How to move Jenkins from one PC to another

Question

I am currently using Jenkins on my development PC  I installed it on my development PC  because I had limited knowledge on this tool  so I tested on it in my development PC  Now  I feel comfortable with Jenkins as my long term  partner  in the build process and would like to  move  this Jenkins to a dedicated server   Before this I have done few builds and have the artifacts archived from each build  In particular  the build number is very important to me for version control   How can I export all the Jenkins information from my current PC to my new server

User · Answer

Let us say we are migrating Jenkins LTS from PC1 to PC2 (irrispective of LTS version is same of upgraded). It is easy to use ThinBackUp Plugin for migration or Upgrade of Jenkins version.

Step1: Prepare PC1 for migration

Manage Jenkins -> ThinbackUp -> Setting
Select correct options and directory for backup
If you need a job history and artifacts need to be added then please select 'Back build results' option as well.

Go back click on Backup Now.

Note: This Thinbackup will also take Plugin Backup which is optional.

Check the ThinbackUp folder must have a folder with current date and timestamp. (wait for couple of minutes it might take some time.)
You are ready with your back, .zip it and copy to PARTICULAR (which will be 'Backup directory') directory in PC2.
Unzip ThinbackUp zipped folder.
Stop Jenkins Service in PC1.

Step2: Install Jenkins (Install using .war file or Paste archived version) in PC2.

Create Jenkins Service using command sc create <Jenkins_PC2Servicename> binPath="<Path_to_Jenkinsexe>/jenkins.exe"
Modify JENKINS_HOME/jenkins.xml if needed in PC2.
Run windows service <Jenkins_PC2Servicename> in PC2
Manage Jenkins -> ThinbackUp -> Setting
Make sure that you PERTICULAR path from step1 as Backup Directory in ThinBackup settings.
ThinbackUp -> Restore will give you a Dropdown list, choose a right backup (identify with date and timestamp).

Wait for some minutes and you have latest backup configurations including jobs history and plugins in PC2.
In case if there are additional changes needed in JENKINS_HOME/Jenkins.xml (coming from PC1 ThinbackUp which is not needed) then this modification need to do manually.

NOTE: If you are using Database setting of SCM in your Jenkins jobs then you need to take extra care as all SCM plugins do not support to carry Database settings with the help of ThinbackUp plugin. e.g. If you are using PTC Integrity SCM Plugin, and some Jenkins jobs are using DB using Integrity, then it will create a directory JENKINS_Home/IntegritySCM, ThinbackUp will not include this DB while taking backup.

Solution: Directly Copy this JENKINS_Home/IntegritySCM folder from PC1 to PC2.

User · Answer

Following the Jenkins wiki  you ll have to    Install a fresh Jenkins instance on the new server Be sure the old and the new Jenkins instances are stopped Archive all the content of the JENKINS HOME of the old Jenkins instance Extract the archive into the new JENKINS HOME directory Launch the new Jenkins instance Do not forget to change documentation links to your new instance of Jenkins    Do not forget to change the owner of the new Jenkins files   chown -R jenkins jenkins  JENKINS HOME   JENKINS HOME is by default located in    jenkins on a Linux installation  yet to exactly find where it is located  go on the http   your jenkins url configure page and check the value of the first parameter  Home directory  this is the JENKINS HOME

User · Answer

Jenkins Server Automation   Step 1   Set up a repository to store the Jenkins home  jobs  configurations  plugins  etc   in a GitLab local or on GitHub private repository and keep it updated regularly by pushing any new changes to Jenkins jobs  plugins  etc   Step 2   Configure a Puppet host-group role for Jenkins that can be used to spin up new Jenkins servers  Do all the basic configuration in a Puppet recipe and make sure it installs the latest version of Jenkins and sets up a separate directory mount for JENKINS HOME   Step 3   Spin up a new machine using the Jenkins-puppet configuration above  When everything is installed  grab clone the Jenkins configuration from the Git repository to the Jenkins home direcotry and restart Jenkins   Step 4   Go to the Jenkins URL  Manage Jenkins   Manage Plugins and update all the plugins that require an update   Done  You can use Docker Swarm or Kubernetes to auto-scale the slave nodes

User · Answer

This worked for me to move from Ubuntu 12 04  Jenkins ver  1 628  to Ubuntu 16 04  Jenkins ver  1 651 2   I first installed Jenkins from the repositories     Stop both Jenkins servers Copy JENKINS HOME  e g   var lib jenkins  from the old server to the new one  From a console in the new server   rsync -av username old-server-IP  var lib jenkins   var lib jenkins  Start your new Jenkins server   You might not need this  but I had to   Manage Jenkins and Reload Configuration from Disk  Disconnect and connect all the slaves again  Check that in the Configure System  gt  Jenkins Location  the Jenkins URL is correctly assigned to the new Jenkins server

User · Answer

Sometimes we may not have access to a Jenkins machine to copy a folder directly into another Jenkins instance  So I wrote a menu driven utility which uses Jenkins REST API calls to install plugins and jobs from one Jenkins instance to another   For plugin migration    GET request   SOURCE JENKINS SERVER  pluginManager api json depth 1 will get you the list of plugins installed with their version  You can send a POST request with the following parameters to install these plugins   final url   DESTINATION JENKINS SERVER  pluginManager installNecessaryPlugins   data   lt jenkins gt  lt install plugin   PLUGIN NAME  latest   gt  lt  jenkins gt    where  latest will fetch the latest version of the plugin name   auth   destination jenkins username  destination jenkins password    header   crumb field crumb value  Content-Type   application xml       where crumb field Jenkins-Crumb and get crumb value using API call  DESTINATION JENKINS SERVER  crumbIssuer api json    For job migration    You can get the list of jobs installed on  SOURCE JENKINS URL  using a REST call   SOURCE JENKINS URL  view All api json Then you can get each job config xml file from the jobs on  SOURCE JENKINS URL  using the job URL  SOURCE JENKINS URL  job  JOB NAME   Use this config xml file to POST the content of the XML file on  DESTINATION JENKINS URL  and that will create a job on  DESTINATION JENKINS URL     I have created a menu-driven utility in Python which asks the user to start plugin or Jenkins migration and uses Jenkins REST API calls to do it   You can refer the JenkinsMigration docx from this URL jenkinsjenkinsmigrationjenkinsrestapi

User · Answer

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   Install ThinBackup on both the source and the target Jenkins servers  Configure the backup directory on both  in Manage Jenkins   ThinBackup   Settings   On the source Jenkins  go to ThinBackup   Backup Now  Copy from Jenkins source backup directory to the Jenkins target backup directory  On the target Jenkins  go to ThinBackup   Restore  and then restart the Jenkins service   If some plugins or jobs are missing  copy the backup content directly to the target JENKINS HOME   If you had user authentication on the source Jenkins  and now locked out on the target Jenkins  then edit Jenkins config xml  set  lt useSecurity gt  to false  and restart Jenkins

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

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