Java Power Tools

Chapter 6. Setting Up a Continuous Integration Server with CruiseControl

An Introduction to CruiseControl

CruiseControl is a widely used and widely regarded open source continuous integration tool written in Java. CruiseControl is backed by ThoughtWorks, a leading proponent of agile methodologies and open source technologies. One of the first open source Continuous Integration tools, it benefits from a large user base and a number of third-party tools. ThoughtWorks now also offers CruiseControl Enterprise, a supported version of the product.

For those who skipped the introduction to this part of the book, Continuous Integration is a powerful technique used to keep development teams in phase and reduce the risks and complexities involved in combining code written by a number of individual developers into a unified working product. It basically involves automatically building and testing the latest source code at frequent intervals. At the same time, team members test and commit their changes frequently into the source code repository. It can considerably reduce the costs and risks traditionally involved in the integration phase of a project.

CruiseControl falls into the same category of tools as Continuum (Chapter 5), LuntBuild (Chapter 7), and Hudson (Chapter 8). CruiseControl is the oldest of the three tools. Up until recently, configuration was still entirely done via an Extensible Markup Language (XML) configuration file. As of version 2.7, a basic administration console was added, ...