Pipeline step for powershell() fails with a "powershell is not recognized" error

[Mark Hanford]

I have a Jenkins agent running on Windows 2016, and intend to run PowerShell steps on it.

For some reason, despite my global system PATH having the PowerShell path in it, I cannot run a `powershell()` step unless I explicitly set a PATH in my Jenkinsfile:

    environment {

        PATH = "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0"

    }

If I don't, I get an error:

    C:\Jenkins\workspace\test_ps_remoting@tmp\durable-1c380b43\powershellWrapper.ps1 : The term 'powershell' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. 

    Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

    At C:\Jenkins\workspace\test_ps_remoting@tmp\durable-1c380b43\powershellHelper.ps1:54 char:9

    +     & { & $MainScript | Out-FileNoBom -Writer $OutputWriter } *>&1 |  ...

    +         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (powershell:String) [powershellWrapper.ps1], CommandNotFoundException

        + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException,powershellWrapper.ps1

     

Oddly, it looks like the agent _is_ running PS correctly, because that's a PS error, but the process it spawns can't.

If I catch the 3 temporary files that Jenkins drops on the agent, I can run them manually just fine, as the Jenkins service user, so the system PATH is definitely correct.

I have added the WindowsPowerShell directory to both the System's PATH, and the service account user's PATH, neither makes a difference.

I recently posted the question on SO, but only got a workaround, not a solution.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50603820/jenkins-pipeline-powershell-step-fails-due-to-powershell-not-found

Thanks,

Mark

[Mark Hanford]

Never mind. Turns out another of the Jenkins admins has put in a global environment variable setting PATH to /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin. 

That was fun.