An overview of binary artifacts and repository managers

Here is the design overview of integrating TeamForge, a full ALM suite with binary repository managers.

An important aspect of the end-to-end development lifecycle is the creation and storage of software packages that are often binary artifacts. In the Java world, these are usually reusable jars that are used by other projects. Binary artifact repository managers are software systems that manage, version, and store binary artifacts. Examples of such repository managers are JFrog, Artifactory, and Sonatype Nexus.

What is a binary artifact repository?

A binary artifact repository stores binary artifacts along with the metadata in a defined directory structure, conceptually similar to a source code repository. The metadata describes the binary software artifact and includes information such as dependencies, versioning, and build promotions. Maven is the widely used tool for dependency management, especially for Java projects. Maven represents dependencies in an XML file called Project Object Model (POM). Other tools can use similar approaches to store documentation archives, source archives, Flash libraries and applications, and Ruby libraries.

How does a binary artifact repository manager help?

Some of the advantages of using a binary artifact repository manager are:

  • Dependency management: Nexus can act as a Maven repository. Maven is a widely used Java dependency management and build tool.
  • Efficient builds: With the help of a binary artifact repository manager, you can save the download time from public repositories as the artifacts once downloaded are cached locally.
  • Predictability and release stability: Once published onto a release repository, the binary artifact and metadata do not change. It ensures predictable and repeatable builds.
  • Control and audit: If you want to standardize libraries that are used in your software, the binary artifact repository helps track the versions of your software components. Also it enables you to audit the licenses of your third-party components used in your software.
  • Promotes collaboration: The binary artifact repository enables you to share components with other teams.

How to integrate Nexus with TeamForge?

TeamForge supports integration with Nexus in both the ALM and SCM modes. For the Nexus and Nexus professional versions 2.9, 2.10, and 2.11, the Nexus integration has been tested by CollabNet.

Perform the following to integrate Nexus with TeamForge:
  1. Download and install Nexus OSS if you do not have a Nexus instance running.
  2. Install the CollabNet Nexus Plugin.
  3. Change your build system and use the CollabNet supplied Maven deploy plugin for end-to-end traceability.
  4. Setup TeamForge Orchestrate pipelines to provide your teams with end-to-end visibility from requirements to source code all the way to deployed binary artifacts.

Installing CollabNet Nexus plugin

You need to have the following information handy before you start off with the installation:

You must have a nexus instance running for the integration. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of the plugin, ensure that the old plugin is completely removed from the directory and the new plugin is unzipped on the same directory before you restart the Nexus instance.

Installation: To have the nexus instance available for your TeamForge projects' use, perform the following steps:

Important: TeamForge-Nexus integration is possible on RHEL/CentOS platforms only. It's not supported in SUSE. See Software requirements for CollabNet TeamForge 8.0.
  1. Download the CTF-Nexus-Integration-Plugin-2.0.zip file.
  2. Unzip the bundle into the plugin repository folder of your running Nexus’s working directory (sonatype-work).
  3. Change directory into CTF-Nexus-Integration-Plugin-2.0/util folder.
  4. Run java -jar installer.jar -e.
  5. Restart Nexus as instructed by the installer.
  6. Run java -jar installer.jar -i.

Accessing Nexus through TeamForge: You have to introduce a TeamForge project context in Nexus and allow authentication to use TeamForge credentials for logging into Nexus directly. Accessing Nexus through the TeamForge project toolbar provides you with Single Sign-on (SSO). It logs you into Nexus automatically with the project context. You can allow RBAC using TeamForge roles.

Authentication policies

Your site administrator can enable the integration with the following two authentication mechanisms:

In both the cases, you can use your TeamForge credentials to log on to Nexus. If your Site Administrator has used the default setup, you can use your pre-existing Nexus credentials.

Roles and permissions

Following are the two administrative privileges in Nexus:

For all the other users, privileges are based on the TeamForge RBAC setup.
Parent topic: Manage binaries