Jenkins powershell plugin always builds successful

Question

I'm using Jenkins PowerShell plugin to build a project.

However, I found that Jenkins always considers my build successful no matter what I type inside Windows PowerShell command.

Here's an example:

As you can see, asdf isn't a legal command. Jenkins should give me FAILURE after the build.

But the console output gives me:

Started by user admin
Building in workspace C:\Users\Administrator\.jenkins\jobs\Test\workspace
[workspace] $ powershell.exe -NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy ByPass "& 'C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\hudson2092642221832331776.ps1'"
The term 'asdf' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\hudson2092642221832331776.ps1:1 char:5
+ asdf <<<< 
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (asdf:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Finished: SUCCESS

I think the execution result of PowerShell should depend on $lastexitcode.

Is this a bug of PowerShell plugin?

Answer 1

Ultimately, I had to resort to the following configuration in Jenkins as none of the solutions here worked for me. Chris Nelson's answer got me on the right track. We're invoking chef-client remotely so we had to do a little magic to get the remote PS session to talk the local and then pass status on to Jenkins.

• $res gives the output of chef-client.
• $lastsuccess is true or false according to PS rules of engagment.

Of course, you'll have to supply your own evironment variables! :)

 Write-host "Deploying $env:Computer with $env:Databag data bag... "
 $secstr = ConvertTo-SecureString $env:Password -AsPlainText -Force 
 $cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $env:User, $secstr
 $s = New-PSSession -ComputerName $env:Computer  -Credential $cred
 $res = Invoke-Command -Session $s -ScriptBlock { try {chef-client} catch {exit 1}}
 $lastsuccess = Invoke-Command -Session $s -ScriptBlock {$?}
 Remove-PSSession $s
 write-host " --- "
 write-host $res
 write-host " --- "
 if($lastsuccess)
 {
  write-host "chef deployment completed"
  exit 0
 }
 write-host "chef deployment had errors"
 exit 1

Answer 2

For me, I wanted the script to stop and fail in Jenkins soon as it hit an error. This was accomplished by adding this to the start of the script:

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

This is discussed here: How to stop a PowerShell script on the first error?

Answer 3

I want to add here that I just ran into a quirk: you must have the powershell script end with exit and not return.

My jenkins pipe looked like:

script {
  result = powershell(returnStatus: true, script: '''...if(error condition) { return 1 }''')

  if(result) { error }
}

I was using if(error condition) { return 1 } and while the 1 was showing up as the return value in the jenkins console, it was not failing the build. When i used if(error condition) { exit 1 }, the build failed as expected.

I think this is a helpful addition to this thread - the need to use exit and not return. But I don't understand this part: the pipe is checking for result to be non-zero. What is the difference between exit and return in a powershell directive that makes if(result) { error } not work as expected when using return?

Answer 4

As of 1.3, the plugin will not handle exceptions such as those from missing commands. You can do this yourself with try/catch:

try
{
    asdf
}
catch
{
    write-host "Caught an exception"
    exit 1
}

See MSDN for more.

Answer 5

Per the latest version of the plugin (Version 1.3 Sept 18 2015), you must use $LastExitCode to fail a build.

Version 1.3 (Sept 18 2015)

• PowerShell now runs in Non-Interactive mode to prevent interactive prompts from hanging the build
• PowerShell now runs with ExcecutionPolicy set to "Bypass" to avoid execution policy issues
• Scripts now exit with $LastExitCode, causing non-zero exit codes to mark a build as failed
• Added help and list of available environment variables (including English and French translations)

Answer 6

This is how I implemented RRIROWER's solution. Hope it helps.

<yourscript>.ps1; exit $lastexitcode

Make sure your powershell scripts does exit with the desired value.
Run "exit <value>" as the last line.