How to manage maven settings.xml on a shared jenkins server?

Question

I have a Jenkins cluster that is shared by several teams, that I can configure build jobs on, However i can\'t easily make changes to the Jenkins configuration itself.

Answer 1

I faced the similar issue when building the project with jenkins as ojdbc jar is not available in maven central repository.

It worked when I placed the ojdbc jar in WEB-INF/lib folder and removed the maven dependency in pom.xml.

Answer 2

I would recommend using the configuration file plugin, provides a UI to edit one or more Maven settings files.

These settings files can be passed into your Maven build using the "-s" option.

Answer 3

You can specify for each job in the Maven Advanced Options part a specific seetings.xml path

Answer 4

We manage all our build nodes using Puppet. It gives you greater control than just settings.xml. Highly recommended

Puppet is IT automation software that helps system administrators manage infrastructure throughout its lifecycle, from provisioning and configuration to patch management and compliance. Using Puppet, you can easily automate repetitive tasks, quickly deploy critical applications, and proactively manage change, scaling from 10s of servers to 1000s, on-premise or in the cloud.

Answer 5

A good way to automate the provisioning of maven executors with specific configuration, is using ElasticBox Jenkins plugin.

You only need to create a box for the Maven slave, that define all the customization variables and files to be used by it and choose your preferred cloud provider for deploying it.

ElasticBox gives you also the flexibility to create new slaves only when needed and automatically destroy them after an specified retention time.

Here is how-to connect your Jenkins with ElasticBox:

https://elasticbox.com/documentation/integrate-with-jenkins/jenkins-elasticbox-setup/#jenkins-configure-plugin

Here is how to automate creation of Jenkins slaves with ElasticBox:

https://elasticbox.com/documentation/integrate-with-jenkins/jenkins-elasticbox-slaves/

There is a blog post about how easily build and deploy from GitHub pull requests with ElasticBox Jenkins plugin:

https://elasticbox.com/blog/github-pull-requests-jenkinsplugin/

Answer 6

If your company is using Nexus Pro (as you've already mentioned), then your unique Maven settings.xml can be stored there, and retrieved at build time using the nexus-maven-plugin as described here: http://books.sonatype.com/nexus-book/reference/maven-settings.html

Combined with token-based access (again, Nexus Pro does this), you do not need to store passwords insecurely in the settings.xml (see https://books.sonatype.com/nexus-book/reference/usertoken.html)