jx-jenkins

jx-jenkins is a small command line tool for working with Jenkins servers on kubernetes.

It helps bridge the gap between Jenkins and Jenkins X around developer UX and ChatOps.

Using jx-jenkins

If you are already using Jenkins X 3.x then you will already have the binary as a plugin inside the jx binary.

Download the binary and put it on your $PATH or use the trigger-pipeline container image in a pipeline step in Jenkins or Jenkins X / Tekton.

To trigger a pipeline in the default Jenkins server:

jx jenkins trigger

If you have multiple Jenkins server custom resources in the current namespace then specify the Jenkins custom resource name on the command line:

jx jenkins trigger  --jenkins myJenkinsServer

If you are not sure what Jenkins names are available in the current namespace run:

kubectl get jenkins

Which will list all of the available Jenkins custom resource names.

If you make a mistake and use a name which does not exist the tp executable will give you a meaninful error message togehter with listing all the available Jenkins custom resource names.

Using Environment Variables

To make it easier to configure inside pipelines you can specify the Jenkins instance name via the $TRIGGER_JENKINS_SERVER environment variable

export TRIGGER_JENKINS_SERVER="someJenkinsCrdName"
jx jenkins trigger

For more information type:

jx jenkins trigger --help

Adding Jenkins Servers

trigger-pipeline can automatically discover Jenkins servers created via the Jenkins Operator.

In addition you can register any Jenkins servers you wish to the Jenkins Server Registry via the jx jenkins add command.

To add a new Jenkins server with a guided wizard:

jx jenkins add 

If you already know the name, URL, username and API Token then you can use:

jx jenkins add 

Removing Jenkins Servers

You can remove a Jenkins server via:

jx jenkins remove

Note that this only removes it from the registry; it doesn’t affect the actual Jenkins Server.

Listing the available Jenkins Servers

To list the servers you can use try:

jx jenkins list

How it works

To maintain a registry of Jenkins Servers trigger-pipeline uses a Kubernetes Secret for each Jenkins Server with details of the URL, username and API Token

Known issues

If you see this error when trying to trigger a pipeline:

403 No valid crumb was included in the request

Then until we figure out a better workaround you need to go into Manage Jenkins -> Configure Global Security then make sure you uncheck Prevent Cross Site Request Forgery exploits

Commands

See the jx-jenkins command reference