Configuring a Jenkins agent

In this step, you create a Jenkins z/OS® agent configuration to be able to run OpenShift® Jenkins builds on z/OS. All the following actions must be done in the Jenkins server web console.

From the Jenkins dashboard, click Build Executor Status.

In the Nodes page that opens, you can see a default agent, named master. However, you need to create a z/OS agent. To do so, click New Node. Enter e2e-pipeline in the Name field and select Permanent Agent. Then, click OK.

In the configuration page that opens, enter the following information:

  • Enter the remote directory in Remote root directory. It can be /var/jenkins/agent/e2e-pipeline, but it varies according to your environment. It is the working directory of the agent.

  • Enter e2e-pipeline in Label.

  • Select Launch agents via SSH in Launch method.

  • Enter the hostname of your z/OS in Host.
    Note: If you want to target a Wazi sandbox, you can retrieve this information from the IBM® Wazi Sandbox services.

  • For the credential, select Add > Jenkins.

    • Make sure that Username with password is selected in the Kind dropdown list. In Username, enter the z/OS ssh username that will own the Jenkins agent process. In Password, enter the z/OS password of the ssh user. Enter zosuser_id in ID and z/OS User in Description. Then, click Add.

    • Then, select the newly created user in the credential field.

  • Select z/OS User, the credential you created in a previous step, in Credentials.

  • Select Non verifying Verification Strategy in Host Key Verification Strategy because this is a test environment. However, bear in mind that in a production environment, you must select Known hosts file Verification Strategy for security reasons.

  • Click Advanced to specify the following advanced parameters:

    • Keep the default value, 22, in Port. However, if your z/OS ssh port is different, you must change this value.
      Note: If you want to target a Wazi sandbox, you can retrieve this information from the Wazi Sandbox OpenShift services.

    • Enter /usr/lpp/java/J8.0_64/bin/java in JavaPath. This is where the Java binary files are installed.

    • Enter -Xquickstart -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Xnoargsconversion in JVM Options.

    • Enter the following command in Prefix Start Agent Command:

    . /usr/lpp/IBM/dbb/conf/gitenv.sh && export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lpp/java/J8.0_64 && export IBM_JAVA_ENABLE_ASCII_FILETAG=ON && export GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=0 && export GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true && env &&

    Note: The gitenv.sh script is shipped with IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB) and must be adapted to your targeted z/OS environment. More information on DBB can be found in the IBM Dependency Based Build Documentation.

    • Enter -text (with a white space at the beginning) in Suffix Start Agent Command.

Click Save to save the agent configuration. The agent starts automatically.