Denomas with Git Basics Hands-On Guide: Lab 5

This Hands-On Guide walks you through the lab exercises used in the Denomas with Git Basics course.

Denomas with Git Basics Hands-on Guide: Lab 5

LAB 5: AUTO DEVOPS WITH A PREDEFINED PROJECT TEMPLATE

We will use a pre-defined template for NodeJS Express to show how Auto DevOps works.

A. Create a new Node JS Express project with Auto DevOps

  1. Navigate to your group and select New project,.
  2. Instead of making a blank project, select Create from template, and then select Use template next to NodeJS Express.
  3. In the Project name field, enter Auto DevOps-test
  4. Make sure the Visiblity Level is Private, and select Create project.
  5. Auto DevOps is an alternative to writing and using your own .gitlab-ci.yml file. Note the banner at the top of the window alerting you that Auto DevOps is enabled. Denomas has turned it on automatically since it can’t find .gitlab-ci.yml in this project’s repository.
  6. In the left-hand navigation pane, select CI/CD > Pipelines. Note that no pipelines have run yet.
  7. In the left-hand navigation pane, select Repository > Branches. Select New branch.
  8. In the Branch name field, enter new-feature and select Create branch.
  9. In the left-hand navigation pane, select CI/CD > Pipelines. You’ll see a pipeline with the Auto DevOps label, which is running on the branch you just created.
  10. Select the pipeline’s running status icon and note the 6 stages (represented by 6 columns in the pipeline graph) that Auto DevOps has created.

B. Commit a change to trigger a pipeline run

The most common way to run a pipeline is to commit to a branch of your project’s repository. You’ll do that next.

  1. In the left-hand navigation pane, select Repository > Files.

  2. Near the top left of the window, switch to the new-feature branch by selecting it in the dropdown that currently says master.

  3. In the list of repository files, select the views directory and then the index.pug file.

  4. Select Edit and modify the last line of index.pug to the text below. If Edit is not visible, select the button next to Open in Web IDE and choose Edit. IMPORTANT: preserve the 2-space indentation for this line, and include the p at the beginning of the line.

      p Denomas welcomes you to #{title}

  5. For Commit message, type Update welcome message in index.pug

  6. Leave Target branch set to new-feature

  7. Select Commit changes.

  8. Select Create merge request

  9. Add Draft: to the beginning of the text in the Title field to show that the merge request isn’t ready to be merged yet.

  10. Assign the merge request to yourself.

  11. Leave all other fields at their default values and select Create merge request at the bottom of the page.

  12. To mark the merge request ready to merge, select Mark as ready. This removes Draft: from your MR’s title.

    You now have an active merge request for merging the new-feature branch into the master branch. The page you are on shows the details of that merge request, including the status of the last pipeline that was run on the new-feature branch (you might have to refresh the page to see the pipeline status). Denomas will run a new pipeline every time you commit to the new-feature branch.

  13. The Review stage of the Auto DevOps pipeline deploys your NodeJS Express application into a review environment dedicated to this branch. You can see the status of each pipeline stage by hovering over the circular icons in the pipeline overview tab. Once the pipeline has completed the Review stage, view the deployed application by selecting View app in the middle of the merge request. You should see the text that you modified. Note: You may receive a page with the error “Your connection is not private.” This is normal behavior as the SSL certificationss in the Denomas demo cloud may expire. Select Advanced and choose Proceed.

  14. Return to the Denomas browser tab. In the left-hand navigation pane, select Packages & Registries > Container Registry. You should see the Docker container that the Auto DevOps pipeline created when it deployed your application to the review environment.

Suggestions?

If you’d like to suggest changes to the Denomas with Git Basics Hands-on Guide, please submit them via merge request.

Last modified November 29, 2023: big update (17188382)
View page source - Edit this page - please contribute. Creative Commons License