Chapter 8. Builds

A build in OpenShift Container Platform is the process of transforming input parameters into a resulting object. Most often, builds are used to transform source code into a runnable container image.

A build configuration, or BuildConfig, is characterized by a build strategy and one or more sources. The strategy determines the aforementioned process, while the sources provide its input.

The build strategies are:

And there are six types of sources that can be given as build input:

It is up to each build strategy to consider or ignore a certain type of source, as well as to determine how it is to be used. Binary and Git are mutually exclusive source types. Dockerfile and Image can be used by themselves, with each other, or together with either Git or Binary. The Binary source type is unique from the other options in how it is specified to the system.

A build configuration describes a single build definition and a set of triggers for when a new build should be created. Build configurations are defined by a BuildConfig, which is a REST object that can be used in a POST to the API server to create a new instance.

Depending on how you choose to create your application using OpenShift Container Platform, a BuildConfig is typically generated automatically for you if you use the web console or CLI, and it can be edited at any time. Understanding the parts that make up a BuildConfig and their available options can help if you choose to manually tweak your configuration later.

The following example BuildConfig results in a new build every time a container image tag or the source code changes:

kind: "BuildConfig"
apiVersion: "v1"
metadata:
  name: "ruby-sample-build" 1
spec:
  runPolicy: "Serial" 2
  triggers: 3
    -
      type: "GitHub"
      github:
        secret: "secret101"
    - type: "Generic"
      generic:
        secret: "secret101"
    -
      type: "ImageChange"
  source: 4
    git:
      uri: "https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world"
  strategy: 5
    sourceStrategy:
      from:
        kind: "ImageStreamTag"
        name: "ruby-20-centos7:latest"
  output: 6
    to:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "origin-ruby-sample:latest"
  postCommit: 7
      script: "bundle exec rake test"

Manually start a new build from an existing build configuration in your current project using the following command:

$ oc start-build <buildconfig_name>

Re-run a build using the --from-build flag:

$ oc start-build --from-build=<build_name>

Specify the --follow flag to stream the build’s logs in stdout:

$ oc start-build <buildconfig_name> --follow

Specify the --env flag to set any desired environment variable for the build:

$ oc start-build <buildconfig_name> --env=<key>=<value>

Rather than relying on a Git source pull or a Dockerfile for a build, you can can also start a build by directly pushing your source, which could be the contents of a Git or SVN working directory, a set of prebuilt binary artifacts you want to deploy, or a single file. This can be done by specifying one of the following options for the start-build command:

When passing any of these options directly to the build, the contents are streamed to the build and override the current build source settings.

For example, the following command sends the contents of a local Git repository as an archive from the tag v2 and starts a build:

$ oc start-build hello-world --from-repo=../hello-world --commit=v2

Manually cancel a build using the web console, or with the following CLI command:

$ oc cancel-build <build_name>

Cancel multiple builds at the same time:

$ oc cancel-build <build1_name> <build2_name> <build3_name>

Cancel all builds created from the build configuration:

$ oc cancel-build bc/<buildconfig_name>

Cancel all builds in a given state (for example, new or pending), ignoring the builds in other states:

$ oc cancel-build bc/<buildconfig_name>  --state=<state>

Delete a BuildConfig using the following command:

$ oc delete bc <BuildConfigName>

This will also delete all builds that were instantiated from this BuildConfig. Specify the --cascade=false flag if you do not want to delete the builds:

$ oc delete --cascade=false bc <BuildConfigName>

You can view build details with the web console or by using the oc describe CLI command:

$ oc describe build <build_name>

This displays information such as:

If the build uses the Docker or Source strategy, the oc describe output also includes information about the source revision used for the build, including the commit ID, author, committer, and message.

You can access build logs using the web console or the CLI.

To stream the logs using the build directly:

$ oc logs -f build/<build_name>

To stream the logs of the latest build for a build configuration:

$ oc logs -f bc/<buildconfig_name>

To return the logs of a given version build for a build configuration:

$ oc logs --version=<number> bc/<buildconfig_name>

Log Verbosity

To enable more verbose output, pass the BUILD_LOGLEVEL environment variable as part of the sourceStrategy or dockerStrategy in a BuildConfig:

sourceStrategy:
...
  env:
    - name: "BUILD_LOGLEVEL"
      value: "2" 1

Available log levels for Source builds are as follows:

A build input provides source content for builds to operate on. There are several ways to provide source in OpenShift Container Platform. In order of precedence:

Different inputs can be combined into a single build. As the inline Dockerfile takes precedence, it can overwrite any other file named Dockerfile provided by another input. Binary (local) input and Git repositories are mutually exclusive inputs.

Input secrets are useful for when you do not want certain resources or credentials used during a build to be available in the final application image produced by the build, or want to consume a value that is defined in a Secret resource. External artifacts can be used to pull in additional files that are not available as one of the other build input types.

Whenever a build is run:

The following example of a source definition includes multiple input types and an explanation of how they are combined. For more details on how each input type is defined, see the specific sections for each input type.

source:
  git:
    uri: https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world.git 1
  images:
  - from:
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: myinputimage:latest
      namespace: mynamespace
    paths:
    - destinationDir: app/dir/injected/dir 2
      sourcePath: /usr/lib/somefile.jar
  contextDir: "app/dir" 3
  dockerfile: "FROM centos:7\nRUN yum install -y httpd" 4

When a dockerfile value is supplied, the content of this field will be written to disk as a file named Dockerfile. This is done after other input sources are processed, so if the input source repository contains a Dockerfile in the root directory, it will be overwritten with this content.

The typical use for this field is to provide a Dockerfile to a Docker strategy build.

The source definition is part of the spec section in the BuildConfig:

source:
  dockerfile: "FROM centos:7\nRUN yum install -y httpd" 1

Additional files can be provided to the build process via images. Input images are referenced in the same way the From and To image targets are defined. This means both container images and image stream tags can be referenced. In conjunction with the image, you must provide one or more path pairs to indicate the path of the files or directories to copy the image and the destination to place them in the build context.

The source path can be any absolute path within the image specified. The destination must be a relative directory path. At build time, the image will be loaded and the indicated files and directories will be copied into the context directory of the build process. This is the same directory into which the source repository content (if any) is cloned. If the source path ends in /. then the content of the directory will be copied, but the directory itself will not be created at the destination.

Image inputs are specified in the source definition of the BuildConfig:

source:
  git:
    uri: https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world.git
  images: 1
  - from: 2
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: myinputimage:latest
      namespace: mynamespace
    paths: 3
    - destinationDir: injected/dir 4
      sourcePath: /usr/lib/somefile.jar 5
  - from:
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: myotherinputimage:latest
      namespace: myothernamespace
    pullSecret: mysecret 6
    paths:
    - destinationDir: injected/dir
      sourcePath: /usr/lib/somefile.jar

When specified, source code will be fetched from the location supplied.

If an inline Dockerfile is supplied, it will overwrite the Dockerfile (if any) in the contextDir of the Git repository.

The source definition is part of the spec section in the BuildConfig:

source:
  git: 1
    uri: "https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world"
    ref: "master"
  contextDir: "app/dir" 2
  dockerfile: "FROM openshift/ruby-22-centos7\nUSER example" 3

If the ref field denotes a pull request, the system will use a git fetch operation and then checkout FETCH_HEAD.

When no ref value is provided, OpenShift Container Platform performs a shallow clone (--depth=1). In this case, only the files associated with the most recent commit on the default branch (typically master) are downloaded. This results in repositories downloading faster, but without the full commit history. To perform a full git clone of the default branch of a specified repository, set ref to the name of the default branch (for example master).

source:
  git:
    uri: "https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world"
    httpProxy: http://proxy.example.com
    httpsProxy: https://proxy.example.com
    noProxy: somedomain.com, otherdomain.com

$ oc secrets link builder mysecret

$ oc annotate secret mysecret \
    'build.openshift.io/source-secret-match-uri-1=ssh://bitbucket.atlassian.com:7999/*'

kind: Secret
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: matches-all-corporate-servers-https-only
  annotations:
    build.openshift.io/source-secret-match-uri-1: https://*.mycorp.com/*
data:
  ...

kind: Secret
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: override-for-my-dev-servers-https-only
  annotations:
    build.openshift.io/source-secret-match-uri-1: https://mydev1.mycorp.com/*
    build.openshift.io/source-secret-match-uri-2: https://mydev2.mycorp.com/*
data:
  ...

$ oc annotate secret mysecret \
    'build.openshift.io/source-secret-match-uri-1=https://*.mycorp.com/*'

apiVersion: "v1"
kind: "BuildConfig"
metadata:
  name: "sample-build"
spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "sample-image:latest"
  source:
    git:
      uri: "https://github.com/user/app.git"
    sourceSecret:
      name: "basicsecret"
  strategy:
    sourceStrategy:
      from:
        kind: "ImageStreamTag"
        name: "python-33-centos7:latest"

$ oc set build-secret --source bc/sample-build basicsecret

$ oc secrets new mysecret .gitconfig=path/to/.gitconfig

[http]
        sslVerify=false

$ oc secrets new-basicauth <secret_name> \
    --username=<user_name> \
    --password=<password>

$ oc secrets new-basicauth <secret_name> \
    --password=<token>

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your_email@example.com"

$ oc secrets new-sshauth sshsecret \
    --ssh-privatekey=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa

Streaming content from a local file system to the builder is called a Binary type build. The corresponding value of BuildConfig.spec.source.type is Binary for such builds.

This source type is unique in that it is leveraged solely based on your use of the oc start-build.

To utilize binary builds, invoke oc start-build with one of these options:

In each of the above cases:

Instead of a file name, you can pass a URL with HTTP or HTTPS schema to --from-file and --from-archive. When using --from-file with a URL, the name of the file in the builder image is determined by the Content-Disposition header sent by the web server, or the last component of the URL path if the header is not present. No form of authentication is supported and it is not possible to use custom TLS certificate or disable certificate validation.

When using oc new-build --binary=true, the command ensures that the restrictions associated with binary builds are enforced. The resulting BuildConfig will have a source type of Binary, meaning that the only valid way to run a build for this BuildConfig is to use oc start-build with one of the --from options to provide the requisite binary data.

The dockerfile and contextDir source options have special meaning with binary builds.

dockerfile can be used with any binary build source. If dockerfile is used and the binary stream is an archive, its contents serve as a replacement Dockerfile to any Dockerfile in the archive. If dockerfile is used with the --from-file argument, and the file argument is named dockerfile, the value from dockerfile replaces the value from the binary stream.

In the case of the binary stream encapsulating extracted archive content, the value of the contextDir field is interpreted as a subdirectory within the archive, and, if valid, the builder changes into that subdirectory before executing the build.

In some scenarios, build operations require credentials to access dependent resources, but it is undesirable for those credentials to be available in the final application image produced by the build. You can define input secrets for this purpose.

For example, when building a Node.js application, you can set up your private mirror for Node.js modules. In order to download modules from that private mirror, you have to supply a custom .npmrc file for the build that contains a URL, user name, and password. For security reasons, you do not want to expose your credentials in the application image.

This example describes Node.js, but you can use the same approach for adding SSL certificates into the /etc/ssl/certs directory, API keys or tokens, license files, and more.

$ oc new-build \
    openshift/nodejs-010-centos7~https://github.com/openshift/nodejs-ex.git \
    --build-secret secret-npmrc

source:
  git:
    uri: https://github.com/openshift/nodejs-ex.git
  secrets:
    - secret:
        name: secret-npmrc
      destinationDir: /etc

$ oc new-build \
    openshift/nodejs-010-centos7~https://github.com/openshift/nodejs-ex.git \
    --build-secret “secret-npmrc:/etc”

FROM centos/ruby-22-centos7

USER root
ADD ./secret-dir /secrets
COPY ./secret2 /

# Create a shell script that will output secrets when the image is run
RUN echo '#!/bin/sh' > /secret_report.sh
RUN echo '(test -f /secrets/secret1 && echo -n "secret1=" && cat /secrets/secret1)' >> /secret_report.sh
RUN echo '(test -f /secret2 && echo -n "relative-secret2=" && cat /secret2)' >> /secret_report.sh
RUN chmod 755 /secret_report.sh

CMD ["/bin/sh", "-c", "/secret_report.sh"]

It is not recommended to store binary files in a source repository. Therefore, you may find it necessary to define a build which pulls additional files (such as Java .jar dependencies) during the build process. How this is done depends on the build strategy you are using.

For a Source build strategy, you must put appropriate shell commands into the assemble script:

#!/bin/sh
APP_VERSION=1.0
wget http://repository.example.com/app/app-$APP_VERSION.jar -O app.jar

#!/bin/sh
exec java -jar app.jar

For a Docker build strategy, you must modify the Dockerfile and invoke shell commands with the RUN instruction:

FROM jboss/base-jdk:8

ENV APP_VERSION 1.0
RUN wget http://repository.example.com/app/app-$APP_VERSION.jar -O app.jar

EXPOSE 8080
CMD [ "java", "-jar", "app.jar" ]

In practice, you may want to use an environment variable for the file location so that the specific file to be downloaded can be customized using an environment variable defined on the BuildConfig, rather than updating the Dockerfile or assemble script.

You can choose between different methods of defining environment variables:

You can supply builds with a .docker/config.json file with valid credentials for private Docker registries. This allows you to push the output image into a private Docker registry or pull a builder image from the private Docker registry that requires authentication.

The .docker/config.json file is found in your home directory by default and has the following format:

auths:
  https://index.docker.io/v1/: 1
    auth: "YWRfbGzhcGU6R2labnRib21ifTE=" 2
    email: "user@example.com" 3

You can define multiple Docker registry entries in this file. Alternatively, you can also add authentication entries to this file by running the docker login command. The file will be created if it does not exist.

Kubernetes provides Secret objects, which can be used to store configuration and passwords.

Builds that use the Docker or Source strategy result in the creation of a new container image. The image is then pushed to the container image registry specified in the output section of the Build specification.

If the output kind is ImageStreamTag, then the image will be pushed to the integrated OpenShift Container Platform registry and tagged in the specified image stream. If the output is of type DockerImage, then the name of the output reference will be used as a Docker push specification. The specification may contain a registry or will default to DockerHub if no registry is specified. If the output section of the build specification is empty, then the image will not be pushed at the end of the build.

spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "sample-image:latest"

spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: "DockerImage"
      name: "my-registry.mycompany.com:5000/myimages/myimage:tag"

Docker and Source strategy builds set the following environment variables on output images:

Additionally, any user-defined environment variable, for example those configured via Source or Docker strategy options, will also be part of the output image environment variable list.

Docker and Source builds set the following labels on output images:

You can also use the BuildConfig.spec.output.imageLabels field to specify a list of custom labels that will be applied to each image built from the BuildConfig.

spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "my-image:latest"
    imageLabels:
    - name: "vendor"
      value: "MyCompany"
    - name: "authoritative-source-url"
      value: "registry.mycompany.com"

Built images can be uniquely identified by their digest, which can later be used to pull the image by digest regardless of its current tag.

Docker and Source builds store the digest in Build.status.output.to.imageDigest after the image is pushed to a registry. The digest is computed by the registry. Therefore, it may not always be present, for example when the registry did not return a digest, or when the builder image did not understand its format.

status:
  output:
    to:
      imageDigest: sha256:29f5d56d12684887bdfa50dcd29fc31eea4aaf4ad3bec43daf19026a7ce69912

To push an image to a private Docker registry, credentials can be supplied using a secret. See Build Inputs for instructions.

The following options are specific to the S2I build strategy.

strategy:
  sourceStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "builder-image:latest" 1
    forcePull: true 2

strategy:
  sourceStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "incremental-image:latest" 1
    incremental: true 2

strategy:
  sourceStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "builder-image:latest"
    scripts: "http://somehost.com/scripts_directory" 1

sourceStrategy:
...
  env:
    - name: "DISABLE_ASSET_COMPILATION"
      value: "true"

The following options are specific to the Docker build strategy.

strategy:
  dockerStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "ImageStreamTag"
      name: "debian:latest"

strategy:
  dockerStrategy:
    dockerfilePath: dockerfiles/app1/Dockerfile

strategy:
  dockerStrategy:
    noCache: true

strategy:
  dockerStrategy:
    forcePull: true 1

dockerStrategy:
...
  env:
    - name: "HTTP_PROXY"
      value: "http://myproxy.net:5187/"

dockerStrategy:
...
  buildArgs:
    - name: "foo"
      value: "bar"

The following options are specific to the Custom build strategy.

strategy:
  customStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "DockerImage"
      name: "openshift/sti-image-builder"

strategy:
  customStrategy:
    exposeDockerSocket: true

strategy:
  customStrategy:
    secrets:
      - secretSource: 1
          name: "secret1"
        mountPath: "/tmp/secret1" 2
      - secretSource:
          name: "secret2"
        mountPath: "/tmp/secret2"

strategy:
  customStrategy:
    forcePull: true 1

customStrategy:
...
  env:
    - name: "HTTP_PROXY"
      value: "http://myproxy.net:5187/"

The following options are specific to the Pipeline build strategy.

kind: "BuildConfig"
apiVersion: "v1"
metadata:
  name: "sample-pipeline"
spec:
  strategy:
    jenkinsPipelineStrategy:
      jenkinsfile: "node('agent') {\nstage 'build'\nopenshiftBuild(buildConfig: 'ruby-sample-build', showBuildLogs: 'true')\nstage 'deploy'\nopenshiftDeploy(deploymentConfig: 'frontend')\n}"

kind: "BuildConfig"
apiVersion: "v1"
metadata:
  name: "sample-pipeline"
spec:
  source:
    git:
      uri: "https://github.com/openshift/ruby-hello-world"
  strategy:
    jenkinsPipelineStrategy:
      jenkinsfilePath: some/repo/dir/filename 1

jenkinsPipelineStrategy:
...
  env:
    - name: "FOO"
      value: "BAR"

As with pod environment variables, build environment variables can be defined in terms of references to other resources/variables using the Downward API. However, there are some exceptions as noted below.

You can inject information about the build object by setting the fieldPath environment variable source to the JsonPath of the field from which you are interested in obtaining the value.

env:
  - name: FIELDREF_ENV
    valueFrom:
      fieldRef:
        fieldPath: metadata.name

Referencing container resources using valueFrom in build environment variables is not supported as the references are resolved before the container is created.

You can make key values from Secrets available as environment variables using the valueFrom syntax.

apiVersion: v1
kind: BuildConfig
metadata:
  name: secret-example-bc
spec:
  strategy:
    sourceStrategy:
      env:
      - name: MYVAL
        valueFrom:
          secretKeyRef:
            key: myval
            name: mysecret

When defining a BuildConfig, you can define triggers to control the circumstances in which the BuildConfig should be run. The following build triggers are available:

Webhook triggers allow you to trigger a new build by sending a request to the OpenShift Container Platform API endpoint. You can define these triggers using GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Generic webhooks.

OpenShift Container Platform webhooks currently only support their analogous versions of the push event for each of the Git based source code management systems (SCMs). All other event types are ignored.

When the push events are processed, a confirmation is made as to whether the branch reference inside the event matches the branch reference in the corresponding BuildConfig. If they match, then the exact commit reference noted in the webhook event is checked out for the OpenShift Container Platform build. If they do not match, no build is triggered.

type: "GitHub"
github:
  secret: "secret101"

http://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/github

$ curl -H "X-GitHub-Event: push" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -X POST --data-binary @payload.json https://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/github

type: "GitLab"
gitlab:
  secret: "secret101"

http://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/gitlab

$ curl -H "X-GitLab-Event: Push Hook" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -X POST --data-binary @payload.json https://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/gitlab

type: "Bitbucket"
bitbucket:
  secret: "secret101"

http://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/bitbucket

$ curl -H "X-Event-Key: repo:push" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -X POST --data-binary @payload.json https://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/bitbucket

type: "Generic"
generic:
  secret: "secret101"
  allowEnv: true 1

http://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/generic

$ curl -X POST -k https://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/generic

git:
  uri: "<url to git repository>"
  ref: "<optional git reference>"
  commit: "<commit hash identifying a specific git commit>"
  author:
    name: "<author name>"
    email: "<author e-mail>"
  committer:
    name: "<committer name>"
    email: "<committer e-mail>"
  message: "<commit message>"
env: 1
   - name: "<variable name>"
     value: "<variable value>"

$ curl -H "Content-Type: application/yaml" --data-binary @payload_file.yaml -X POST -k https://<openshift_api_host:port>/oapi/v1/namespaces/<namespace>/buildconfigs/<name>/webhooks/<secret>/generic

$ oc describe bc <name>

Image change triggers allow your build to be automatically invoked when a new version of an upstream image is available. For example, if a build is based on top of a RHEL image, then you can trigger that build to run any time the RHEL image changes. As a result, the application image is always running on the latest RHEL base image.

Configuring an image change trigger requires the following actions:

When using an image change trigger for the strategy image stream, the generated build is supplied with an immutable Docker tag that points to the latest image corresponding to that tag. This new image reference will be used by the strategy when it executes for the build.

For other image change triggers that do not reference the strategy image stream, a new build will be started, but the build strategy will not be updated with a unique image reference.

In the example above that has an image change trigger for the strategy, the resulting build will be:

strategy:
  sourceStrategy:
    from:
      kind: "DockerImage"
      name: "172.30.17.3:5001/mynamespace/ruby-20-centos7:<immutableid>"

This ensures that the triggered build uses the new image that was just pushed to the repository, and the build can be re-run any time with the same inputs.

In addition to setting the image field for all Strategy types, for custom builds, the OPENSHIFT_CUSTOM_BUILD_BASE_IMAGE environment variable is checked. If it does not exist, then it is created with the immutable image reference. If it does exist then it is updated with the immutable image reference.

If a build is triggered due to a webhook trigger or manual request, the build that is created uses the <immutableid> resolved from the ImageStream referenced by the Strategy. This ensures that builds are performed using consistent image tags for ease of reproduction.

A configuration change trigger allows a build to be automatically invoked as soon as a new BuildConfig is created. The following is an example trigger definition YAML within the BuildConfig:

  type: "ConfigChange"

$ oc set triggers bc <name> --from-github

$ oc set triggers bc <name> --from-image='<image>'

$ oc set triggers bc <name> --from-bitbucket --remove

Build hooks allow behavior to be injected into the build process.

The postCommit field of a BuildConfig object executes commands inside a temporary container that is running the build output image. The hook is executed immediately after the last layer of the image has been committed and before the image is pushed to a registry.

The current working directory is set to the image’s WORKDIR, which is the default working directory of the container image. For most images, this is where the source code is located.

The hook fails if the script or command returns a non-zero exit code or if starting the temporary container fails. When the hook fails it marks the build as failed and the image is not pushed to a registry. The reason for failing can be inspected by looking at the build logs.

Build hooks can be used to run unit tests to verify the image before the build is marked complete and the image is made available in a registry. If all tests pass and the test runner returns with exit code 0, the build is marked successful. In case of any test failure, the build is marked as failed. In all cases, the build log will contain the output of the test runner, which can be used to identify failed tests.

The postCommit hook is not only limited to running tests, but can be used for other commands as well. Since it runs in a temporary container, changes made by the hook do not persist, meaning that the hook execution cannot affect the final image. This behavior allows for, among other uses, the installation and usage of test dependencies that are automatically discarded and will be not present in the final image.

There are different ways to configure the post build hook. All forms in the following examples are equivalent and execute bundle exec rake test --verbose:

$ oc set build-hook bc/mybc \
    --post-commit \
    --command \
    -- bundle exec rake test --verbose

$ oc set build-hook bc/mybc --post-commit --script="bundle exec rake test --verbose"

The build run policy describes the order in which the builds created from the build configuration should run. This can be done by changing the value of the runPolicy field in the spec section of the Build specification.

It is also possible to change the runPolicy value for existing build configurations.

Setting the runPolicy field to Serial will cause all new builds created from the Build configuration to be run sequentially. That means there will be only one build running at a time and every new build will wait until the previous build completes. Using this policy will result in consistent and predictable build output. This is the default runPolicy.

Triggering three builds from the sample-build configuration, using the Serial policy will result in:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Running   13 seconds ago   13s
sample-build-2   Source    Git           New
sample-build-3   Source    Git           New

When the sample-build-1 build completes, the sample-build-2 build will run:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Completed 43 seconds ago   34s
sample-build-2   Source    Git@1aa381b   Running   2 seconds ago    2s
sample-build-3   Source    Git           New

Setting the runPolicy field to SerialLatestOnly will cause all new builds created from the Build configuration to be run sequentially, same as using the Serial run policy. The difference is that when a currently running build completes, the next build that will run is the latest build created. In other words, you do not wait for the queued builds to run, as they are skipped. Skipped builds are marked as Cancelled. This policy can be used for fast, iterative development.

Triggering three builds from the sample-build configuration, using the SerialLatestOnly policy will result in:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Running   13 seconds ago   13s
sample-build-2   Source    Git           Cancelled
sample-build-3   Source    Git           New

The sample-build-2 build will be canceled (skipped) and the next build run after sample-build-1 completes will be the sample-build-3 build:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Completed 43 seconds ago   34s
sample-build-2   Source    Git           Cancelled
sample-build-3   Source    Git@1aa381b   Running   2 seconds ago    2s

Setting the runPolicy field to Parallel causes all new builds created from the Build configuration to be run in parallel. This can produce unpredictable results, as the first created build can complete last, which will replace the pushed container image produced by the last build which completed earlier.

Use the parallel run policy in cases where you do not care about the order in which the builds will complete.

Triggering three builds from the sample-build configuration, using the Parallel policy will result in three simultaneous builds:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Running   13 seconds ago   13s
sample-build-2   Source    Git@a76d881   Running   15 seconds ago   3s
sample-build-3   Source    Git@689d111   Running   17 seconds ago   3s

The completion order is not guaranteed:

NAME             TYPE      FROM          STATUS    STARTED          DURATION
sample-build-1   Source    Git@e79d887   Running   13 seconds ago   13s
sample-build-2   Source    Git@a76d881   Running   15 seconds ago   3s
sample-build-3   Source    Git@689d111   Completed 17 seconds ago   5s

By default, builds are completed by pods using unbound resources, such as memory and CPU. These resources can be limited by specifying resource limits in a project’s default container limits.

You can also limit resource use by specifying resource limits as part of the build configuration. In the following example, each of the resources, cpu, and memory parameters are optional:

apiVersion: "v1"
kind: "BuildConfig"
metadata:
  name: "sample-build"
spec:
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: "100m" 1
      memory: "256Mi" 2

However, if a quota has been defined for your project, one of the following two items is required:

Otherwise, build pod creation will fail, citing a failure to satisfy quota.

When defining a BuildConfig, you can define its maximum duration by setting the completionDeadlineSeconds field. It is specified in seconds and is not set by default. When not set, there is no maximum duration enforced.

The maximum duration is counted from the time when a build pod gets scheduled in the system, and defines how long it can be active, including the time needed to pull the builder image. After reaching the specified timeout, the build is terminated by OpenShift Container Platform.

The following example shows the part of a BuildConfig specifying completionDeadlineSeconds field for 30 minutes:

spec:
  completionDeadlineSeconds: 1800

Builds can be targeted to run on specific nodes by specifying labels in the nodeSelector field of a build configuration. The nodeSelector value is a set of key/value pairs that are matched to node labels when scheduling the build pod.

apiVersion: "v1"
kind: "BuildConfig"
metadata:
  name: "sample-build"
spec:
  nodeSelector:1
    key1: value1
    key2: value2

The nodeSelector value can also be controlled by cluster-wide default and override values. Defaults will only be applied if the build configuration does not define any key/value pairs for the nodeSelector and also does not define an explicitly empty map value of nodeSelector:{}. Override values will replace values in the build configuration on a key by key basis.

See Configuring Global Build Defaults and Overrides for more information.

For compiled languages (Go, C, C++, Java, etc.), including the dependencies necessary for compilation in the application image might increase the size of the image or introduce vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

To avoid these problems, two builds can be chained together: one that produces the compiled artifact, and a second build that places that artifact in a separate image that runs the artifact. In the following example, a Source-to-Image build is combined with a Docker build to compile an artifact that is then placed in a separate runtime image.

The first build takes the application source and produces an image containing a WAR file. The image is pushed to the artifact-image image stream. The path of the output artifact will depend on the assemble script of the Source-to-Image builder used. In this case, it will be output to /wildfly/standalone/deployments/ROOT.war.

apiVersion: v1
kind: BuildConfig
metadata:
  name: artifact-build
spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: artifact-image:latest
  source:
    git:
      uri: https://github.com/openshift/openshift-jee-sample.git
    type: Git
  strategy:
    sourceStrategy:
      from:
        kind: ImageStreamTag
        name: wildfly:10.1
        namespace: openshift
    type: Source

The second build uses Image Source with a path to the WAR file inside the output image from the first build. An inline Dockerfile copies that WAR file into a runtime image.

apiVersion: v1
kind: BuildConfig
metadata:
  name: image-build
spec:
  output:
    to:
      kind: ImageStreamTag
      name: image-build:latest
  source:
    type: Dockerfile
    dockerfile: |-
      FROM jee-runtime:latest
      COPY ROOT.war /deployments/ROOT.war
    images:
    - from: 1
        kind: ImageStreamTag
        name: artifact-image:latest
      paths: 2
      - sourcePath: /wildfly/standalone/deployments/ROOT.war
        destinationDir: "."
  strategy:
    dockerStrategy:
      from: 3
        kind: ImageStreamTag
        name: jee-runtime:latest
    type: Docker
  triggers:
  - imageChange: {}
    type: ImageChange

The result of this setup is that the output image of the second build does not need to contain any of the build tools that are needed to create the WAR file. Also, because the second build contains an image change trigger, whenever the first build is run and produces a new image with the binary artifact, the second build is automatically triggered to produce a runtime image that contains that artifact. Therefore, both builds behave as a single build with two stages.

By default, builds that have completed their lifecycle are persisted indefinitely. You can limit the number of previous builds that are retained by supplying a positive integer value for successfulBuildsHistoryLimit or failedBuildsHistoryLimit as shown in the following sample build configuration.

apiVersion: "v1"
kind: "BuildConfig"
metadata:
  name: "sample-build"
spec:
  successfulBuildsHistoryLimit: 2 1
  failedBuildsHistoryLimit: 2 2

Build pruning is triggered by the following actions:

Builds are sorted by their creation timestamp with the oldest builds being pruned first.