How can I default to a login shell for Jenkins shell execution

Question

I want to use rvm (or rbenv/chruby for that matter) to select different ruby versions from within my Jenkins jobs. By default, Jenkins will use /bin/sh, which on Ubuntu, is dash.

For this to change, I can add

#!/bin/bash -l

To the top of every single shell execute function everywhere. Seeing as that's a lot of annoying work, I'd like to be able to set that somewhere central.

Using the "Shell executable" configuration setting, I can get it to run bash, adding parameters like '-l' however will fail with

"/bin/bash -l" -xe /tmp/hudson5660076222778817826.sh FATAL: command execution failed java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/bin/bash -l" (in directory "/home/jenkins/jobs/workspace/rvm-test"): error=2, No such file or directory

I tried using the rvm plugin for jenkins, but that doesn't even install on the current release version.

Any ideas? :)

Answer 1

1. You could work around by creating a wrapper around bash:

   #!/bin/sh
   # for ex.: /usr/local/bin/login-bash
   exec /bin/bash -l "$@"
   

2. If you want to use the default ruby just use the rvm-shell, which comes with rvm. Login as the jenkins user and type:

   $ which rvm-shell
   /home/jenkins/.rvm/bin/rvm-shell
   

to get the path of the rvm-shell. Use this path for the "Shell executable" option.