Build Authorization Token Root

The use case is that Jenkins is secured so that anonymous users lack overall read permissions. Say you want to triggers builds of certain jobs from a script. You can pick a sufficiently authenticated user and use that person's API token to POST to job/NAME/build. But this grants that person's full permissions to anyone who can see the script, which is hazardous.

The usual workaround for this issue is to define a build authorization token in job configuration, and have the script ping job/NAME/build?token=SECRET. Unfortunately Jenkins checks URIs hierarchically and just getting as far as job/NAME/ requires authentication.

This plugin offers an alternate URI pattern which is not subject to the usual overall or job read permissions. Just issue an Http GET or POST to buildByToken/build?job=NAME&token=SECRET. This URI is accessible to anonymous users regardless of security setup, so you only need the right token.

Folder are supported. If a job named myJob is inside a folder named myFolder, then the NAME is myFolder/myJob (without the interleaving job/ string).

(The variant sub-URIs buildWithParameters and polling are also supported, as is the usual delay query parameter.)

The server replies with a “201 Created” status code when a build is queued successfully. When a build is already scheduled, the server replies with a “303 See Other”, the Location header pointing to the scheduled build URL. Clients without the READ permission on the build should not follow the redirect, as it will lead to a page they do not have permission to see.

To create a token for your job, go to the job configuration, select Trigger Builds Remotely in the build triggers section. The token you set here is what you will pass via the url.

Trigger the RevolutionTest job with the token TacoTuesday:

buildByToken/build?job=RevolutionTest&token=TacoTuesday

Trigger the RevolutionTest job with the token TacoTuesday and parameter Type supplied with the value Mexican:

buildByToken/buildWithParameters?job=RevolutionTest&token=TacoTuesday&Type=Mexican

See GitHub releases.

• JENKINS-25637 Do not require a CSRF crumb to trigger a build.

• JENKINS-22849 Include queue item location in HTTP response, just like the core endpoint does.

• JENKINS-26693 Ability to trigger Workflow builds.

• Added logging to make it easier to diagnose why a given request was rejected. As a Jenkins admin, create a logger covering org.jenkinsci.plugins.build_token_root at FINE or below.

• Initial release.