Run shell command in jenkins as root user?

I would suggest against running the jenkins user as root. This could expose the operating system and all of the repo's which jenkins can build.

Running any script as root is a security risk, but a slightly safer method would be to grant the jenkins user sudo access to only run the one script, without needing a password.

sudo visudo

and add the following:

jenkins    ALL = NOPASSWD: /var/lib/jenkins/jobs/[job name]/workspace/script

Double check your path via the console log of a failed build script. The one shown here is the default.

Now within the jenkins task you can call sudo $WORKSPACE/your script


You need to modify the permission for jenkins user so that you can run the shell commands. You can install the jenkins as as service (download the rpm package), You might need to change the ports because by default it runs http on 8080 and AJP on 8009 port.



Following process is for CentOS
1. Open up the this script (using VIM or other editor):

vim /etc/sysconfig/jenkins

2. Find this $JENKINS_USER and change to “root”:

$JENKINS_USER="root"

3. Then change the ownership of Jenkins home, webroot and logs:

chown -R root:root /var/lib/jenkins
chown -R root:root /var/cache/jenkins
chown -R root:root /var/log/jenkins

4) Restart Jenkins and check the user has been changed:

service jenkins restart
ps -ef | grep jenkins

Now you should be able to run the Jenkins jobs as the root user and all the shell command will be executed as root.