Is it possible to force the maven plugin for jenkins to run as root? - maven

Question

I have a particularly involved java app that needs root access to system resources duing a build for running file mounts. Is there a way to directly invoke maven using "sudo" from jenkins via the maven2/3 plugin? Or does the plugin always run as jenkins.?

Answer 1

Here is how to run Jenkins as root - this will cause the maven plugin processes to also run as root.
Method 1) Modify the following line in JENKINS_USER in /etc/sysconfig/jenkins
#JENKINS_USER=jenkins
JENKINS_USER=root
In Debian-based systems, the file is located at /etc/default/jenkins
Method 2) Directly modify /etc/init.d/jenkins
#daemon --user "$JENKINS_USER" --pidfile "$JENKINS_PID_FILE" $JAVA_CMD $PARAMS > /dev/null
echo "WARNING: RUNNING AS ROOT"
daemon --user root --pidfile "$JENKINS_PID_FILE" $JAVA_CMD $PARAMS > /dev/null
Then, of course, you must run:
service jenkins restart

Answer 2

Try running the jenkins process as root (although not ideal security-wise), it should spawn the maven process as the same user.

Answer 3

When you run maven through Jenkins maven plugin, its executed in jenkins`s process. Running server is a root is a bad idea. You could try running plugin as shell command:
sudo mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-dependency-plugin:2.4:get -DartifactId=...
see also this:
https://superuser.com/questions/67765/sudo-with-password-in-one-command-line

Answer 4

My suggestion for running root things with jenkins is to compile on jenkins a binary and giving it suid bit, so that it can be launched by the jenkins user but executed as root. For instance, I write a C file:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(){
system("whoami");
}
compile it (as root)
# gcc -c iamroot.c
# gcc -o iamroot iamroot.o
and give it suid bit
# chmod u+s iamroot
Then you obtain (as any other user)
$ ./iamroot
root
Now this can be run by the jenkins user, and state it's root. In term of security, it's way better than giving jenkins user root or sudo rights.