Would this be able to create auto updating Launcher?

Hello, I’ve been working on a service recently, trying to create an automatic update system for my games and apps. I just recently heard of Jenkins, and I was curious if this would be able to help me with my task.

From my understanding, Jenkins is like a personal Github, like, kind of a github that you host yourself, I could be wrong, but when I was downloading server mods, for my Minecraft server, this tool was used a lot, and it did kind of look like a github-isk tool?

It makes me curious, based on what I’ve seen, if this tool would be what I am looking for, I am basically trying to create a launcher program that can grab updates online, and update itself, and the game you’re playing, a lot like Steam, actually, exactly like steam.

I have my own solution up already, but to be completely honest, I think mine is horrible in how it was developed, and I don’t have much faith in it’s longevity, mainly the fear of exploits, and my security skills aren’t the best…

so, if anyone knows about this, and would be willing to give me some insight, it would be incredibly helpful.

Thank you!
-Chloe

Jenkins is an automation system. Github now has github actions, which overlaps with jenkins a lot, but jenkins doesn’t have any of the source control systems. For what I’ve seen in minecraft mods, Jenkins is used to build the mod repeatedly in a clean environment, and post a release for people to download.

For hosting source management, there’s github, bitbucket, gitlab, gitea, and many many more.

So jenkins can help you automate your builds, especially if you are doing multiple OSses or whatever.

It doesn’t feel like jenkins will really help you (at least at this stage), but I hope it clears things up.

Oh I see, thank you very much for your help, this definitely clears it up a lot better!

Hmm, That is certainly a lot different from what I could tell, I don’t really think it would be able to help at this stage, however, maybe if I have a need for something like this in the future, i’ll definitely have a look. :slight_smile:

I am unsure about the other services you mention though, as they do seem like the options that would work quite well, but the issue is, I’m more looking for an option for file management, and ability to integrate that functionality into another program, maybe an API or something like that, I know Github has an API, but overall i’m not sure of how coherent it is. that was why I thought jenkins was similar to Github, due to the directory structure, if you know what I mean.

But, there is also a concern about security, you see, I made many programs in my career, and I would like all of them to be able to be put on the launcher, but I’m concerned about people accessing them, if I put them on a github repo, they can see essentially the backend, and I would like to try and keep that stuff self-managed, no need to upload source files publicly, if you know what I mean.

Thanks again for your help, it is really appreciated!
-Chloe

as a open source developer, I want everything to be open and public.

But github, bitbucket (cloud), gitlab(cloud) support private repos, and you can host files on them. Gitea, and gitlab can also host on a private network. There’s actually a ton of scm tools for private networks.

Sounds like more research is needed

I definitely understand that, and I embrace the open-source development, but some programs aren’t really meant to be open source I feel like, while I understand your opinion, it would make sense if say, you create a security application, if you make it open source, people can see the exploits, and while it is true that you can then have others fix it, it is likely that a bad actor may create an exploit within a fix, it happens sometimes where a github repo is hijacked, and plus, there is also a risk that someone will duplicate your program, and claim it as their own, since they have the source code, sadly, not everyone will follow the license.

I hope you see my point of view here, thank you.
I am going to have a look at that gittea, thank you so much again!