104 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
104 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
# Introduction to build artifacts
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>**Notes:**
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>- Since GitLab 8.2 and GitLab Runner 0.7.0, build artifacts that are created by
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GitLab Runner are uploaded to GitLab and are downloadable as a single archive
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(`tar.gz`) using the GitLab UI.
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>- Starting from GitLab 8.4 and GitLab Runner 1.0, the artifacts archive format
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changed to `ZIP`, and it is now possible to browse its contents, with the added
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ability of downloading the files separately.
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>- The artifacts browser will be available only for new artifacts that are sent
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to GitLab using GitLab Runner version 1.0 and up. It will not be possible to
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browse old artifacts already uploaded to GitLab.
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>- This is the user documentation. For the administration guide see
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[administration/build_artifacts.md](../../../administration/build_artifacts.md).
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Artifacts is a list of files and directories which are attached to a build
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after it completes successfully. This feature is enabled by default in all GitLab installations.
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## Defining artifacts in `.gitlab-ci.yml`
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A simple example of using the artifacts definition in `.gitlab-ci.yml` would be
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the following:
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```yaml
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pdf:
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script: xelatex mycv.tex
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artifacts:
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paths:
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- mycv.pdf
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```
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A job named `pdf` calls the `xelatex` command in order to build a pdf file from
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the latex source file `mycv.tex`. We then define the `artifacts` paths which in
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turn are defined with the `paths` keyword. All paths to files and directories
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are relative to the repository that was cloned during the build.
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For more examples on artifacts, follow the artifacts reference in
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[`.gitlab-ci.yml` documentation](../../../ci/yaml/README.md#artifacts).
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## Browsing build artifacts
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When GitLab receives an artifacts archive, an archive metadata file is also
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generated. This metadata file describes all the entries that are located in the
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artifacts archive itself. The metadata file is in a binary format, with
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additional GZIP compression.
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GitLab does not extract the artifacts archive in order to save space, memory
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and disk I/O. It instead inspects the metadata file which contains all the
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relevant information. This is especially important when there is a lot of
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artifacts, or an archive is a very large file.
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---
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After a build finishes, if you visit the build's specific page, you can see
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that there are two buttons. One is for downloading the artifacts archive and
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the other for browsing its contents.
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---
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The archive browser shows the name and the actual file size of each file in the
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archive. If your artifacts contained directories, then you are also able to
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browse inside them.
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Below you can see how browsing looks like. In this case we have browsed inside
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the archive and at this point there is one directory and one HTML file.
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---
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## Downloading build artifacts
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>**Note:**
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GitLab does not extract the entire artifacts archive to send just a single file
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to the user. When clicking on a specific file, [GitLab Workhorse] extracts it
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from the archive and the download begins. This implementation saves space,
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memory and disk I/O.
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If you need to download the whole archive, there are buttons in various places
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inside GitLab that make that possible.
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1. While on the pipelines page, you can see the download icon for each build's
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artifacts archive in the right corner:
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1. While on the builds page, you can see the download icon for each build's
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artifacts archive in the right corner:
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1. While inside a specific build, you are presented with a download button
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along with the one that browses the archive:
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1. And finally, when browsing an archive you can see the download button at
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the top right corner:
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[gitlab workhorse]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-workhorse "GitLab Workhorse repository"
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