Jenkins Best Practices

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Jenkins Best Practices
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration<- Read this!
https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Jenkins+Best+Practices
http://www.slideshare.net/andrewbayer/7-habits-of-highly-effective-jenkins-users
Set up version control of job configurations
Keep jobs simple! Don't put a ton of bash in each job. If a job needs to do something complex, put it in a script in GitHub and check it out as needed.
Use templated builders to simplify common tasks
Keep all scripts in version control - avoid running scripts that live on the Jenkins server filesystem
Don't install unnecessary plugins - plugins are often written by third parties and can interact with each other in strange ways
Use LDAP authentication if possible for traceability - avoid anonymous access
If possible, set up user/group roles so that only the people who need access to the internals of Jenkins have access
Backup artifacts
Keep Jenkins up to date! Out of date installations tend to rot.
Tie jobs into Sonar to track code quality
Commit often! It's easier to collaborate on code when everyone is constantly integrating their changes.
Job names in Jenkins should not use spaces - directories are created for each job, and some tools don't support directories with spaces 
You can enforce this with the Restrict Project Naming global configuration using the pattern \S*
Set up a Jenkins display where everyone can see when your jobs are failing
Guy's Favorite Jenkins Plugins
Doony: Not quite a plugin, but it's a set of easy-to-install UI improvements for Jenkins. http://doony.org/
AnsiColor: Colorized console logs.
Build Monitor Plugin: Pretty live job status monitor. 
Build Trigger Badge Plugin: At a glance, see why each build was triggered - an upstream job, a manual trigger, an SCM trigger, etc.
Console Tail Plugin: See the last n lines of the latest build on a job's main page. Find out why your build failed without digging through logs.
embeddable-build-status: Show your build status with a live icon you can embed in your GitHub readme.
Jenkins disk-usage plugin: Easily keep track of your disk space usage on the Jenkins master.
Jenkins Jabber notifier plugin: Notify chatrooms and users of build failures.
Jenkins Workspace Cleanup Plugin: Delete your workspace before or after builds. Ensure a fresh build every time.
Monitoring: Track Jenkins master and slave performance. This is crucial when your Jenkins installation starts acting funny and you want to know why.
Naginator: Automatically re-run failed builds, in case they failed due to an environmental issue.
ShiningPanda Plugin: Creates Python virtualenvs for you to work in.
Template Project plugin: Use jobs as templates for other jobs. Lets you easily manage multiple jobs that share a similar configuration.
Timestamper: Timestamp your console logs.
SCM Sync Configuration Plugin: Sync your Jenkins configuration files (which are mostly XML) to GitHub. Version control everything.
Jenkins Administration
If you need to restart Jenkins, go to /safeRestart or /restart
If this doesn't work, you'll need to SSH into Jenkins and run sudo service jenkins restart
To update Jenkins, run sudo yum update jenkins
If you install plugins, do it one at a time and restart Jenkins after each plugin, then go into a few configuration menus and run a few jobs to make sure nothing is broken. Installing Jenkins plugins is a bit risky and it's best avoided unless you have a really good reason to do it.
We're using the latest LTS Jenkins version. https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/LTS+Release+Line
The Jenkins home directory is /var/lib/jenkins.
Don't disable the Maven plugin. Jenkins won't start up. If you do disable it by accident, re-enable it with sudo rm /var/lib/jenkins/plugins/maven-plugin.jpi.disabled
If you accidentally lock everyone out of Jenkins due to incorrect security settings, disable global security in /var/lib/jenkins/config.xml