Staging Repository Merge

Title : Add support for temporary repositories used for staging for Archiva
Student: Eshan Sudharaka

Abstract:
Creating a repository where the users can deploy their artifacts and once the testing tasks are completed user can deploy the artifact to the common place where the we can use those artifacts as dependencies in pom files or remove the artifact from the temporary repository if it fails during the testing phase.
Content:

Proposal Title:Student Name:Student E-mail:

Proposal Title : Add support for temporary repositories used for staging for Archiva

Student name : Patti Archchige Eshan Sudharaka

E-mail : esudharaka@gmail.com

IRC : irc://irc.codehaus.org/archiva

Organization/Project:Assigned Mentor:

Organization Name : Apache Software Foundation

Project : Apache Archiva

Assigned Mentor : Maria Odea Ching

Proposal Abstract:

Apache archiva is a repository management system where we can deploy our artifacts to a common location and later on we can make use those artifacts (jar files) in our projects by adding the artifacts as dependencies in the POM file.But here there is no any separate place to deploy the artifacts which are not tested yet and also the artifacts of an ongoing project(modules).So we need to deploy them in to the common location where the official artifacts are deployed.So there can be some issues due to use of those artifacts as dependencies in our projects since they are not properly tested.

So here my idea is to create a separate place (repositories) where the registered user can deploy the staging artifacts.Those artifacts are not visible to common users.Once the testing task is completed(ready for the public deployment) we can either merge in to the common place where others can make use of those artifacts or remove from the staging artifact(if it fails).

Detailed Description:

First i would like to give a brief introduction about my approach to adding the staging repository feature.

• Adding a Staging Repository

currently archiva comes with two default permanent repositories.Those are internal repository and the snapshots repository.My idea is to add another default repository called staging repository where the developers can deploy their ongoing(which have not being tested yet) .It is the admins task to grant access to the repository to users.Also no one(archiva artifacts users) is allowed to use this repository as in the pom files as mentioned in following.

<pluginRepository>
<id>internal</id>
<url>http://192.168.0.7:8080/archiva/repository/staging/</url>
</pluginRepository>

So the visibility of the repository should be only with in the archiva registererd users.

• Creating Roles for this staging repository

1) Read and Write access to the repository

Here registered users can read and write artifacts to the repository. Here registered users mean developers and the QA people.Developers have both read and write access where the QA people have only the read access.

2) Promotion the Artifacts(merging to the common place)

This is the most important part in this project.Once the testing tasks are done this role is responsible for merge artifacts from staging repository to the internal repository or the snapshot repository.It depends on the artifact(snapshot or a version).Here i am going to consider following things regarding the merging the artifacts

• If the artifacts that are going to deploy is not an existing one(new one) just deploy it with creating new meta data file.

• If the artifact is a new version of an existing artifact in the internal repository and then deploy the artifact and also update the meta data file.(exsisting one)

eg : lets say version 1.0 is available in internal repo and i need to deploy version 1.1 to the internal repository form the staging repository.

• There is another possibility in merging an artifact.Lets say in internal repository we have version 1.1.x and we need to merge version 1.1.y(new one) to the internal repository from the staging repository.Here i propose to have following functions.

1). Remove older one and deploy the latest version.(with updating meta data files)

2). Deploy the latest version while keeping the older version.(with updating the meta data files)

Here i am going to use archiva audit logs to determine what is the suitable option to follow and provide above functionalities to the user.Also additional logs should be implemented for the staging repository.

Time Line :

May 24- June 6 : adding a default staging repository and assign the all permissoin configurations of that repository to the admin user

June 7 - June 12 : restricted this staging repository from being using as a plugging repository from out user as mentioned in above in the pom.xml files

June 13 - June 28 : implementing the read action and the write actions and assign them to the developer(role)and the QA person(role) as mentioned in above.

June 29 -Jul 1 : Testing the roles(developer) with the staging repository.

July 2 - July 10 : implementing the promotion role.(only the merging based on the assumption that new artifact is being deployed.Not a update version)

July 11 - July 20 : implement the logs and make use them for the searching algorithm to check the older versions of the artifacts which have already deployed.

July 12-Submit midterm evaluation

July 21- July 30 : add searching feature(action) to the promotion role and do the merging part by providing the options regarding the version as mentioned above.

July 31 - Auguest 5 : implementing logs for staging repository

Auguest 6 - Auguest 10 : testing phase

August 10-August 16 : Publish results and conclusion.

About me :

I am Eshan Sudharaka.(Patti Arachchige Eshan Sudharaka) and currently a thrid year undergraduate of department of computer science and engineering at university of moratuwa.Now i am under my intern period at hsenid mobile solutions pvt.There we use archiva as internal repository and also we are using lot of apache product such as maven , ant.It is a plesure to join with the open source community and wish to have a long jorney.