Jenkins Integration

Jenkins Integration

Jenkins is an open source automation server written in Java. It helps automate the software development process, supports continuous integration, and facilitates continuous delivery.

This integration uses the Prometheus plugin to get the data from Jenkins. It also installs and configures Telegraf to send Jenkins server metrics into Wavefront. Telegraf is a light-weight server process capable of collecting, processing, aggregating, and sending metrics to a Wavefront proxy.

In addition to setting up the metrics flow, this integration also installs a dashboard. Here’s a preview of some charts in the Jenkins dashboard.

To see a list of the metrics for this integration, select the integration from https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/tree/master/plugins/inputs.

Jenkins Setup

Step 1. Install the Telegraf Agent

This integration uses the Prometheus input plugin for Telegraf to extract metrics from Jenkins. If you’ve already installed Telegraf on your server(s), you can skip to Step 2.

Log in to your product instance and follow the instructions on the Setup tab to install Telegraf and a Wavefront proxy in your environment. If a proxy is already running in your environment, you can select that proxy and the Telegraf install command connects with that proxy. Sign up for a free trial to check it out!

Step 2. Install the Prometheus Plugin

Jenkins metrics can be collected using the Jenkins Prometheus Plugin. Install the plugin like this:

1. Log in to your Jenkins environment as an administrator and select Manage Jenkins > Manage Plugins.
2. Click the Available tab and search for Prometheus.
3. Select the Prometheus plugin and install using standard instructions.

For details, see the Jenkins Managing Plugins docs.

Step 3. Set the Permission for a User

Set the access control list in Jenkins to allow a Prometheus user to read job metrics as it’s scraping clients.

1. In Jenkins, click Manage Jenkins and click the Configure System link.
2. Select the Enable authentication for Prometheus endpoint check box.

Note: The configured user must have access to a Prometheus endpoint.

Step 4. Enable the Prometheus Input Plugin with Authentication

Create a file called jenkins.conf in /etc/telegraf/telegraf.d and enter the following snippet:

[[inputs.prometheus]]
  ## Prefix to attach to the measurement name
  name_prefix = "jenkins_"

  ## A Jenkins server URL to scrape metrics from.
  urls = ["$JENKINS_URL/prometheus/"]
  ## If the Jenkins prometheus endpoint is user authenticated, provide the username and password.
  # username = ""
  # password = ""

  ## Specify timeout duration for slower clients (default is 3s)
  # response_timeout = "3s"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = /path/to/cafile
  # tls_cert = /path/to/certfile
  # tls_key = /path/to/keyfile
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

Update $JENKINS_URL with the URL of the Jenkins server.

A single Telegraf agent can poll multiple Jenkins servers for status information. Specify the addresses of the Jenkins server in the urls parameter in case of anonymous authentication to the Jenkins server:

urls = [
   "$JENKINS_URL_1/prometheus/",
   "$JENKINS_URL_2/prometheus/",
   "$JENKINS_URL_3/prometheus/"
]

Step 5. Restart Telegraf

Run sudo service telegraf restart to restart your Telegraf agent.

Metrics