October is the month of Atlassian Bitbucket. We have the brand new Bitbucket 7.16 update coming out along with some monthly treatment for the usual suspects.

TL;DR:

This is ROOT’s October in a nutshell:

  • Bitbucket is updated to version 7.16.0
  • GitLab elevates to release 14.3
  • Jenkins receives a round of plugin updates
  • Nexus Repository Manager gets an update to version 3.14.1
  • Nexus IQ gets a bump to release 124

This autumn’s Bitbucket rolls out new commit and merge validation features and Data Pipeline for some deep dive analytics.

Required builds merge check

Data Center only

The new required builds merge check will allow repository admins more flexibility and control over pull requests that are being merged into destination branches. 

bitbucket-required-builds-merge-check

In addition to the existing minimum successful builds merge check, you can use the new required builds to require specific builds that need to pass before a pull request can be merged into the target branch. You can also select specific branches, or branch patterns (for example hotfix-*), to be exempt from these requirements to allow urgent fixes to be merged without them having to pass all the required builds.

Check out the required builds merge check documentation at atlassian.com to learn more!

Require Jira issues in commit messages

Data Center only

When reference to a Jira issue ID is included in the commit message, the application link between the two can provide a neat way of tracking code changes and their relation to the whole development project.

This release of Bitbucket Data Center includes a new Jira issue commit checker, which can be configured to ensure that commits include Jira issues. Functionality is configurable right in the Project and Repository settings. Project admins can easily configure and set requirements for making sure appropriate Jira issue references exist in every commit pushed.

More insight into your Bitbucket instance with Data pipeline

Data Center only

Similar to its Atlassian brethren, this release of Bitbucket will now also ship with the new Data Pipeline feature, which allows you to export the current state of Bitbucket Data Center and feed it into your business intelligence platform (such as Tableau). 

The export will include things like repository details, commits, build status and pull request activity.

Read more on Data Pipeline for Bitbucket at atlassian.com

What else is new in Bitbucket?

Control source branch deletion when merging a PR

You can now choose the default strategy for handling source branches when a pull request is merged. Both project and repository level settings now have a new option for Branch deletion on merge. Default setting is set to Off, to not delete the source branch after merging.

Users can still change or override the setting in the Merge pull request dialog as before, but the new default setting may help to avoid some unintentional source branch deletions.

View whitespace characters in the diff

Whitespace characters are now visible in both unified and side-by-side diff views.

Screenshot from 2021-09-23 14-15-56

And as always, you can check all the changes and fixes delivered in this release of Bitbucket at Bitbucket Release Notes at atlassian.com. 

Nexus Repository Pro and Nexus Lifecycle / IQ get updated to their latest versions with some new features up their sleeves.

Nexus Repository Manager

Repository replication

Nexus 3.34.0 delivers a new Repository Replication feature, which allows you to conveniently manage distribution of your binaries across multiple locations. With replication, you can transfer artifacts between two or more Nexus instances.

Learn more about Repository Replication at sonatype.com

Other fixes and improvements

This release of Nexus also contains additional improvements to Nexus repository 2 to 3 migrator, improvements to Resilient Nexus Repository Deployment Architecture as well as some bug fixes.

Check out the 2021 Release Notes at sonatype.com for a complete overview of changes. 

Nexus IQ

InnerSource Insight for npm

This release of Nexus IQ will include InnerSource Insight for npm to complement the existing Maven support. InnerSource components, by definition, are internally developed components that are shared with other internal projects and are commonly built using open source components and libraries.

With InnerSource Insight you can easily identify InnerSource and all the associated transitive dependencies right on the Application Composition Report, which can help in saving time and money on the work needed to remediate and manage policy violations related to them.

Check out InnerSource Insight - Application Composition Report at sonatype.com for details. 

Support for Azure DevOps in source control features

This release of Nexus IQ will also add support for Azure DevOps in Automated Pull Requests, Pull Request Commenting and Automated Commit Feedback.

GitLab and Jenkins receive some love as well.

GitLab bumps up to 14.3

This month’s GitLab delivery includes (but certainly is not limited to) things like conditional include keywords for CI/CD pipelines, group-level permissions for Protected Environments for setting up appropriate segregation of duties and all kinds of other improvements and enhancements.

Check out GitLab’s 14.3 release blog for full disclosure

Jenkins’ monthly plugin treatment

This month Jenkins will receive a bunch of updates to its plugins, such as a brand spanking new version 3.0.0 of the Atlassian Bitbucket Server Integration plugin, which will include support for Pull Request triggers and support lightweight checkouts for pipeline and multibranch pipeline jobs.


There’s also Blue Ocean version 1.25.0, fixes and enhancements to Pipeline and more. Please contact your ROOT Support for a full list of changes applicable to your ROOT Jenkins instance.

Published: Sep 28, 2021

Updated: Feb 27, 2024

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