How to install gradle and use gradle for jenkins

If you use jenkins and you have a project that uses gradle, how do you create a task that builds the project and deploy the artifact to tomcat?
For this example we are going to use the netflix project eureka

First install gradle on the slave/worker machine that is going to build the project.

 
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cwchien/gradle
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gradle

To check that this works sudo su jenkins and type gradle -version (2.12 at time of this writing)
Next install the jenkins plugin deploy to container plugin
You might have to restart the jenkins instance for the plugin to take effect.

Inside the jenkins console Create a new task

1. Select new item -> free-style
2. Enter project name, description
   • source code management -> git -> repository url (used my own because we have modify some settings in eureka, specify branch)
   • add build steps -> execute shell -> execute gradle script -> use gradle wrapper
   • switches -x test
   • tasks clean build
3. post-build actions
   • war files eureka-server/build/libs/*.war
   • context path eureka
   • manager username
   • manager password
   • url http://tomcat.home.tw:8080/

TODO blog post on gradle deploy to tomcat using gradle cargo plugin.