General

This plugin is similar to the locks and latches plugin. The main difference is, that it uses regular expressions to find potentially blocking jobs by their names in the list of currently running builds. It uses the QueueTaskDispatcher to check if the actual job may be build. The dispatcher uses the list of regular expressions configured in the job. If one of the currently running jobs matches with one of the regular expressions, the job stays in the queue.

How to use

After installing the plugin, the job configuration page has a new property "Block build if certain jobs are running" in the upper section.

Insert one regular expression per line into the textarea. Each expression is used to detect currently running jobs that match with their names. The first matching job name will block the build and the job will stay in the queue until all expression are evaluated without match.

Other than the locks and latches plugin where both, the job to be build and the blocking job, need to have the same lock configured, this plugin allows to just configure to job to be build. No jenkins system configuration is needed.

Version history

1.1 (June 24, 2012)

• Initial commit.

1.2 (June 25, 2012)

• Added wiki url to pom.

1.3 (January 8, 2013)

Merged pull request of bramtassyns (https://github.com/jenkinsci/build-blocker-plugin/pull/1) - Thanks for the great work!:

• FIX to work with matrix jobs
• jobs running and - new - in queue with matching names block the current job's start

1.4.1 (June 28, 2013)

• added "executors.addAll(computer.getOneOffExecutors());" to get a build blocked by all Multi-Configuration-Job executions. Now a blocked build starts AFTER the whole blocking matrix build and not in the middle of it. ATTENTION: With Jenkins version 1.447 the blocked job got stuck in the queue. Now the plugin requires Jenkins version 1.466 to run.

1.5 (March 13, 2015)

• Merged Pull Requests #2 (Added support for the Folders plugin) and #3 (Regex validation JENKINS-27402)

1.6 (March 13, 2015)

• Merged Pull Request #4 (Add form validation JENKINS-27411)

1.7 (July 1, 2015)

• Merge Pull Request #5 and #6 (avoid NPE and extended to block on node level and to scan the queue for builds in all states)

1.7.1 (July 3, 2015)

• Fixed NPE when using existing build blocker config not having the new properties.

1.7.2 (November 24, 2015)

• merged Pull Request # 7 FIXED JENKINS-29924 Items with non-AbstractProjects tasks block the build queue

1.7.3 (December 14, 2015)

• merged Pull Request # 8 FIXED JENKINS-29924 Transform AbstractProject into Job for Workflow compatibility

The blocking behaviour can be configured to either block builds

from running on the same node
from running at all
Additionally, the blocking behaviour can be configured to consider planned, but not yet running builds in the decision to block a build. Either

buildable builds can stop another build from running (for instance builds that are waiting for an available executor)
all planned builds can stop another build from running (blocked builds, pending builds waiting builds and buildable builds)

TODOs

• Block a build by all sub-execution of a matrix job build, not only the first one.
• Make blocking by items im Queue optional (default on). There may be situations, where regarding the items in the Queue that are not yet in execution may lead in a dead lock.
• Add information of duration blocked to comment in Queue.
• Add optional functionality to Keep only the last item of a job in queue.
• Add Slicer for Configuration Slicing Plugin
• Add Parameter for Job LastSuccessfu(false)