Oracle's Visual Builder Studio includes the ability to create automated "Build Jobs" that are executed in a defined order called a Pipeline.
Build Jobs are executed inside of a "Build Executor". A build executor is a "virtual machine" that contains the software needed by the build job. For example, if you are going to use Git in the job, the build executor will need to have Git installed. Fortunately, Visual Builder Studio provides a large selection of software for you to use in your build executors.
If you need software that isn't in the standard list, you can create your own custom executor from a Docker image. If you're not familiar with Docker, you may want to read through the Get Started docs before proceeding. For those who would rather watch a video, Shay has one here.
Docker Image
There are many Docker registries online. If you can find a Docker image that contains all of the tools you need in the build job, that's great, if not you'll need to create one.
In this example the new image will be built from Oracle Linux 8 and will have 'software-I-really-need' installed.
The Dockerfile looks like this.
FROM oraclelinux:8.6 RUN dnf install software-I-really-need -y
Build the image and push it to your favorite registry.
If you prefer to keep your Docker images private, you can use the Container Registry included in your Oracle Cloud account.
docker build . -t your_favorite_registry.com/your_account/your_new_executor:latest docker push your_favorite_registry.com/your_account/your_new_executor:latest
If you wanted to have a little extra fun, you could automate this step by setting up a Visual Builder Studio pipeline to build and push your docker image from a Git repository. But, that's a topic for another day.
Create Executor
Before you start this section make sure your Visual Builder Studio is setup to Run Builds on Docker Executors.
Once you've found or created an image, you can create an executor from it. If you don't have the required permissions, you won't see this area and you will need to have your administrator create the executor for you.
- Open Visual Builder Studio and switch to the Organization section.
- Open the Build Executors Tab.
- Click Create Image.
- Select Create Image from Registry.
Most of the information you need is contained in the image tag you created above. 'your_favorite_registry.com/your_account/your_new_executor:latest'
- A name is required. This can be whatever makes sense for your project. It doesn't need to match the image name.
- If the image you want is on docker.io, you can leave the Registry Host blank. Otherwise enter the URL for your registry: your_favorite_registry.com.
- Enter your credentials if required.
- Enter the image Name: your_account/your_new_executor.
- Enter the Version Tag: latest.
- Click Add.
Once the status is "Ready", you can go create build jobs using your new executor.
If you need to change your image you don't need to delete and replace the old one. Follow the steps above before "Create Executor" then open the Actions for your executor and click Recreate Image.
You can find more information about Visual Builder Studio Build Exectors in the docs.