Managing Jenkins plugins from command line and GUI

Jenkins Plugins play very important role for adding and enhancing the features in Jenkins. Managing Jenkins Plugin is also crucial. In simple term, manage Jenkins plugin carefully and in return you will get awesome functions and features.

In this post, we will learn managing Jenkins plugin from command line and GUI. Because Jenkins is automation server, we tried to bring more command line methods for automation folks.

In this post,we will refer the following variables. You have to replace with its correct value wherever we use in this post.

Variable	Value
$JENKINS_URL	The URL of your Jenkins Server. Example: http://192.168.1.1:8080 or https://jenkins.example.com
$JENKINS_HOME	Absolute path of Jenkins installed directory. Example: /var/lib/jenkins or any custom path you have made.
$JENKINS_ADMIN_USER	Jenkins user name which has admin privileges.
$JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD	Password of $JENKIN_ADMIN_USERNAME.
$JENKINS_PLUGIN_URL	Jenkins plugin download URL.
$JENKINS_PLUGIN_NAME	Jenkins plugin short name.

Manage Jenkins Plugin

In GUI (Graphical User Interface), managing Jenkins plugin is quite easy. We will also add the cli(command line) which will help you in automation.

GUI Users

The GUI users can reach to plugin page by either directly open the URL $JENKINS_URL/pluginManager/ Or stepwise do click as shown in given below screenshot (“Manage Jenkins >> Manage Plugins“).

Command Line Users

Command line folks, download the jenkins-cli.jar file from your Jenkins Server.
Syntax:
wget $JENKINS_URL/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar

##Example
wget http://localhost:8080/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar

List Installed Jenkins Plugin – GUI / CLI

Here, we will list the installed Jenkins Plugin from GUI and CLI both.

List Installed Jenkins Plugin From Graphical User Interface (GUI)

In “Manage Plugin” page, click on “Installed” tab. This will show the list of Jenkins Plugin which are installed.
In web browser, quick URL path syntax is $JENKINS_URL/pluginManager/Installed.

List Installed Jenkins Plugin From Command Line Interface (CLI)

Syntax:
java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth $JENKINS_ADMIN_USER:$JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD -noKeyAuth list-plugins

# Example
java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth list-plugins

List Available Jenkins Plugin For Downloading – GUI / CLI

The ‘Available’ Jenkins plugin meaning is the plugins which are available for downloading and install.

List Available Jenkins Plugin For Downloading From Graphical User Interface (GUI)

In Jenkins ‘Manage Plugin’ page, click on “Available” tab. It will list all the available plugins which you can also install from same tab itself. The given below screenshot is self explanatory itself. Same we are discussing in our next Jenkins plugin installation section.

List Available Jenkins Plugin For Downloading From Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can curl and parse the result.
curl http://updates.jenkins-ci.org/download/plugins/

Install Jenkins Plugin – GUI / CLI

In this section we will learn installing the Jenkins Plugin.

Install Jenkins Plugin From Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Through GUI you can install Jenkins by 2 methods.

Method 1. Install Jenkins Plugin from ‘Available’ Tab | GUI

Given below is the order to follow.

• Click on ‘Available’ tab
• Select plugin by clicking checkbox
• As per requirement either click “Install without restart” or “Download now and install after restart”

Method 2. Install Jenkins Plugin manually from ‘Advanced’ Tab | GUI

For this you have to download the package in system and then upload from web console. You can search the plugin from https://plugins.jenkins.io/ .

• Click on ‘Advanced’ tab
• Click on ‘Advanced…’ button (It will expand more options)
• Go to ‘Upload Plugin’ Section >> Choose File >> Upload
• click ‘Submit’ button at the end

Check given below screenshot for uploading plugin from web console.

Install Jenkins Plugin From Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can choose any one one option to install Jenkins plugin through command line.
Note: Here, -restart will restart the Jenkins service after successful installation of the plugin.

Syntax 1: You should have Jenkins Plugin Download URL. Search the Jenkins plugin from official website and get your plugin URL.
java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth install-plugin $JENKINS_PLUGIN_URL -restart

#Example 1: installing Jenkins plugin called git-parameter
java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth JENKINS_ADMIN_USER:JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD -noKeyAuth install-plugin https://plugins.jenkins.io/git-parameter -restart 

Syntax 2: You should have Jenkins Plugin short name.
java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth install-plugin $JENKINS_PLUGIN_NAME -restart

#Example 2 :Installing Jenkins plugin called git-parameter
java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth install-plugin git-parameter –restart

Uninstall Jenkins Plugin – GUI / CLI

You can easily uninstall the Jenkins Plugin from GUI and CLI both. Currently to uninstall/remove Jenkins from CLI you have login into Jenkins Server and remove the plugin from its installation directory. We have described about the steps in given below sections.

Uninstall Jenkins Plugin From Graphical User Interface (GUI)

Go to Jenkins Manage Plugin page and follow the given below steps to uninstall Jenkins Plugin.

• Click on’Installed’ tab,then
• Select Jenkins Plugin to uninstall, then
• Click ‘Uninstall’ button, then
  
• Click “Yes” button, then
  
• Restart Jenkins service. for restart you can append ‘restart’ string in JENKINS_URL. Click ‘Yes’ button for confirming the restart.
  Syntax: $JENKINS_URL/restart

  

• You will be logout after Jenkins restart.

Note: After uninstalling the plugin, to take effect you have to restart the Jenkins service.

Uninstall Jenkins Plugin From Command Line Interface (CLI)

To uninstall Jenkins plugin, login to Jenkins server. Change directory to Jenkins plugin path and remove the Jenkins Plugin jpi extension file and its related folder. This step you have to do after login in Jenkins Server terminal console.

Syntax:
cd $JENKINS_HOME/plugins
rm -fr Plugin-Name-DIRECTORY
rm Plugin-Name.jpi

See the given below screenshot carefully for clear understanding. Here, we are uninstalling the Jenkins plugin called ‘git-parameter’.

Restart the Jenkins service after uninstalling the plugin. This step is mandatory.

sudo systemctl restart jenkins

Update Jenkins Plugin – GUI / CLI

It is very important to update Jenkins plugin on regular basis.It is important for security reason and bug fixes done in Jenkins Plugin.

Update Jenkins Plugin From Graphical User Interface (GUI)

In Jenkins Plugin Manager follow the given below steps in a sequence.

1. Click on ‘Update’ tab.
2. Select Check-boxes of Jenkins Plugin which you want to update
3. Click on “Download now and install after restart”.
   

Note: You may have noticed a button labelled as “Check Now”. This is for checking any Jenkins Plugin update is available.

Update Jenkins Plugin From Command Line Interface (CLI)

Updating Jenkins plugin through is 3 steps process (List and install the plugins then restart the Jenkins).

1. First List the new plugins updates available to update
   Syntax: java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth JENKINS_ADMIN_USER:JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD -noKeyAuth list-plugins| grep -e ')$'

   # Example
   java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth list-plugins|  grep -e ')$' 
   

2. Now you got the list from above command. Install these plugin from command line.
   java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth JENKINS_ADMIN_USER:JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD -noKeyAuth install-plugin $JENKINS_PLUGIN_NAME

   # Example
   java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth install-plugin workflow-support
   

3. Do restart the Jenkins once plugins are installed.

   Syntax:java -jar enkins-cli.jar -s "$JENKINS_URL" -auth JENKINS_ADMIN_USER:JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWD -noKeyAuth safe-restart;

   java -jar enkins-cli.jar  -s "http://localhost:8080" -auth admin:admin123 -noKeyAuth safe-restart;
   

Bash Script To Update All Jenkins Plugin

In above section we have already written about all the basic command line steps to update Jenkins plugin. In case you have many Jenkins Plugin to update then you should install it by using script. Here, we will write bash scripting using loop.

Replace the values given in bash script variables.

#!/bin/bash
# Author: Sharad Chhetri
# Description: Update all Jenkins plugin
# Version 1.0

_JENKINS_URL=http://localhost:8080
_JENKINS_USER=admin
_JENKINS_PASSWD=admin123

java -jar ./jenkins-cli.jar -s "$_JENKINS_URL" -auth "$_JENKINS_USER:_JENKINS_PASSWD" -noKeyAuth list-plugins|  grep -e ')$' | awk '{ print $1 }'| while read _UPDATE_LIST;
do 
java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "$_JENKINS_URL" -auth "$_JENKINS_USER:_JENKINS_PASSWD" -noKeyAuth install-plugin "$_UPDATE_LIST";
done

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s "$_JENKINS_URL" -auth "$_JENKINS_USER:_JENKINS_PASSWD" -noKeyAuth safe-restart;

We hope the Jenkins Plugin Management will be helpful for you. You can use command line for your automation script.
Please do let us know your any kind of feedback to improve this post.