Change JENKINS_HOME on Red Hat Linux?

Question

I used this procedure to install Jenkins:

https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Installing+Jenkins+on+RedHat+distributions

After it was up and running I discovered the /var/lib/jenkins partition on my server is very small. I want to move it, but I do not want to change the user that it runs under. I am new to Linux and I'm stumped. How do I move it for example to my Home/Public folder? The "Jenkins" user doesn't seem to have a Home folder. Its running as a daemon on startup, so I have no idea where to configure those settings. Can I create a Home folder for the Jenkins user? How?

I read this article:

https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Administering+Jenkins

but do not understand HOW to "set the new Jenkins home". I have used the export command, and restarted the service, but the old path still shows up in the Manage Jenkins screens.

I've read the 2-3 similar questions on stackoverflow also, but there's always a big missing piece for me. Where to find that file where I change the path permanently?

Would reinstalling it be easier? How would I set the default location before running the yum command? — Dilbertina, Feb 17 '14 at 21:31
I have completely uninstalled Jenkins and am going to start over using another method. I cannot figure out how to pre-configure the yum version to install to another location. — Dilbertina, Feb 19 '14 at 21:55
Just as a sidenote, for followers, it's OK to leave the jenkins' user home dir as /var/lib/jenkins [if you have enough space there], and just treat it as if it were a normal user home dir. — rogerdpack, Aug 30 '16 at 23:02

score 41 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 18 '14 at 00:22

41

Here's an easy way to solve your problem. First, move the Jenkins directory from /var/lib/jenkins to /home/jenkins. Then create a symlink at /var/lib/jenkins pointing to /home/jenkins. And of course, stop the Jenkins service before doing that.

sudo service jenkins stop
sudo mv /var/lib/jenkins /home
sudo ln -s /home/jenkins /var/lib/jenkins
sudo service jenkins start

answered Feb 18 '14 at 00:22

David Levesque

22,181
8
67
82

Thank you, I think this will solve my problem if I can get IT to create /home/jenkins. – Dilbertina Feb 18 '14 at 15:17
Jenkins works locally on the server, but I cannot access it from another computer via port 8080 anymore. It worked before I moved everything. HELP! – Dilbertina Feb 19 '14 at 20:09
Are you sure it is not because of a firewall? I think it is enabled by default in RedHat. To verify try shutting it down with `sudo service iptables stop` – David Levesque Feb 19 '14 at 23:10
Positive its not the firewall. Our IT dept couldn't figure out how to get it accessable from another computer. :( So I uninstalled it. I am trying the other methods in Paul Becotte's link now. VERY frustrating for a Linux n00b! – Dilbertina Feb 20 '14 at 21:01
Very strange, I just don't see how this change can make it unaccessible from another computer. I've tried it myself and it worked for me. – David Levesque Feb 20 '14 at 21:28
Worked perfectly for me – Wim Deblauwe Oct 22 '14 at 06:58
7

You can also change `JENKINS_HOME` here: `/etc/sysconfig/jenkins` – luismartingil Jun 04 '15 at 16:31
If anyone impatiently stops their move command before completing (like me), you can continue the move process using `sudo rsync --remove-source-files -a /var/lib/jenkins/ /home/jenkins/`. – jdknight Jun 24 '16 at 16:20
Does the mv command work across different partitions? Some older versions don't. So just use rsync from the outset. 'rsync -avzhP --remove-source-files /var/lib/jenkins /home/jenkins'. – gaoithe Jan 27 '17 at 10:51
I was using the htmlpublisher-plugin and after updating the Jenkins directory, it is still referring to the old one and publishing the .html report there instead of the new updated `/home/jenkins`, does anyone have an idea how to get this fixed? – Ray Kim Jun 07 '18 at 01:01

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 05 '16 at 09:17

16

I managed to change the home location for Jenkins by modifying content of /etc/sysconfig/jenkins file as follows:

JENKINS_HOME="/home/jenkins"

edited Apr 05 '16 at 09:17

Sнаđошƒаӽ

16,753
12
73
90

answered Apr 05 '16 at 08:12

Richard Chen

324
2
4

2

For what it's worth, the config file is in `/etc/default/jenkins` on my Ubuntu server. – Eric Duminil Apr 03 '20 at 11:59

Paul Becotte · Answer 3 · 2014-02-21T03:38:51.530

Okay, I reread your question a little bit more closely, lets see if we can figure this out. I am going to list some info that you may or may not know.

The jenkins installation and jenkins home are not the same thing. One is where the war file and other parts that jenkins needs to run live. jenkins_home is where your data is stored. By default, jenkins_home lives in ~/.jenkins. When you start jenkins, it looks for an environment variable to tell it where to find those files.
Jenkins runs as a seperate user, which, by default, is jenkins. This way it doesn't get in the way of you. The jenkins user will not have access to YOUR home directory, so that would be a poor solution. Ideally, it would have its own home directory, /home/jenkins. Your home directory could then be /home/jenkins/.jenkins. You say that folder doesn't exist- if you don't have access to it to create it yourself, that is perfectly fine, you can specify ANY folder. However, the jenkins user must have ownership of that folder to read and write to it.
It looks like Jenkins on redhat will be running with tomcat by default. The documentation for how to set environment variables for tomcat is https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Tomcat
This all gets set up with a script.https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/JenkinsLinuxStartupScript seems to be the one that is used for this purpose. Even if you don't know anything about shell scripting, this isn't too hard... lines with a # are comments. The first line

JENKINS_USER=jenkins

sets the name of the user account jenkins will be using. Look down a littlle further, and you'll see the line

export JENKINS_BASEDIR=/home/jenkins

export CATALINA_OPTS="-DJENKINS_HOME=$JENKINS_BASEDIR/jenkins-home -Xmx512m -Djava.awt.headless=true"

This lets you set a directory to where jenkins should live, and then sets the jenkins_home directory to that /jenkins-home.

For your application, you may want to do something like this

export CATALINA_OPTS="-DJENKINS_HOME=/var/jenkinsmount/home -Xmx512m -Djava.awt.headless=true"

That would then store all of your build data (which is the part that grows!) at /var/jenkinsmount/home ... while leaving the rest of your files in their current location.

I haven't used it on redhat, but hopefully I explained enough for you to actually understand what is going on so that you can get it going!

Other INFO:

https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Installing+Jenkins+as+a+Unix+daemon

Thanks for the link, that was some great info! David's solution above worked for me. — Dilbertina, Feb 18 '14 at 18:45
Paul, can you give me an example of how to use daemonize? I finally got it installed, but have no idea how to apply it to Jenkins. The jenkins.war file is in home/jenkins folder. I'm stuck at that point. Is it a problem if that folder can't be unmounted while daemon is running? http://linux.die.net/man/1/daemonize — Dilbertina, Feb 20 '14 at 21:08

score 7 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 30 '16 at 22:53

I have faced the same issue and question. Connecting some dots I could fix my Jenkins after I moved Jenkins to a new location due to the same issue -space in disk under /var/lib/jenkins.

Here is the procedures that I had to follow to get it working taking in consideration that I am pointing Jenkins to a non-default port. (I have applied this process into 2 servers)

First, move the Jenkins directory from /var/lib/jenkins to /opt/jenkins

sudo service jenkins stop
sudo mv /var/lib/jenkins /opt/

Now you can change your workspace and build directory to any other location on your machine. Jenkins provides 3 predefined variables that can be used to specify the new location:

JENKINS_HOME — Jenkins home directory

ITEM_ROOTDIR — Root directory of a job for which the workspace is allocated

ITEM_FULLNAME — ‘/’-separated job name, like “foo/bar”

sudo su jenkins (access as Jenkins user)
JENKINS_HOME=/opt/jenkins
ITEM_ROOTDIR=/opt/jenkins
ITEM_FULLNAME=/opt/jenkins
exit (exit Jenkins user)

Now, edit the jenkins config

/opt/jenkins$ sudo nano /etc/default/jenkins

Modify the following line

#jenkins home location
#JENKINS_HOME=/var/lib/$NAME (here is the default)
JENKINS_HOME=/opt/jenkins (that is our new location)

change the home directory of a user

sudo usermod -d /opt/jenkins/ jenkins
sudo service jenkins start

Would you know if it will keep this amended location on an upgrade? Or are additional steps needed on every upgrade to keep this location? — tollgen, Aug 09 '17 at 09:59

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 26 '19 at 12:32

2

If anyone is having issues with space and you have to relocate your jenkins, just wanted to reiterate that::

sudo service jenkins stop
sudo mv /var/lib/jenkins /home
sudo ln -s /home/jenkins /var/lib/jenkins
sudo service jenkins start

works great, so thanks to the person who posted that answer a few years ago!

edited Apr 26 '19 at 12:32

jithinkmatthew

890
8
17

answered Dec 21 '18 at 14:59

JAS

29
1

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 19 '16 at 18:22

Richard Chen's location is where I found the jenkins file on my CentOS 6.6 system.

sudo service jenkins stop
mv /var/lib/jenkins /home/mylocation/
(made sure the new location had correct ownership and group-- Jenkins)
modified the content of the file /etc/sysconfig/jenkins as follows:

JENKINS_HOME="/home/mylocation"
sudo service jenkins start

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 30 '22 at 20:57

If all these don't work, then the only solution that works is to edit the following file

/lib/systemd/system/jenkins.service

then need to execute reloading of configs by running

systemctl daemon-reload

after this restarting the service would reflect the change.

Vô Ảnh · Answer 8 · 2019-08-24T14:38:35.177

0

Some commands work for me as below:

Step 1: Stop jenkin service and moving folder

systemctl stop jenkins
mv /var/lib/jenkins /whatever/folder
sudo chown jenkins -R /whatever/folder

Step 2: Modify jenkins home location in /etc/default/jenkins

JENKINS_HOME=/whatever/folder/$NAME

Step 3: Restart jenkins service

systemctl start jenkins

edited Aug 24 '19 at 14:38

answered Aug 24 '19 at 14:36

Vô Ảnh

1
3

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Feb 24 '21 at 22:27

[A] Find your current jenkins home folder, if you are not aware where it is ?
Jenkins -> Manage Jenkins -> Configure System -> Check label 'Home directory'

[B] To move current Jenkins home folder to a new directory. Follow below steps :-

Stop Jenkins service - by killing the process

Follow one of below approach to set new home folder for JENKINS.

a) By default Jenkins home directory is set to ~/.jenkins
b) "JENKINS_HOME" environment variable setup in operating system.
c) "JENKINS_HOME" entry in JNDI environment.
d) "JENKINS_HOME" system property to the servlet container.
        Tomcat context descriptor of the servlet, you can set below field in apache-tomcat-8.5.28/conf/context.xml :
        <Context ...>
          <Environment name="JENKINS_HOME" value="/path/to/jenkins_home/" type="java.lang.String"/>
        </Context>

e)  If jenkins.war file is deployed in a tomcat server , then even appending below content in bin/catalina.sh will setup JENKINS_HOME.
            CATALINA_OPTS="-DJENKINS_HOME=/path_to/jenkins_home/"

Manually copy Jenkins home folder content from old to new home folder. (use cp command) . Instead of moving, copy step is advised to keep one backup. Later you can delete old workspace.
Now start Jenkins, then It will pick the new home directory from the path mentioned in JENKINS_HOME variable.

Note: - Just by setting above variable "JENKINS_HOME" to a different path will not copy the files from current Jenkins home path to new one automatically. This copy step - you have to do it yourself, Manually.

Change JENKINS_HOME on Red Hat Linux?

9 Answers9

Linked