An Artifact Repository is akin to what Subversion is to source code, i.e. it is a way of versioning artifacts produced by build systems, CI, and so on. [1]
Since many developers check their source code into the GIT repository it may seem natural to just place the files you've built into the repo too. This can work okay for a single developer working on a project over the weekends but with a team working on many components that need to be tested and integrated, this won't scale.
The way git works, no revision of any file is ever lost. So if you ever check in a big file, the repository will always contain it, and a git clone will be that much slower for every clone from that point onward.
The golden rule of revision control systems applies: check in your build scripts, not your build products.
Unfortunately, it only takes one person to start doing this and we end up with huge repositories. Please don't do this. It will make your computers sad. Thankfully, Gerrit and code review systems are a massive disincentive to doing this.
You definitely need to avoid storing binary images in git. This is what artifact repositories are for. [2]
A “centralized image repository” is needed that can store multiple versions of various virtual machines and have something like /latest pointing to the newest uploaded image. It could be a simple nginx server that stores the output images from any jenkins job if it's successful, for instance.
Setting up, hosting, and operating an artifact repository on OPNFV Infrastructure in Linux Foundation (LF) environment requires too much storage space. It is also not a straightforward undertaking to have robust Artifact Repository and provide 24/7 support.
OPNFV Project decided to use Google Cloud Storage as OPNFV Artifact Repository due to reasons summarized above. [3]
Binaries/packages that are produced by OPNFV Continuous Integration (CI) are deployed/uploaded to Artifact Repository making it possible to reuse artifacts during later stages of OPNFV CI. Stored artifacts can be consumed by individual developers/organizations as well.
In OPNFV, we generally produce PDF, ISO and store them on OPNFV Artifact Repository.
OPNFV Artifact Repository is accessible via link http://artifacts.opnfv.org/.
A proxy has been set up by LF for the community members located in countries with access restrictions to Google http://build.opnfv.org/artifacts/.
As summarized in previous sections, OPNFV uses Google Cloud Storage as Artifact Repository. By default, everyone has read access to it and artifacts can be fetched/downloaded using browser, a curl-like command line HTTP client, or gsutil.
Write access to Artifact Repository is given per request basis and all the requests must go through LF Helpdesk with an explanation regarding the purpose of write access. Once you are given write access, you can read corresponding section to store artifacts on OPNFV Artifact Repository.
There are 3 basic scenarios to use OPNFV Artifact repository.
Please see corresponding sections regarding how to do these.
You can browse stored artifacts using
Web Browser: By navigating to the address OPNFV Artifact Storage.
curl -o <output_filename> http://artifacts.opnfv.org
Example:
curl -o opnfv-artifact-repo.html http://artifacts.opnfv.org
gsutil ls gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/<path_to_bucket>
Example:
gsutil ls gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/octopus
You can download stored artifacts using
Web Browser: By navigating to the address OPNFV Artifact Storage and clicking the link of the artifact you want to download.
curl -o <output_filename> http://artifacts.opnfv.org/<path/to/artifact>
Example:
curl -o main.pdf http://artifacts.opnfv.org/octopus/docs/release/main.pdf
gsutil cp gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/<path/to/artifact> <output_filename>
Example:
gsutil cp gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/octopus/docs/release/main.pdf main.pdf
As explained in previous sections, you need to get write access for OPNFV Artifact Repository in order to upload artifacts.
Apart from write access, you also need to have Google account and have the Google Cloud Storage utility, gsutil, installed on your computer.
Please follow steps listed below.
Install gsutil
Please follow steps listed on this link to install gsutil to your computer.
Configure gsutil
Issue below command and follow the instructions. You will be asked for the project-id. The project-id is linux-foundation-collab.
gsutil config
Request write access for OPNFV Artifact Repository
Send an email to LF Helpdesk and list the reasons for the request. Do not forget to include gmail mail address.
Once you installed and configured gsutil and got write access from LF Helpdesk, you should be able to upload artifacts to OPNFV Artifact Repository.
The command to upload artifacts is
gsutil cp <file_to_upload> gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/<path/to/bucket>
Example:
gsutil cp README gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/octopus
Once the upload operation is completed, you can do the listing and check to see if the artifact is where it is expected to be.
gsutil ls gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/<path/to/bucket>
Example:
gsutil ls gs://artifacts.opnfv.org/octopus
Send an email to LF Helpdesk or join the channel #opnfv-octopus on IRC.
Documentation tracking
Revision: cb1a0dcdf901f081d16acab7a6e8198637b6e37b
Build date: Thu Oct 8 11:41:33 UTC 2015