Configuring an alias for the Jenkins CLI tool

1 minute readAutomation

If you use the Jenkins CLI tool regularly, configure an alias to avoid having to type the entire command each time.

For instance, assuming you’re using Bash:

  1. Change to the directory containing the jenkins-cli.jar file.

  2. In your favorite text editor, copy and paste the following into a new "alias" file:

    #!/bin/sh java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -auth username:password -s http://operations-center-url:port-number/ "$@"
  3. Adjust the username, password, operations-center-url, and port-number values as required.

  4. Save the alias file with an appropriate file name (such as jenkins-cli.sh).

    This alias file assumes that jenkins-cli.jar is located in the same directory.
  5. Make the alias file executable using the following command.

    chmod a+x jenkins-cli.sh
  6. Configure the actual alias to your alias file in your appropriate Bash configuration file (.bash_profile or .bashrc), which is usually located in your home directory.

    For example, in your favorite text editor, copy and paste the following line into .bash_profile or .bashrc:

    alias jenkins-cli='/path/to/jenkins-cli.sh'
  7. Edit the /path/to value as required and save the configuration file.

  8. Reload your Bash configuration by entering the appropriate command (based on the file you edited).

    For example, enter the appropriate command:

    • source ~/.bash_profile

      or

    • source ~/.bashrc

Now, the command jenkins-cli will replace:

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -auth username:password -s http://operations-center-url:port-number/

Therefore, using this alias, the commands in the examples of usage section could be simplified to the following:

  • Listing all available Jenkins CLI tool commands:

    jenkins-cli help
  • Retrieving the version of your operations center instance:

    jenkins-cli version
  • Obtaining more information about a specific Jenkins CLI command:

    jenkins-cli help plugin-catalog