How to export/import the Jenkins configuration?

Question

The Jenkins CLI provides the function to export&import single jobs, e.g.:

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://foo-jenkins.tld:8080 get-job myjob > myjob.xml
java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://bar-jenkins.tld:8080 create-job newmyjob < myjob.xml

Is it also possible / How to backup&restore the configs?

I mean the whole settings:

the system configuration,
the global security configuration,
the credentials,
the global tool configuration,
the plugins configuration (the "HTTP Proxy Configuration" and the list of the installed plugins)
the nodes
the users
_{is anything missing?}

The whole settings at once or maybe even as single backup/restore processes like e.g. MozBackup with its "Components selection"

MozBackup - Components selection

or eclipse with its "Export Preferences" dialog

eclipse - Export Preferences

Alex O Alex O · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-27T07:06:59

There is no simple way to backup/export selected parts of the configuration, since Jenkins configuration data is scattered among

several files (global config.xml, lots of plugin-specific files)
several sub-directories (credentials, nodes) and
some of the files are encrypted (credentials), so you must also backup the encryption keys

The cleanest solution will be to back-up the entire $JENKINS_HOME, and to exclude those parts that you do not want to be part of the backup (e.g., exclude jobs/*/builds). With that you'll end up with a resonable backup size also.

Such a backup must be done on filesystem level, as there's no API to access all those files/data.

Do not rely on thinBackup, as you depend on the plugin maintainers to not miss anything important. E.g., as of version 1.7.4, thinBackup does not backup Jenkins' secret keys, so it's impossible to restore credentials from scratch.

How to export/import the Jenkins configuration?

3 Answers