Backup Jenkins home periodicallly with git.

jenkins-home-git.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Setup
#
# - Create a new Jenkins Job
# - Mark "None" for Source Control Management
# - Select the "Build Periodically" build trigger
#   - configure to run as frequently as you like
# - Add a new "Execute Shell" build step
#   - Paste the contents of this file as the command
# - Save
#  
# NOTE: before this job will work, you'll need to manually navigate to the $JENKINS_HOME directory 
# and do the initial set up of the git repository.  
# Make sure the appropriate remote is added and the default remote/branch set up.
#  

# Jenkins Configuraitons Directory
cd $JENKINS_HOME

# Add general configurations, job configurations, and user content
git add -- *.xml jobs/*/*.xml userContent/*

# only add user configurations if they exist
if [ -d users ]; then
    user_configs=`ls users/*/config.xml`

    if [ -n "$user_configs" ]; then
        git add $user_configs
    fi
fi

# mark as deleted anything that's been, well, deleted
to_remove=`git status | grep "deleted" | awk '{print $3}'`

if [ -n "$to_remove" ]; then
    git rm --ignore-unmatch $to_remove
fi

git commit -m "Automated Jenkins commit"

git push -q -u origin master

Saved me the time of writing my own backup script. Thanks 👍

Thanks, it saved me a lot of time too.

Thank you!

I wonder if the line 34 awk should actually read '{print $2}' instead of '{print $3}'?
The output of "git status" is like

   deleted:    test.py

Thanks a lot !!

Thank you! I want to post a "You Da Real MVP" meme but I don't think that's allowed on GH.

Just a note:
'{print $3}'
is returning empty string for me. Therefore there are elements not being git rm-ed....

I replaced it for
'{print $2}'
and works correctly.

this is great, thank you!

what do you add from the $JENKINS_HOME directory when doing the initial set up of the git repository?

git add * ?

I added all the secret files, and now I'm getting this:

ubuntu@:~/jenkins$ git status
jenkins-data/secrets/filepath-filters.d/30-default.conf: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/hudson.util.Secret: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/initialAdminPassword: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/jenkins.model.Jenkins.crumbSalt: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/jenkins.security.ApiTokenProperty.seed: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/master.key: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/org.jenkinsci.main.modules.instance_identity.InstanceIdentity.KEY: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/slave-to-master-security-kill-switch: Permission denied
jenkins-data/secrets/whitelisted-callables.d/default.conf: Permission denied
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
nothing to commit, working directory clean

Modified "to_remove" expression to be more robust:
to_remove=$(git status | grep "deleted" | cut -d ":" -f2 | sed -r 's/^[ \t]*//p')

Adding user configurations gave me some errors, and can be simplified:

# only add user configurations if they exist
if [ -d users ]; then
    git add users/*/config.xml
fi

A simpler way of doing deletion resilient to whitespace in file names:
git ls-files -dz | xargs -0r git rm

The initial script works fine for me, but leaves out some more complex (deeper nested) jobs.
So I added
shopt -s globstar
at the beginning and changed
git add -- .xml jobs//.xml userContent/
to
git add -- .xml jobs/**/config.xml userContent/

I used the following to cope with nested jobs folders
find -L jobs -type f -iname config.xml -follow -print0 -exec git add {} \;

This can be simplified:

if [ -d users ]; then
    user_configs=`ls users/*/config.xml`

    if [ -n "$user_configs" ]; then
        git add $user_configs
    fi
fi

to:

ls users/*/config.xml 2>/dev/null | xargs -r git add

And this can be simplified

to_remove=`git status | grep "deleted" | awk '{print $3}'`

if [ -n "$to_remove" ]; then
    git rm --ignore-unmatch $to_remove
fi

to:

git status | awk '/deleted/ { print $3 }' | xargs -r git rm --ignore-unmatch

Final edition:

#!/bin/sh -e

cd "$JENKINS_HOME"

# Add general configurations, secrets, job configurations, nodes, user content, users and plugins info:
ls -1d *.xml secrets/ jobs/*/*.xml nodes/*/*.xml userContent/* users/*/config.xml \
    plugins/*/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF 2>/dev/null | xargs -r -d '\n' git add --

# Track deleted files:
LANG=C git status | awk '$1 == "deleted:" { print $2; }' | xargs -r git rm --ignore-unmatch

LANG=C git status | grep -q '^nothing to commit' || {
    git commit -m "Automated Jenkins commit at $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')"
    git push -q -u origin master
}

Published here: https://github.com/ilyaevseev/jenkins2git/