Introduction to jenkinsclient
Jenkinsclient is a powerful, open-source, cross-platform Jenkins command-line client. It provides a Docker-style command line that lets users operate Jenkins.
Jenkinsclient is written in Python, and the project source code is open-sourced under the domestic Mulan Open Source License. You can view it on Gitee and Github.
Gitee: https://gitee.com/hummerstudio/jenkinsclient
Github: https://github.com/hummerstudio/jenkinsclient
Project homepage: https://pypi.org/project/jenkinsclient
Jenkinsclient features
Feature 1: Open source
As mentioned above, the Jenkinsclient project source code is open-sourced under the domestic Mulan Open Source License. Contributions, code submissions, problem reports, documentation, and helping to spread and share the word are all very welcome.
Feature 2: Cross-platform
From the very beginning of development, Jenkinsclient was positioned for cross-platform use, and Python was ultimately chosen for the implementation.
Windows, Linux, Mac and Unix all have a Python runtime environment, which guarantees that Jenkinsclient can be used across platforms.
Feature 3: Support for multiple instances
Jenkinsclient supports multiple Jenkins instances.
You can use the jenkins config generate command to generate a configuration file, configure the information of several Jenkins servers in it, and use the use field to specify the server operated on by default.
Feature 4: Simple and easy to use
In order to achieve a simple and easy-to-use command-line experience, a great deal of technology selection work went into Jenkinsclient’s design from the start.
My goal was to design a Docker-style command line; in short, to express operations with commands/keywords rather than the traditional approach of doing them through parameters/options.
For example, to start a docker container, we use:
docker container start CONTAINER
For jenkinsclient, for example to trigger a job, the command line I wanted to be able to implement looks like this:
jenkins job build JOB_NAME
By contrast, a traditional-style command-line implementation would look like this:
jenkins job -b JOB_NAME
Or like this:
jenkins-job build JOB_NAME
Python has several libraries for developing command-line tools, but most of them can only produce traditional-style command-line tools. After careful screening and writing demos, I chose Fire. Fire fully meets the requirements above.
Now, with Jenkinsclient, you can perform Jenkins operations using a natural command-line syntax like this:
jenkins jobs // Show the job list
jenkins job build JOB_NAME // Trigger a Jenkins job
jenkins job disable JOB_NAME // Disable a Jenkins job
jenkins job enable JOB_NAME // Enable a Jenkins job
jenkins plugins // Show the plugin list
jenkins plugin install PLUGIN_NAME // Install a plugin
jenkins plugin uninstall PLUGIN_NAME // Uninstall a plugin
jenkins plugin search KEY_WORD // Search for a plugin
Feature 5: Powerful
Jenkinsclient’s architecture gives it the ability to implement all Jenkins-related operations. The major features implemented so far are:
- Configure Jenkins server information
- Manage Jenkins nodes
- Manage Jenkins plugins
- Manage Jenkins credentials
- Manage Jenkins jobs
- Manage Jenkins queues
- Manage Jenkins executors
- Manage Jenkins builds
These basically cover all the various kinds of Jenkins resources that can be operated on.
Installation
The simplest way is to install jenkinsclient, which is hosted on PyPI, via pip. Just use the following command:
pip3 install jenkinsclient
You can also download the source code, unzip it, enter the root directory, and install it manually with the setuptools tool:
python setup.py install
Upgrade
pip3 install -U jenkinsclient
Quick start
Configure server information
Use jenkins config generate to configure the Jenkins server information.
This command generates a configuration template file for jenkinsclient, and then you need to fill in the actual values.
View help information
Try typing jenkins jobs to view all the jobs on the Jenkins server.
Try typing jenkins plugins to view all the plugins on the Jenkins server.
For more commands, type jenkins.
Or type jenkins <command group> to display the help information for a command group; for example, to view the help information for the Jenkins job management commands:
jenkins job
To view the help information for the Jenkins plugin management commands:
jenkins plugin
This tutorial series will introduce these commands in detail, so stay tuned!