Jenkins.exe Oddness

[Michael Lamothe]

Hi,

I've noticed some strange things happening with the Windows installation of Jenkins.

Firstly, we noticed that the Jenkins service would not start and later found out it's because it's trying to talk out to the Internet when it starts.  Obviously, the issue here was that the box doesn't have direct internet access.  I've checked the MD5 sum on the file and it seems fine.

Second, every week Jenkins seems to try to download a new version of the exe and overwrite the existing one as evidenced by http://www.jarvana.com/jarvana/view/org/jvnet/hudson/main/hudson-core/1.342/hudson-core-1.342-sources.jar!/hudson/lifecycle/WindowsServiceLifecycle.java?format=ok

This second issue seems the one most alarming, it seems that it would be a great mechanism for malware propogation.

There is very little information on the Windows Install, the exe or the company that makes the exe.  We've now written our own exe and disabled the WindowsServiceLifecycle but would like to know why both of these "suspisious" things exist.  Can anyone help please?

[markus...@nokia.com]

Hi,

> I've noticed some strange things happening with the Windows installation of
> Jenkins.

There are strange things happening when installing the Windows services :)

> Firstly, we noticed that the Jenkins service would not start and later found
> out it's because it's trying to talk out to the Internet when it starts.
> Obviously, the issue here was that the box doesn't have direct internet
> access. I've checked the MD5 sum on the file and it seems fine.

If you are using a relatively new Jenkins version the "Jenkins.exe" or "Jenkins-slave.exe" is a signed executable.
Windows wants to download the certificate for the signer of the executable, but that will fail if you don't have direct internet access.
You can take an older Jenkins and the unsigned Jenkins.exe from there, or download the certificate from a system that has internet access and import it to the masters and slaves before you try to install Jenkins as a service.

And on some systems that has stricter security setting you might also need to put a file called jenkins.exe.config (or Jenkins-slave.exe.config) next to the executable on the master (or the slaves) with this content:

<configuration>
<runtime>
<generatePublisherEvidence enabled="false"/>
</runtime>
</configuration>

With this you should be able to have the slaves installed and running also without internet connections.

> This second issue seems the one most alarming, it seems that it would be a
> great mechanism for malware propogation.

I agree. There is a reason for people to not have internet access from all their hosts :)

++MStr