How-to: Schedule an operation at an agent

Overview

This example illustrates how the agent plugin can be used to schedule the execution of an operation at a remote Pineapple agent.

Define the module

Pineapple's unit of work is modules. A module is a self contained unit which can contain models, scripts and binaries. Models serves to specify test cases, deployment of applications, configuration of devices or execution of scripts.

The default directory for modules is ${user.home}/.pineapple/modules so we will create a module named agent-schedule-module there. The module for this example will end up with the structure:

agent-schedule-module
 |
 +--- models     
       +--- local.xml

Define the module model

The model file for the scheduled execution of the module infrastructure-test-004-pineapple-web-client-returns-http-200:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<mmd:models xmlns:mmd="http://pineapple.dev.java.net/ns/module_model_1_0"       
    xmlns:pap="http://pineapple.dev.java.net/ns/plugin/agent_1_0" >
    <mmd:model target-resource="agent-node1">
        <mmd:content>
            <pap:agent>
               <pap:schedule-operation name="myjob" module="infrastructure-test-004-pineapple-web-client-returns-http-200" environment="local" operation="test" scheduling-expression="0 * * * * *" description="Test Pineapple is running, executed hourly."/>
            </pap:agent>                        
        </mmd:content>
    </mmd:model>
</mmd:models>

The configuration details

Two schema are used in the model file. The http://pineapple.dev.java.net/ns/module_model_1_0 is used to define the namespace mmd which defines the general infrastructure for models. The http://pineapple.dev.java.net/ns/plugin/agent_1_0 schema is used to define the namespace pap which is used to define the model for the agent plugin. Since multiple schemas are used to define the model file, the elements are qualified.

The target-resource attribute defines a reference to the resource which is targeted when the model executed. In this case, the value agent-node1 is a reference to a resource which defines a Pineapple agent.

The pap:agent element defines the root of model for the agent plugin. The pap:schedule-operation element defines command to execute the module at the remote Pineapple agent:

  • The name attribute defines the name of scheduling job. Must be unique.
  • The module attribute defines the name of the module at the agent scheduled for execution.
  • The environment attribute defines the name of the target environment, e.g. the model which is used for the operation.
  • The operation attribute defines the operation which is invoked periodically.
  • The scheduling-expression attribute defines the scheduling expression using Cron syntax to defined the frequency of the module execution.
  • The description attribute defines the a human readable discription of the scheduled operation.

Invoke Pineapple to execute model

Start your Pineapple client of choice:

  • Select the module named agent-schedule-module
  • Select the local model.
  • Invoke any operation to execute the operation at the agent.