Compass Version1.2

Windows Installation Guide

Compass comes with two executable programs.  The Compass Manager and the Compass Client Driver.  The Compass Manager controls when the Compass Server is running and which machines act as build clients.  In many cases, there is only one machine that is both the Compass Manager and a single Compass Client Driver.  Compass must be installed on the computer that will be used as the Compass server and on each computer that will be used as a build client.  The installation is the same for both the server and the build clients.  After downloading Compass_Setup.exe, simply run it on each computer that Compass will be used on and follow the instructions for each step in the installation.  

The Compass installation will ask to install Python 2.6 and PyWin32.  If these have already been installed then this step can be skipped.

Once the installation has completed.  Both Compass Manager and  Compass Client Driver will have been installed.  To start the Compass server, go to the start menu and run Compass Manager.  This will start the Compass Manager and put an icon in your windows task trey that looks like this:

Right click on the Compass Manager icon and select settings; this will bring up the following dialog:

Check the box for 'Run server on startup' if you want the Compass Server to start when the Compass Manager application is launched.  Also, if you have more than one python installation, make sure the correct version is selected here.  Finally, the Compass master config file is specified here.  For most installations the defaults in this file can be left unmodified.  If you do require changes to this file or for more information about it please refer to the help Compass Config file documentation page. 

Click 'OK'.  Now, right click on the Compass Manager icon in the task trey again and the click 'Start Compass Server'  

Now, the Compass server is started and is running on localhost.  Open a web browser and navigate to 'http://localhost'  You should see a page that looks like this:

 To complete the Compass Server installation enter an administrator username and password and click the 'Install Server' Button.   Once you click this button you will be taken to the Server Administration page.  The rest of the Compass Server setup is all platform independent.  You can continue the quick setup in the next chapter of the documentation or read the full Compass Documentation for advanced topics. 

Before any builds can execute on any platform however, there is one more platform dependent problem.  We need to set up build clients on each platform that we want to Compass to be able to perform builds on.  Here, we cover the Windows setup of a build client.

Set Up a Windows Build Client

Now that the Compass Server is all set up, with a build plan, ready to start building; it needs a build client to execute the build plan.

The most common Compass configuration is to have a single build client on the same machine as the Compass Manager and Compass Server.  To set this up simply start the Compass Client Driver from the start menu.  This will put a second icon in your task trey that looks like this:

 Right clicking on this icon gives you a menu to control the Compass build client on this machine.  On this menu, the first thing we need to do is change the settings.  Click the settings option and bring up the following dialog:

We need to first give our build client a name, this must be unique and a name is auto-generated but most users prefer to put their name or the name of their machine.  Next make sure that the python location is correct; also make sure that the full path to the client config file is specified.  Additional settings for how the client behaves can be added to this config file; for more details on that see the config file documentation page.  

The last setting we must enter is the address of the Compass Manager.  If this Client Driver is on the same computer as the the Compass Manager then enter 127.0.0.1 or else enter the IP address of the Compass Manager computer.  Due to windows socket limitations this must be an IP address.  

Once we have all the settings correct, click OK.  Now right click on the Client Driver icon again and this time select 'Connect to Manager'.  Once you have connected you can start the build client by clicking on 'Start Build Client' either in the Compass Manager or in the Client Driver menus.  

Finally, to test that the client is correctly started and connected, open a web browser and log in to the Compass web page.   Click on the Build Monitor icon on the top menu and you should see a build client called windows-1:

And now compass is completely set up and ready to go. Builds will start at their next scheduled time or with the next repository change. 

Many more advanced features of Compass are covered in other documentation pages on the Anx Labs partner site.  For questions and comments please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it