In this tutorial series we will explore a rarely discussed (but highly valuable) process of developing software that is disappointingly absent in the iOS and mobile world: Continuous Integration.
Where We Left Off
In part 1 we introduced Continuous Integration as a way to improve the software development process and reduce the time we spend integrating code, building and signing our apps and distributing them for use.
Introducing Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat (or just Tomcat) is an open source web server that supports Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages. Tomcat is required because our CI software of choice (Hudson) is written in Java and needs a web server to run on. As you will soon find out, Tomcat is relatively easy to set up but configuring it for proper use can be a little tricky. We’ll go through it step by step.
Step 1: Check System Requirements
Please check your system meets the following software requirements:
- OSX Snow Leopard or Higher
- Xcode 4.0 or higher
- Java 1.6 or higher
To check what version of Java you have installed, open a terminal window and enter:
java -version
If you have Snow Leopard installed, this should be fine. If you are running Lion, you might not have Java installed. If it needs to be installed go to http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421 and follow the instructions install the latest version.
Step 2: Download Tomcat
Navigate to http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi and download the ‘tar.gz’ in the ‘Core’ section in Binary Distributions. Go to your downloads folder, unarchive the download and then rename the folder to something a bit more human readable. I’m going to call mine “tomcat”.