In Ubuntu, how do I change the home path of Jenkins using the CLI?

Question

In the Jenkins web interface, under Home directory (Dashboard -> Mange Jenkins -> Configure System), the help section says the following:

• "By default, Jenkins stores all of its data in this directory on the file system", referring to /var/lib/jenkins
• "Edit the JENKINS_HOME variable in your Jenkins configuration file (e.g. /etc/sysconfig/jenkins on Red Hat Linux)"

However, my etc directory doesn't have a directory called sysconfig.

Running the following command returns a lot of files among which only the following seems relevant:

find ~/ -type f -name "config.xml"
<...>
/var/lib/jenkins/config.xml
<...>

The file contains the following field:

<workspaceDir>${JENKINS_HOME}/workspace/${ITEM_FULL_NAME}</workspaceDir>

Is this the correct field to edit? If so, which syntax should I follow while entering the desired path?

Answer 1

This question was already asked and answered on Stack Overflow. I'll copy the top answer here, but there are several other answers over there that you may find useful:

For me on Jenkins 2.7.2 on RHEL 7.2 after already starting jenkins and configuring a build, I needed to:

1. Change the jenkins user's home directory

   sudo su -
   service jenkins stop
   vi /etc/passwd
   #  change the /var/lib/jenkins to /home/jenkins or whatever 
   

2. Change the setting in the start script to also find it

   vi /etc/sysconfig/jenkins
   #   change the JENKINS_HOME to /home/jenkins or what ever
   

3. Copy all the data to the new location (eg: /home/jenkins)

   cd /home
   cp -Rf /var/lib/jenkins .
   chown -R jenkins:jenkins *
   

4. Start it back up

   service jenkins start
   

And that seems to have done it for me.

Answer 2

I was having the same problem on a Centos 7.9 system using Jenkins 2.346.2

Sometime around 2.332.1 Jenkins migrated from init.d to system.d, so the previous method of updating the /etc/sysconfig/jenkins (or /etc/default/jenkins) became deprecated.

You now use overrides through: systemctl edit jenkins

Jenkins systemd reference: https://www.jenkins.io/doc/book/system-administration/systemd-services/

Answer 3

The following script can be used to do what you want:

# become root
sudo -i

# stop the jenkins service
systemctl stop jenkins

# create the directory where you want jenkins
mkdir -p /[path to your jenkins instance]

vi /etc/sysconfig/jenkins
# change JENKINS_HOME to /[path to your jenkins instance]

vi /etc/passwd
#  change the default /var/lib/jenkins to /[path to your jenkins instance]

mv -R /var/lib/jenkins /[path to your jenkins instance]

# grant ownership of all the files to jenkins
chown -R jenkins:jenkins .[path to your jenkins instance]

# start jenkins
systemctl start jenkins 

# if you want jenkins to start upon every reboot
systemctl enable jenkins