Jenkins multiconfiguration project handle concurrent device usage

Question

Case

I have a Jenkins slave witch run's calabash tests on mobile devices (android, ios). To separate on which machines (the mac for iOS or Linux for Android) the tests is run, I also use the Throttle Concurrent Builds Plug-in. This way I separate between the Android or Mac Jenkins slaves the devices are hooked to.

I use a mapping table and a self written bash script to call a device by name and execute a test on this specific slave. The mapping table map's the name to the device id (or IP for iOS).

The architecture is as follows:

[Master]--(Slave-iOS)---------iPhone6
 |             |--------------iPhone5
 |            
 |--------(Slave-Android)-----HTCOne
               |--------------Nexus
               |--------------G4

To hand over the device to the bash script I use the Jenkins Matrix Project Plugin, which lets me create a list of devices and test cases like:

          HTCOne Nexus G4
Run         x     x     x
Delete      x     x     x
CreateUser  x     x     x

Sadly this list can only be executed sequentially. Now I also want to build tests on multiple devices in parallel and cross vice versa.

Question

I search for a Jenkins plugin which handles devices allocation. If one trigger needs a specific device it should wait until this one is accessible and the test can be executed. The plugin should integrate with the shell execution in Jenkins.

A big plus would be, if it can be combined with the Matrix Project Plugin!

What I looked into so far:

• Exclusion-Plugin,
• Throttle Concurrent Builds Plug-in, [used to specifiy the slave]
• Locks and Latches plugin, For all the listed ones so far, I don't know how to link them to the matrix configuration and get a device dynamically. I also don't know how to get the locked resource information into my script.
• Port Allocator Plugin, not tested but seems to have the same problem
• External Resource Dispatcher, seem to allocate only one resource and is not finding anything if it is a matrix configuration.

Related questions I found, which helped but didn't solved the problem:

• How to prevent certain Jenkins jobs from running simultaneously?
• Jenkins: group jobs and limit build processors for this group
• Jenkins to not allow the same job to run concurrently on the same node?
• How do I ensure that only one of a certain category of job runs at once in Hudson?
• Disable Jenkins Job from Another Job

Answer 1

If Throttle Concurrent Builds Plugin doesn't work as required in your multi-configuration project, try Exclusion Plugin with a dynamic resource name, like: SEMAPHORE_MATRIX_${NODE_NAME}

Then add a Build step "Critical block start" (and an optional "Critical block end" step), which will hold this build block execution until SEMAPHORE_MATRIX_${NODE_NAME} is not in use on any other job, including the current Matrix child jobs.

(... Build steps to be run only when SEMAPHORE_MATRIX_${NODE_NAME} is available ...)