Code Central has been a huge help in distributing coverage numbers throughout the enterprise; a welcome change to shipping around xml data and reports for most customers. The one issue that has hindered Code Central out of the box is the complication of requiring an installation of Collector on any Code Central server which is also a coverage box. The common scenario here is when Code Central is installed on a CI server and build and testing is all in one place. Most customers in this scenario will need to both collect coverage and serve data analysis from the same machine.
Version 4.1 is targeted at simplifying this issue. The change is welcome, but not entirely without its potential gotchas. Previously Code Central by default installed an executable named “ncover.codecentral.exe” and its service name was “ncovercodecentral”. Additionally the default port for http browsing to the server was 11233. By enhancing Code Central to include a profiler we have unified the exe’s for all products in the NCover suite to a single executable “ncover.exe”. The service name now also being “ncover” for all 3 platforms (Desktop, Collector, and Code Central) as well, and the default port for all 3 platforms is 11235.
With all of this symmetry something had to change. This change requires that each machine host only one variety of the NCover service host. The primary impact of this change is that servers currently having Code Central and Collector installed together will need to first uninstall Collector before Code Central can be upgraded to version 4.1.
What are the benefits of such a change?
1) It’s now possible to easily set up a Code Central installation on your CI server without the complication of creating user accounts and setting up a connection for a separate Collector agent to locally collect coverage.
2) Sharing the ncover.exe command line allows all three products to have interchangeable command lines. Upgrading a server from Collector to Desktop to Code Central requires no change in build scripting. The commands are now identical.
3) Identical service names also make it possible to script server behavior and reuse that scripting regardless of the installed variant of NCover. The following commands now work identically on Collector, Desktop, and Code Central.
- net stop ncover
- net start ncover
While this type of change can be disruptive because of the manual intervention for the changeover, we know that ultimately this simplifies implementation for all customers. Reducing the steps for startup and increasing the compatibility of commands across multiple platforms makes all of our lives just a little simpler.
If you have any questions about the latest release of NCover or need further assistance in upgrading your servers, just let us know.
Contact NCover support: http://ncover.com/support/home
Or email us: support@ncover.com