Using RVM with Jenkins

I’ve recently set up RVM running with Jenkins, and finally have it all working just the way I want.

I’m running on OpenIndiana and have Jenkins running as its own user. I ssh in as that user and install rvm for that user and verified that I can run ruby tests with rvm from the terminal.

There’s a “RVM plugin” (version 0.1) for Jenkins which has great promise – I like the idea of running all build steps with RVM setup. However, I couldn’t get it to find my rvm installation no matter how much stuffing around with environment variables I did. So I’m not using it for now.

The trick was to use a “Execute shell” build step and use a script like so:

#!/bin/bash -e
export TERM=xterm
[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"
# Use the correct ruby
rvm use 1.9.2@gemset --create
# Do any setup
# e.g. possibly do 'rake db:migrate db:test:prepare' here
bundle install
# Finally, run your tests
rake test
# and build the gem
rake build
# and install the gem locally
rake install

This was for a ruby gem project which installs that gem in the named rvm gemset. Other projects can use this gem simply by using that same gemset.

Note also the line: “export TERM=xterm” – rvm is designed to run in a terminal where the TERM environment variable is set. Apparently there was a change to gracefully ignore its absence or be able to use TERM=dumb for no colour, (github issue 698), but that doesn’t appear to be working for me in rvm 1.10.2.

Good luck.

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