Gitlab webhook does not trigger a build on jenkins

Question

I've a group of multibranch pipeline jobs generated with the following piece groovy script:

[
      'repo1',
      'repo2',
].each { service ->

  multibranchPipelineJob(service) {

    displayName(service)

    branchSources {
      git {
        remote("[email protected]:whatever/${service}.git")
        credentialsId('gitlab-ssh-key')
      }
    }

    orphanedItemStrategy {
      discardOldItems {
        daysToKeep(0)
        numToKeep(30)
      }
    }

    triggers {
      periodic(5)
    }

  }
}

and in each repo a Jenkinsfile that looks as follows:

#!/usr/bin/env groovy

properties([
      gitLabConnection('[email protected]'),
      pipelineTriggers([
            [
                  $class               : 'GitLabPushTrigger',
                  triggerOnPush        : true,
                  triggerOnMergeRequest: true,
            ]
      ]),
      disableConcurrentBuilds(),
      overrideIndexTriggers(false)
])

node {

  def sbtHome = tool name: 'sbt-0.13.15', type: 'org.jvnet.hudson.plugins.SbtPluginBuilder\$SbtInstallation'

  stage('Checkout') {
    checkout scm
  }

  stage('Build') {
    sh "'${sbtHome}/bin/sbt' clean compile"
  }

  stage('Test') {
    sh "'${sbtHome}/bin/sbt' test"
  }

  if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'develop' || env.BRANCH_NAME == 'master') {
    stage('Publish') {
      sh "'${sbtHome}/bin/sbt' publish"
    }
  }
}

It all works correctly. The seeder project generates all the folders from the first script and all the branches for given repo are built correctly.

Unfortunately I've problems with triggering a build for any branch after commit + push has been made to gitlab.

I've jenkins configured correctly - I mean the gitlab plugin, there is a connection and it all works well.

I've also added a webhook on the gitlab side and it also runs correctly. After a test push is sent I receive 200 OK from jenkins and I do see in logs that scanning the branches has started and detected the changes correctly. Unfortunately the build for the changed branch does not start. Here's an extract from branch scan log:

  Checking branch ci
      ‘Jenkinsfile’ found
    Met criteria
Changes detected: ci (a7b9ae2f930b0b10d52bb42f1ecf96a68bba4a30 → 39a4c1a65051d5e90079feec14ad22455a77c58e)
Did not schedule build for branch: ci

I'm 100% sure that this not a problem with communication between my jenkins instance and gitlab account. I see the webhook being triggered after push to gitlab, I see the request being send and branch scan being run. Changes are also detected but why on earth the job isn't started? I've also read the docs thoroughly and have it all configured correctly.

Jenkins version: 2.150.3
Gitlab version: 11.8.1-ee

EDIT

It seems that after upgrading jenkins to v.2.164.1 it all started working correctly.

Answer 1

I found this very useful Setup Example (Continuous Integration with Jenkins and GitLab) . Especially the part Source Code management:

We need to specify the name as “origin”, which will be used by the other sections. For the Refspec we need to input: +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* +refs/merge-requests/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/merge-requests/*

And also:

Branch Specifier we need origin/${gitlabSourceBranch} which will be filled in based on the web hook we’ll be setting up next.

---

Edit1

You could try the following for one multibranch pipeline:

1. Select a branch, for example ci
2. Select "View Configuration"
3. Under "Build Triggers" select the checkbox "Build when a change is pushed to GitLab"
4. Make some changes to the code and push to ci

---

Edit2

I could not find a suitable git-project to run and try to reproduce this behaviour. So if someone know a similar project and could share, please comment and I could do some more testing.

For Gitlab (requested a trial key, otherwise it will be a GitLab Community Edition):

sudo docker run --detach --hostname gitlab.example.com --publish 443:443 --publish 80:80 --publish 22:22 --name gitlab --restart always --volume /srv/gitlab/config:/etc/gitlab --volume /srv/gitlab/logs:/var/log/gitlab --volume /srv/gitlab/data:/var/opt/gitlab gitlab/gitlab-ee:11.8.1-ee.0

For Jenkins:

sudo docker run  -u root  --rm  -d  -p 8080:8080  -p 50000:50000  -v jenkins-data:/var/jenkins_home  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock  jenkins/jenkins:2.150.3

Then "Integration" —> "Jenkins CI" in Gitlab as in this image:

Hope this can help you!

Answer 2

I believe you need to use includes() to specify pattern(s) identifying which branches will be included:

branchSources {
  git {
    remote("[email protected]:whatever/${service}.git")
    credentialsId('gitlab-ssh-key')
    includes('ci')
  }
}

You can specify a number of patterns, which can include wildcards. For example:

includes("master release/* feature/* bugfix/*")

There is also a corresponding excludes() for even finer-grained control.