Merlin ToolChain installation guide

V. 1.0 (11.02.2008)


 

1.    Installation. 3

2.    Traceability Database. 3

2.1      Requirements. 3

2.2      Install MySQL. 3

2.3      Create traceability database. 3

3.    Eclipse & Tools. 3

3.1      Requirements. 3

3.2      Installation of plug-ins. 4

3.3      Tool specific settings and requirements. 4

3.3.1   OSRMT. 4

3.3.2   Telelogic DOORS.. 4

3.3.3   RequisitePro.. 5

3.3.4   Testlink. 5

3.3.5   Subversion. 5

3.4      Configuring Eclipse. 5

3.4.1   Preferences. 5

3.4.2   Login. 10

4.    List of supported tools. 11

 


 

1.  Installation

 

User will need to setup traceability database and install the plugi-ns for Eclipse to use Merlin ToolChain. All the necessary files are provided in toolchain_v1.zip. User should extract this file into temporary folder and then follow the instructions.

 

2.  Traceability Database

2.1  Requirements

Hardware / Operating system:

See those of the MySQL database engine. Link can be found from below.

 

Software:

MySQL Server 5.0 (or newer), from http://www.mysql.com/

2.2  Install MySQL

Setup MySQL Server to run on a machine which is reachable from the client computers. Instructions for this step are beyond the scope of this document, if you experience problems, see MySQL documentation.

2.3  Create traceability database

1.      Log in to MySQL server. E.g. mysql –u root –p

2.      Enter your password when prompted

3.      Type “create database toolchain;”

4.      Type “grant all privileges on toolchain.* to ‘toolchain’@’%’ identified by ‘toolchain’;” This syntax allows user toolchain to connect to the toolchain database from anywhere (@’%’) with password toolchain. You can change these if you need to, but database name should be kept as it is. User name and password for the database can be specified from TC preferences in Eclipse.

5.      Type  mysql –u toolchain –p toolchain < toolchain.sql

6.      Enter your password when prompted

7.      The traceability database for TC should now be initialized properly.

 

3.  Eclipse & Tools

3.1  Requirements

Hardware / Operating system:

See those of the Eclipse platform, can be found from below link.

 

Software:

Eclipse SDK 3.2.0 (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)

Java runtime environment JRE 1.5.0_06 (or newer)

MySQL Connector/ODBC 3.51 (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/3.51.html)

Some plug-ins have their own requirements, see chapter 1.3 for details.

Combination of tools supported by ToolChain, see chapter 1.4 for list.

 

plugins.zip’-file with contents as follows:

 

 

3.2  Installation of plug-ins

Step 1: Close Eclipse.

 

Step 2: Extract contents of the ‘plugins.zip’- file to your Eclipse plugins folder (eg. c:\eclipse\plugins).

 

Step 2.5: In case you’ve had earlier versions of the Merlin plug-ins, you have to clear the Eclipse cache. Do this by moving ‘org.xxx’- folders from eclipse/configuration folder (everything with ‘org’ beginning) to temporary directory. Moving is safer than delete in case problems arise, you can move them back. DO NOT remove config.ini or .settings, this will ruin your Eclipse installation.

3.3  Tool specific settings and requirements

Specific settings for some of the tools.

3.3.1  OSRMT

1.      Copy connection.xml in the Eclipse root directory

2.      Modify connection.xml to suit your OSRMT configuration parameters. The supplied file uses MySQL configuration. See OSRMT installation documentation for more details on connection.xml.

3.      Now when you next time go to Merlin ToolChain preferences OSRMT is selectable and can be used.

 

Other requirements:

OSRMT server for OSRMT plug-in to work.

Merlin plug-in is built for version 1.50.

3.3.2  Telelogic DOORS

When using DOORS, Merlin TC specific DXL scripts have to be loaded for the integration to work.

To install the scripts:

 

1.      Unpack DOORS_scripts.zip

2.      Copy merlin.dxl and merlin.inc to your DOORS client’s lib/dxl directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Telelogic\DOORS_8.0\lib\dxl)

3.      Open the startup.dxl file in lib/dxl directory. Copy the following text to the end of file:

   evalTop_ "initDXLServer server 5093"

   evalTop_ "#include <merlin.inc>"

4.      Save file

5.      Restart Telelogic DOORS

6.      A “MerlinTool started.” popup should appear, this signals that everything is ok.

7.      You can now begin using the Telelogic DOORS integration in TraceView.

 

Other requirements:

Telelogic DOORS client. Versions 8.0 and 7.1 tested. Version 5.0 works with limited functionality.

3.3.3  RequisitePro

Plug-in works by connecting to the MS Access database files on network drive.

Tested with version 2003.06.15.734.000

3.3.4  Testlink

Plug-in works by connecting directly to the Testlink database. Tested with version 1.7.0 RC3

3.3.5  Subversion

Get Subversion from http://subversion.tigris.org/ and install it. Next you need Subclipse (http://subclipse.tigris.org/) which is a Subversion plug-in for Eclipse. Merlin ToolChain Subversion integration needs the SVN to be in JavaHL(JNI) mode. You can check that this is so by going to Window -> Preferences -> Team -> SVN -> SVN interface. Now if you configure a SVN repository in Eclipse and have a project in ‘Package explorer’ which is under SVN version control, you should be able to create traceability links in trace view. Sometimes, however, this can lead to ‘File not found from repository’-error. Please see FAQ for possible resolution.

 

Supported versions: Multiple versions have been tested, but at least v. 1.4.5 is guaranteed to work.

 

3.4  Configuring Eclipse

3.4.1  Preferences

 

Step 1: Start Eclipse. Next we have to set up TC preferences. Do this by going to ‘Window -> Preferences’. Expand ‘Merlin ToolChain’. Select ‘General’.

 

Picture 1: ToolChain preferences

 

Input your traceability database settings. If you followed guidelines at the section 1.1.2 to the letter, they are:

MySQL ODBC driver name:                   MySQL ODBC 3.51 Driver

Traceability DB:                                        your_server_ip/toolchain

Traceability DB user:                               toolchain

Traceability DB password:                       toolchain

 

Step 2: From the Tools tab choose the combination of tools to be used.

Picture 2: The tool selector

 

Step 2.5: Specify settings for chosen tools, all the available options for supported tools are listed here. You need to go through only those tools’ preferences that you are using:

 

 

Doors:

 

Picture 3: DOORS settings

 

Doors activeip.exe dir:       Choose the directory that contains the activeip.exe (installed during DOORS client setup)

 

OSRMT:

Picture 4: OSRMT settings

 

Username:                         The username you use in OSRMT for logging in

Password:                           The password

 

Open workbench:           

No settings needed.

 

PAT:

 

Picture 5: PAT settings

 

PAT DB:                             PAT server’s database address, server_ip/database

PAT user:                           The user for database, not the user in PAT

PAT password:                   The password


RequisitePro:

 

Picture 6: RequisitePro settings

 

 

RequisitePro project path:  This is the path where ReqPro project subfolders are

RequisitePro project:          This field allows the user to select which project to use. You need to close preferences and re-open the RequisitePro preference page to show the projects if the path has been changed

 


SoftFab:

 

Picture 7: SoftFab settings

 

Use file:                              Whether to use dummy file rather than true SoftFab, values: true / false

Input file:                             Location of the dummy file

Input extension:                  Extension of the dummy file

SoftFAB root:                      The root URL of the SoftFAB

Use proxy:                          Whether to use proxy server for connecting to the softfab root

Proxy server:                     The address of the server

Proxy port:                          The port of the server

 

Subversion:

No settings needed.

 

Synergy/CM:

Synergy/CM is not operational currently, because drag & drop tracing is not implemented.

 

 

Informix DB:                                             Location of the Informix Synergy/CM database

Informix server:                  Name of the Informix Synergy/CM database server

Informix user:                     The user name for database

Informix password:             The password

 

Testlink:

 

 

Testlink DB:                        The location of the Testlink database

Testlink DB user:               The user of the database

Testlink password:             The password for user

 

3.4.2  Login

Step 1:

You should now find the Merlin button (with magic hat on blue background) from button bar. Also you should have Merlin drop down menu appear. These are recommended places for starting up the plug-ins.

 

NOTE: Please see chapter 1.3 Tool Specific Settings before logging in!

 

Step 2: Type in your username & password only if PAT is in use, otherwise leave them empty. Press login. After a moment the Merlin plug-ins should appear. Good luck!

 

 

 

Other instructions:

Make sure you have the Merlin plug-ins open in one perspective only, strange things might happen if you have many instances of plug-ins running in multiple perspectives.

 

4.  List of supported tools

 

Tool

Type

Plug-in developer

Commercial/OS/Internal

Philips Project Assist Tool

Project management

Merlin

Internal

Open workbench

Project management

Merlin

Open source

Microsoft Project

Project management

Merlin

Commercial

IBM Rational RequisitePro

Requirement management

Merlin

Commercial

Telelogic DOORS

Requirement management

Merlin

Commercial

Open Source Requirements Management Tool

Requirement management

Merlin, modified from OSRMT source code

Open source

Telelogic Synergy/CM

Configuration management

Telelogic

Commercial

Subversion

Configuration management

Subversion

Open source

SoftFab

Test management

Merlin

Internal

TestLink

Test management

Merlin

Open source