[jenkins] How to move Jenkins from one PC to another

In case your JENKINS_HOME directory is too large to copy, and all you need is to set up same jobs, Jenkins Plugins and Jenkins configurations (and don't need old Job artifacts and reports), then you can use the ThinBackup Plugin:

  1. Install ThinBackup on both the source and the target Jenkins servers

  2. Configure the backup directory on both (in Manage Jenkins ? ThinBackup ? Settings)

  3. On the source Jenkins, go to ThinBackup ? Backup Now

  4. Copy from Jenkins source backup directory to the Jenkins target backup directory

  5. On the target Jenkins, go to ThinBackup ? Restore, and then restart the Jenkins service.

  6. If some plugins or jobs are missing, copy the backup content directly to the target JENKINS_HOME.

  7. If you had user authentication on the source Jenkins, and now locked out on the target Jenkins, then edit Jenkins config.xml, set <useSecurity> to false, and restart Jenkins.