How to set environment variables in Jenkins?

Question

I would like to be able to do something like:

AOEU=$(echo aoeu)

and have Jenkins set AOEU=aoeu.

The Environment Variables section in Jenkins doesn't do that. Instead, it sets AOEU='$(echo aoeu)'.

How can I get Jenkins to evaluate a shell command and assign the output to an environment variable?

Eventually, I want to be able to assign the executor of a job to an environment variable that can be passed into or used by other scripts.

Answer 1

For some reason sudo su - jenkins does not log me to jenkins user, I ended up using different approach.

I was successful setting the global env variables using using jenkins config.xml at /var/lib/jenkins/config.xml (installed in Linux/ RHEL) - without using external plugins.

I simply had to stop jenkins add then add globalNodeProperties, and then restart.

Example, I'm defining variables APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT and SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE to continious_integration below,

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<hudson>

  <globalNodeProperties>
    <hudson.slaves.EnvironmentVariablesNodeProperty>
      <envVars serialization="custom">
        <unserializable-parents/>
        <tree-map>
          <default>
            <comparator class="hudson.util.CaseInsensitiveComparator"/>
          </default>
          <int>2</int>
          <string>APPLICATION_ENVIRONMENT</string>
          <string>continious_integration</string>
          <string>SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE</string>
          <string>continious_integration</string>
        </tree-map>
      </envVars>
    </hudson.slaves.EnvironmentVariablesNodeProperty>
  </globalNodeProperties>
</hudson>

Answer 2

Normally you can configure Environment variables in Global properties in Configure System.

However for dynamic variables with shell substitution, you may want to create a script file in Jenkins HOME dir and execute it during the build. The SSH access is required. For example.

1. Log-in as Jenkins: sudo su - jenkins or sudo su - jenkins -s /bin/bash

2. Create a shell script, e.g.:

   echo 'export VM_NAME="$JOB_NAME"' > ~/load_env.sh
   echo "export AOEU=$(echo aoeu)" >> ~/load_env.sh
   chmod 750 ~/load_env.sh
   

3. In Jenkins Build (Execute shell), invoke the script and its variables before anything else, e.g.

   source ~/load_env.sh
   

Answer 3

There is Build Env Propagator Plugin which lets you add new build environment variables, e.g.

Any successive Propagate build environment variables step will override previously defined environment variable values.

Answer 4

In my case, I needed to add the JMETER_HOME environment variable to be available via my Ant build scripts across all projects on my Jenkins server (Linux), in a way that would not interfere with my local build environment (Windows and Mac) in the build.xml script. Setting the environment variable via Manage Jenkins - Configure System - Global properties was the easiest and least intrusive way to accomplish this. No plug-ins are necessary.

---

The environment variable is then available in Ant via:

<property environment="env" />
<property name="jmeter.home" value="${env.JMETER_HOME}" />

This can be verified to works by adding:

<echo message="JMeter Home: ${jmeter.home}"/>

Which produces:

JMeter Home: ~/.jmeter

Answer 5

Try Environment Script Plugin (GitHub) which is very similar to EnvInject. It allows you to run a script before the build (after SCM checkout) that generates environment variables for it. E.g.

and in your script, you can print e.g. FOO=bar to the standard output to set that variable.

Example to append to an existing PATH-style variable:

echo PATH+unique_identifier=/usr/local/bin

So you're free to do whatever you need in the script - either cat a file, or run a script in some other language from your project's source tree, etc.

Answer 6

You can use Environment Injector Plugin to set environment variables in Jenkins at job and node levels. Below I will show how to do it at job level.

1. From the Jenkins web interface, go to Manage Jenkins > Manage Plugins and install the plugin.

2. Go to your job Configure screen
3. Find Add build step in Build section and select Inject environment variables
4. Set the desired environment variable as VARIABLE_NAME=VALUE pattern. In my case, I changed value of USERPROFILE variable

If you need to define a new environment variable depending on some conditions (e.g. job parameters) you can refer to this answer.