Jenkins and system messages (even when using direct link w/ Single Sign On)

[Nico Schmoigl]

Hi folks,

I am currently part of a group of operators who manage several Jenkins servers with >1000 users. These users authenticate via an LDAP server; default authorization mainly is read-only + build authorization. The jobs running on the server are generated via the REST API (and an own-developed generator). We do have >8000 jobs.

From time to time we do have information, which needs to be shared with our users. Usually, these are messages like

• planned downtimes,
• planned or ongoing limitations of service, and
• known issues (or links to a list of them).

Especially the first two items of this list we consider as "must-reads". That is why I am looking for something like a plugin which provides a "mandatory system message popup". Please note that the welcome message is not enough for us, as we have observed that most of our users perform an https-based auto-logon (and thus do not see the logon screen at all) and bookmark their jobs, such that they do not see the default/main page of the server.

Yet, I was not able to find such a plugin, which has an acceptable user experience. My current result of the analysis can be found at https://github.com/eaglerainbow/system-message-plugin/blob/master/raw/UseCase.md.
Are you aware of some tool, which missed so far? Would it make sense from your perspective to start such a plugin (in the sense of "Before starting a new plugin")?

Cheers,
Nico