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Version: Deploy 22.2

Use a delegate in a control task

In Deploy, you can define control tasks and use them to execute actions from the Deploy GUI or CLI.

To create a custom control task, you can use a delegate. Deploy includes a predefined delegate called JythonDelegate that accepts a Jython script that it will execute.

This topic describes how to use JythonDelegate to create a custom control task that prints all environment variables on the host.

Define a control task​

Define a control task in the XL_DEPLOY_SERVER_HOME/ext/synthetic.xml file. This example adds a method to overthere.LocalHost using a type modification. The method tag defines a control task named showEnvironmentVariables. The delegate parameter defines the type of delegate and the script parameter defines the Python script that will perform the action.

<type-modification type="overthere.LocalHost">
    <method name="ShowEnvironmentVariables"
            description="Show environment variables"
            delegate="jythonScript"
            script="scripts/env.py">
    </method>
</type-modification>

Create a Jython script​

This is an example of a Jython script that prints the environment variables that are available on a host:

import os

for env in os.environ:
    print("{0}={1}".format(env, os.environ[env]))

After defining the control task and creating the script, restart the Deploy server.

Run the control task​

In Deploy, go to the Explorer, hover over an overthere.LocalHost configuration item (CI), and click Menu button. You can see the new control task in the menu.

showEnvironmentVariables control task in menu

Click ShowEnvironmentVariables to see the steps of the control task. After it executes, it returns the environment variables on the host.

showEnvironmentVariables control task steps

Define a control task with parameters​

The showEnvironmentVariables control task defined above prints all environment variables on a host. If you want to limit the control task results, define a method parameter that will be passed to the Jython script.

Update the control task​

Change the definition in XL_DEPLOY_SERVER_HOME/ext/synthetic.xml:

<type-modification type="overthere.LocalHost">
    <method name="ShowEnvironmentVariables" description="Show environment variables" delegate="jythonScript" script="scripts/env.py">
        <parameters>
            <parameter name="limit" kind="integer" description="number of environment variables to expect" default="-1"/>
        </parameters>
    </method>
</type-modification>

This defines a parameter called limit of type integer. The default value of -1 means that all environment variables will be listed.

Update the Jython script​

The Jython script can access the method parameter using the params object. This is an implicit object that is available to the Jython script that stores all method parameters. Other implicit objects that are available to the script:

  • args: a dictionary that contains arguments passed to the script.
  • thisCi: refers to the configuration item on which the control action is defined.
import os

print("Environment variables on the host with name {0}".format(thisCi.name))

limit = params["limit"]
env_var_keys = []
if limit == -1:
    env_var_keys = os.environ.keys()
else:
    env_var_keys = os.environ.keys()[:limit]

for env in env_var_keys:
    print("{0}={1}".format(env, os.environ[env]))

Run the control task​

After restarting the Deploy server and selecting the ShowEnvironmentVariables, you can provide a limit for the control task results.

showEnvironmentVariables control task with limit parameter