Executing powershell command directly in jenkins pipeline

Calling PowerShell scripts is now supported with powershell step as announced on Jenkins blog.

The documentation mentions it supports multiple lines scripts.

From version 2.28 of Pipeline Nodes and Processes Plugin, we can directly use 'powershell'.

Eg: powershell(". '.Test.ps1'") 

To call a PowerShell script from the Groovy-Script:

• you have to use the bat command.
• After that, you have to be sure that the Error Code (errorlevel) variable will be correctly returned (EXIT 1 should resulting in a FAILED job).
• Last, to be compatible with the PowerShell-Plugin, you have to be sure that $LastExitCode will be considered.
• I have notice that the 'powershell' is now available in pipeline, but since it have several issues I prefer this variant. Still waiting it works stabil. I actually have an issue with the 'dontKillMe' behavior.

Since Jenkins 2.207 with Powershell plugin 1.4, I have replace all my calls with the official powershell pipeline command. I do now recommend to use it. Note that you must predent \$ErrorActionPreference='Stop'; to your Script if you want it to abort on Write-Error because of an Issue with the powershell plugin.

For that porpuse I have written a little groovy method which could be integrate in any pipeline-script:

def PowerShell(psCmd) {
    psCmd=psCmd.replaceAll("%", "%%")
    bat "powershell.exe -NonInteractive -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command \"\$ErrorActionPreference='Stop';[Console]::OutputEncoding=[System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8;$psCmd;EXIT \$global:LastExitCode\""
}

[EDIT] I have added the UTF8 OutputEncoding: works great with Server 2016 and Win10.[/EDIT] [EDIT] I have added the '%' mask[/EDIT]

In your Pipeline-Script you could then call your Script like this:

stage ('Call Powershell Script')
{
    node ('MyWindowsSlave') {
        PowerShell(". '.\\disk-usage.ps1'") 
    }
}

The best thing with that method, is that you may call CmdLet without having to do this in the Script, which is best-praxis.

Call ps1 to define CmdLet, an then call the CmdLet

PowerShell(". '.\\disk-usage.ps1'; du -Verbose")

• Do not forget to use withEnv() an then you are better than fully compatible with the Powershell plugin.
• postpone your Script with . to be sure your step failed when the script return an error code (should be preferred), use & if you don't care about it.