output_2": "output_value_2",
    ...
  },
  "capabilities": {
    "cap_1": "cap_1",
    "cap_2": "cap_2",
    ...
  }
}

The popular jq utility (included with the Cloudify CLI Docker image) can be used to parse the file. For example, if the output file is set to env-data.json, the following will extract the value of output_2:

jq ".outputs.output_2" < env-data.json