Continua Server configuration for Repo's - SVN

Continua CI Discussion
1

G'day,

Our business uses Mecurial internally for Repositories. We use a combination of Bitbucket and Kiln (Fogcreek) services to manage a range of software projects for clients. One of the things I need to do from time to time is to fork open source projects and then bug fix and adjust that code to meet various requirements. I'm trying to use continua to provide a hook into various open source repo's.

Part 1

Here is what I'm trying to do in continua.

Part 2

The second part to all this, is trying to determine what software is needed on the Continua server versus the agents PC's.

A. My Continua Server has Final Builder 7 installed and IIS.

B. My agents are full developer boxes with lots of M$ centric software, like Visual Studio, Tortoise HG, Tortoise Git, Tortoise SVN, Final Builder, Redgate Tools etc.

I was hoping that the agents would do all the heavy lifting for non HG repo's, while HG repo's (our preferred choice) would get managed by the Continua Server.  I'm not sure how much software I really want to put on my Continua server at this stage, as I'm trying to keep that server as secure as possible. Again, I'm not sure that that's a good approach in the Architecture of Continua, but I thought I would give it a go.

My Progress

When I try and setup the first repo, I start running into UI warnings that confuse me a little about what I've done wrong.

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Hi Jamie

Unfortunately we do not support agent side checkout at this time. It’s on the todo list for investigation but realistically it’s probably a V2 feature. Our reasoning for doing server side checkout is that it means less to install on multiple agents, and therefore more chance that more agents are compatible with configurations. If we did agent side checkout then the config would only run on those agents that have that particular version control system.

Agent side checkout makes most sense when your agent is “in the cloud” (in other words, not on your lan), and the repository is elsewhere as well. So for example, a remote agent, building from github would most definitely benifit from agent side checkout.

So for now the answer is to install the version control clients on the server. Note that you do not need to install the TortoiseXX clients, only the command line clients. You will need the svn client on the continua ci server.

The help link for the Subversion repo is wrong, we’ll fix that today.

As for the agent compatibility issue, we’re currently investigating that, I just had the same issue on my dev machine just before I saw your post.

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Posted By Vincent Parrett on 10 Feb 2013 07:32 PM
Hi Jamie 
    
So for now the answer is to install the version control clients on the server. Note that you do not need to install the TortoiseXX clients, only the command line clients. You will need the svn client on the continua ci server.  

Just a quick question about the x64 vs x86 editions. I downloaded and installed Git http://git-scm.com/ and SilkSVN http://subversion.apache.org/packages.html#windows and I noticed that the agent didn't pick up the x64 edition. When I look through all the other property collectors, I notice that they are mainly x86 editions. Does this imply only x86 SVN components should be used?

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Arr…scratch that question about x64. I see both default program files (incl x64 x86) work. My mistake for not reading the options.