Recommending for cleaning up old builds when multibranch pipeline is in use?

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Mark Stosberg

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Feb 28, 2017, 2:24:42 PM2/28/17
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For cleaning up old builds, the "Discard Old Builds" plugin is recommended:


However, the instructions for reference a "post build" step which doesn't exist in the Configure interface for Multibranch Pipeline projects. 

What's the recommended way to clean-up builds from multi-branch pipeline projects? Ideally I'd like different pruning policies for different branches. 

Thanks,

     Mark

Baptiste Mathus

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Mar 1, 2017, 4:08:53 AM3/1/17
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I don't think there's something per branch, but you probably want to either search JIRA and/or file a new feature request about it.

You shouldn't need a special plugin, this is a standard feature. Here's the way to do it with Declarative Pipeline: 

pipeline {
    options {
        buildDiscarder(logRotator(numToKeepStr: '20'))
    }
...
}


HTH

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Mark Stosberg

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Mar 1, 2017, 2:30:08 PM3/1/17
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Thanks for reply, and for providing both the Pipeline syntax formats. This is the first time I noticed that there are two distinct Pipeline syntaxes.

I'm trying out the Scripted Pipeline syntax now.  

I tried to find documentation on the difference between 'numToKeepStr' and 'artifactNumToKeepStr' but couldn't. I set them both the same number in hopes that will have the desired effect of saving a particular number of builds. 

      Mark

On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 4:08:53 AM UTC-5, Baptiste Mathus wrote:
I don't think there's something per branch, but you probably want to either search JIRA and/or file a new feature request about it.

You shouldn't need a special plugin, this is a standard feature. Here's the way to do it with Declarative Pipeline: 

pipeline {
    options {
        buildDiscarder(logRotator(numToKeepStr: '20'))
    }
...
}


HTH
2017-02-28 20:24 GMT+01:00 Mark Stosberg <ma...@rideamigos.com>:
For cleaning up old builds, the "Discard Old Builds" plugin is recommended:


However, the instructions for reference a "post build" step which doesn't exist in the Configure interface for Multibranch Pipeline projects. 

What's the recommended way to clean-up builds from multi-branch pipeline projects? Ideally I'd like different pruning policies for different branches. 

Thanks,

     Mark

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Baptiste Mathus

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Mar 1, 2017, 2:41:07 PM3/1/17
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Mark Stosberg

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May 5, 2017, 4:06:04 PM5/5/17
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On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 4:08:53 AM UTC-5, Baptiste Mathus wrote:
I don't think there's something per branch, but you probably want to either search JIRA and/or file a new feature request about it.

You shouldn't need a special plugin, this is a standard feature. Here's the way to do it with Declarative Pipeline: 

pipeline {
    options {
        buildDiscarder(logRotator(numToKeepStr: '20'))
    }
...
}



I'm stil not seeing any signs that the buildDiscarder plugin is working for me. At the top of my Jenkinsfile, I have this:

properties([[
 $class: 'jenkins.model.BuildDiscarderProperty',
  strategy: [$class: 'LogRotator', numToKeepStr: '50', artifactNumToKeepStr: '50']
]])

That's just above my  "node {}" block. 

From reading related source code at:

I can see that this function should generate some logging, but I can't find the log entries indicating this is running in either the web-based Jenkins log page, or under /var/log/jenkins/*

The effective-but-imperfect workaround I've found is to just manually delete only builds:

    find "/var/lib/jenkins/jobs/My Pipeline/branches/" -mindepth 3 -maxdepth 3 -type d -ctime +15 | xargs -d '\n' rm -rf

That doesn't have the safety nets of preserving any builds that are last-successful, promoted, etc. 

Some questions:

  * Should the logging I see in the source code *always* be happening or there something I need to do activate that logging?
  * Should properties() call work outside a node block?
  * Are there any serious drawbacks to just manually deleting old build myself? This built-in log rotation has proven especially time-consuming for what seems like it should be a simple feature to setup. 

Thanks,

      Mark

Kevin Brotcke

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Nov 28, 2017, 6:50:48 PM11/28/17
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I also couldn't get the buildDiscarder working, nothing seems to be happening. In our case we create a lot of long lasting branches which filled up our Jenins server disk space pretty quickly. I wrote a quick Groovy script to delete old builds across all branches but I'd prefer a more integrated solution:

Mark Waite

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Nov 28, 2017, 7:53:27 PM11/28/17
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On Tuesday, November 28, 2017 at 4:50:48 PM UTC-7, Kevin Brotcke wrote:
I also couldn't get the buildDiscarder working, nothing seems to be happening. In our case we create a lot of long lasting branches which filled up our Jenins server disk space pretty quickly. I wrote a quick Groovy script to delete old builds across all branches but I'd prefer a more integrated solution:



From scripted pipeline, I use properties([[$class: 'BuildDiscarderProperty', strategy: [$class: 'LogRotator', numToKeepStr: '7']]]) and it works great.  I haven't tried it with declarative pipeline, but would be surprised if it did not work just as well there.

Mark Waite

Kevin Brotcke

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Nov 29, 2017, 2:46:38 AM11/29/17
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I can confirm deleting old builds PER branch is working for declarative syntax by using the option:
options {
  buildDiscarder(logRotator(numToKeepStr:'10'))
}

But this doesn't really solve my problem. I want to keep max N builds across ALL branches in a multibranch pipeline to maintain a more predictable disk usage rate. That's what my Groovy script accomplishes.


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