Demo Controller Failure Freestyle Project

In this tutorial, we’ll demonstrate how a Jenkins controller failure affects a long-running Freestyle project. You will learn how to:

By the end, you’ll understand why Freestyle jobs do not survive controller restarts and what alternatives exist.

1. Prepare a Long-Running Deploy Job

Edit the ascii-deploy-job and insert a sleep before the actual deployment steps. This will simulate a long-running process.

#!/bin/bash
# Simulate a long-running task
sleep 3600

# Deployment steps
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cowsay -y
export PATH="$PATH:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"
cat advice.message | cowsay -f "$(ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows | shuf -n 1)"

Save and apply the job configuration in Jenkins.

2. Trigger the Build and Test Jobs

1. In Jenkins, click Build Now for ascii-build-job.
2. ascii-build-job will automatically trigger ascii-test-job.

Test Job Failure

Because our advice quote has five words or fewer, the test script will fail. Inspect ascii-test-job’s console output:

Started by upstream project "ascii-build-job" build number 5
Running as SYSTEM
Building in workspace /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/ascii-test-job
Copied 1 artifact from "ascii-build-job" build number 5
[ascii-test-job] $ /bin/sh -xe /tmp/jenkins1567.sh
+ ls advice.json
advice.json
+ jq -r .slip.advice advice.json
+ wc -w
+ [ 4 -gt 5 ]
+ cat advice.message
Advice -  Sing in the shower.
+ echo "Advice has 5 words or less"
Advice has 5 words or less
+ exit 1
Build step 'Execute shell' marked build as failure
Finished: FAILURE

Because the test failed, ascii-deploy-job will not run.

3. Rerun and Deploy

1. Update the advice text so it contains more than five words.
2. Trigger ascii-build-job again.

This time:

• ascii-test-job completes successfully.
• ascii-deploy-job enters the queue and then starts.

Check ascii-deploy-job’s console to confirm the sleep invocation:

Started by upstream project "ascii-test-job" build number 6
Running as SYSTEM
Building in workspace /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/ascii-deploy-job
Copied 1 artifact from "ascii-test-job" build number 6
[ascii-deploy-job] $ /bin/sh -xe /tmp/jenkins9836.sh
+ sleep 3600

4. Simulate Controller Failure

While ascii-deploy-job is sleeping, simulate a controller outage.

1. SSH into the Jenkins controller host.
2. Stop Jenkins:

   sudo systemctl stop jenkins
   sudo systemctl status jenkins
   

   The service should display inactive.
3. Refresh the Jenkins UI— it will be unreachable.
4. Start Jenkins again:

   sudo systemctl start jenkins
   sudo systemctl status jenkins
   

   You should see output similar to:

   ● jenkins.service - Jenkins Continuous Integration Server
      Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/jenkins.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
      Active: active (running) since Mon 2024-08-19 10:51:25 UTC; 3s ago
    Main PID: 37656 (java)
       Tasks: 49
      Memory: 310.4M (peak: 310.9M)
        CPU: 15.0s
   CGroup: /system.slice/jenkins.service
           └─37656 /usr/bin/java -jar /usr/share/java/jenkins.war --webroot=/var/cache/jenkins/war
   

5. Log back into the UI and open ascii-deploy-job. The build will have failed:

   [ascii-deploy-job] $ /bin/sh -xe /tmp/jenkins9836.sh
   + sleep 3600
   Build step 'Execute shell' marked build as failure
   Finished: FAILURE
   

5. Observations

When the Jenkins controller goes down:

• Any running Freestyle jobs are terminated.
• Builds do not resume after restart.

6. Jenkins Dashboard and Icon Legend

On the Jenkins dashboard, monitor your jobs’ statuses:

To interpret the status icons (sun, cloud, etc.), click More Actions → Icon legend:

Next Steps

• Explore Jenkins Pipeline for durable, restart-safe workflows.
• Review the Freestyle project documentation to understand its limitations.

References

• Jenkins Documentation
• Jenkins Pipeline Syntax