Jenkins Backup Pipeline

I recently setup a Jenkins CICD service to complement the Travis based automation already in use where I work. I worked with job-based Jenkins workflows in the past - where we setup chains of interdependent jobs (ex: build, publish assets, deploy to dev environment, ...), but I took this opportunity to adopt Jenkins' new (to me) Pipeline pattern, and I'm glad I did.

A Jenkins pipeline defines (via a groovy DSL) a sequence of steps that execute together in a build under a single Jenkins job. Here's an example pipeline we use to backup our Jenkins configuration to S3 every night.

#!groovy

pipeline {
  agent any

  stages {
    stage('BuildArchive'){
      steps {
        echo "BuildArchive $env.JENKINS_HOME"
        sh "tar cvJf backup.tar.xz --exclude '$env.JENKINS_HOME/jobs/[^/]*/builds/*' --exclude '$env.JENKINS_HOME/jobs/[^/]*/last*' --exclude '$env.JENKINS_HOME/workspace' --exclude '$env.JENKINS_HOME/war' --exclude '$env.JENKINS_HOME/jobs/[^/]*/workspace/'  $env.JENKINS_HOME"
      }
    }
    stage('UploadToS3') {
      steps {
        echo 'Upload to S3!'
        sh 'aws s3 cp --sse AES256 backup.tar.xz s3://cdis-terraform-state/JenkinsBackup/backup.$(date +%u).tar.xz'
      }
    }
    stage('Cleanup') {
      steps {
        echo 'Cleanup!'
        sh 'rm -f backup.tar.xz'
      }
    }
  }
  post {
    success {
      slackSend color: 'good', message: 'Jenkins backup pipeline succeeded'
    }
    failure {
      slackSend color: 'bad', message: 'Jenkins backup pipeline failed'
    }
    unstable {
      slackSend color: 'bad', message: 'Jenkins backup pipeline unstable'
    }
  }
}

If you are a Jenkins user, then take the time to give Pipelines a try. If you're also using github or bitbucket - then look into Jenkins' support for organizations that nicely support pull-request based workflows. Also try the new Blue Ocean UI - it's designed with pipelines in mind.