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10 years ago, the Jenkins ruby-runtime was first released. It was an experiment to let plugins be written in ruby but still get integrated into the main Java Virtual Machine runtime with help of JRuby. A similar extension was made to allow plugins to be written in Python but still integrated into the Java Virtual Machine with Jython. Over the years though, the experiments are no longer being maintained and the plugins that use the non-Java runtimes take a lot of compatibility effort. In addition, the Jenkins ruby runtime does not support Java 11. Specifically, the last few years have been really hard on the Jenkins core developers, as they still have to maintain all the hacks and processes to keep the non-Java runtimes barely working. Examples of the experienced issues include compatibility with jep:200[Switch Remoting/XStream blocklist to a permitlist] where we had to allow many Ruby Runtime classes in the Jenkins core to support serialization of data. In 2018 we discussed the future of the Ruby Runtime based plugins. There was a consensus that we want to deprecate and remove the plugins so that Jenkins users do not experience issues . Daniel Beck created jep:7[Deprecation of ruby-runtime] for that. Over the years, the functionality provided by Ruby plugins has been largely replaced by other implementations, and hence we have decided to proceed with the deprecation ( discussion). One month from now, January 22nd, 2022, the default Jenkins update center will stop distributing the Ruby runtime plugin, the plugins that use the Ruby runtime, the Python runtime plugin, and the plugin that uses the Python runtime. What does this mean for you? If you are one of the few users who are using the following plugins, there will be no impact on your existing instances. The only change will come for new installs. Suspended plugins will stay installed, but can not be newly installed without manually downloading releases or using custom update centers. Jenkins plugin management tools and distributions may be affected as well if they use the default update center to download the plugins and/or their metadata. It includes but is not limited to the official Docker images, Helm charts, Jenkinsfile Runner, Custom Jenkins WAR Packager, and the Plugin Installation Manager CLI Tool. Note that all these tools allow custom update sites to be configured if required. The lists below provide additional information about the plugins based on the Ruby Runtime and the Python Runtime. Please plan your transition away from these plugins. They will be removed from the official Jenkins update centers on January 22, 2022. Affected plugins Gitlab Hook Last released 6 years ago. Contains multiple security vulnerabilties. Suggestion: Use the GitLab plugin and the GitLab Branch Source plugin. Cucumber Last released 9 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run cucumber from the command line. pyenv Last released 7 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run pyenv from the command line. Rvm Last released 5 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run rvm from the command line. Capitomcat Last released 7 years ago. Suggestion: Install Ruby and Capistrano and use sh or bat to invoke them from the command line. Commit Message Trigger Last released 7 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh, bat, or other scripts to read git commit messages and conditionally execute Pipeline steps. Git notes Last released 10 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh, bat, or other scripts to run git to annotate commits. rbenv Last released 6 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run rbenv from the command line. Chef Last released 6 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run chef from the command line. CI Skip Last released 8 years ago. Suggestion: Use the GitHub Commit Skip SCM Behaviour, Bitbucket Commit Skip SCM Behaviour, or SCM Skip to skip builds based on the content of commit messages. Alternately, use sh, bat, or other scripts to read git commit messages and conditionally execute Pipeline steps. InstallShield Last released 8 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh, bat, or other scripts to run InstallShield. MySQL Job Databases Last released 7 years ago. Suggestion: Use Jenkins Job Database Manager Plugin for MySQL. Pathignore Last released 10 years ago. Suggestion: Use the path ignore features of various plugins or use sh, bat, or other scripts to read git commit messages and conditionally execute Pipeline steps. Perl Last released 9 years ago. Suggestion: Use sh or bat to run perl from the command line. pry Last released 10 years ago. Suggestion: Use the Jenkins groovy console and its interface from the Jenkins command line interface. Single Use Agent Last released 7 years ago. Suggestion: Use cloud agents ( Fargate, Azure Container Instances, Docker, etc.) to allocate agents for a single use and then release them. Travis YML Last released 5 years ago. Suggestion: Rewrite the travis.yml file as a Jenkinsfile, a Jenkins Templating Engine file, a Pipeline as YAML, or a Jenkins Modular Pipeline Library. Yammer Last released 8 years ago. Suggestion: Use the Yammer REST API to post messages. DevStack Last released 9 years ago. Ikachan Last released 10 years ago. Jenkinspider Last released 7 years ago. Perl Smoke Test Last released 7 years ago. buddycloud Last released 8 years ago. Acknowledgements We would like to thank all contributors and maintainers who contributed to the Ruby Runtime based plugins and the Python Runtime based plugin. We also thank those who participated in development of new plugins replacing the functionality. These contributors helped millions of Jenkins users while the ecosystem was supported over the past 10 years and it is not taken for granted. Now we need to move on so that we can keep expanding the Jenkins architecture and developers tools. We invite all contributors to participate in this effort and to help us to migrate the plugins to supported JVM-based platforms for plugins. My instance is affected, what to do next? If you do not use the affected plugins, the recommendation is to remove them. Otherwise, it is recommended to start migration out of the plugins to alternatives providing similar functionality. Not all plugins have alternatives. At the moment the Jenkins core team does not plan to provide a replacement, but any contributions are welcome. If you depend on the functionality, we recommend reaching out to the community in the developer mailing list so that you can coordinate the replacement with other affected users.

In addition to WAR files and Docker images, the Jenkins project provides native installers for each weekly and LTS release. There are installers available for Linux distributions, Windows, macOS and other operating systems. There are also installers provided by third parties. You can find the list of these installers on the Downloads page. In this blog post, we announce the upcoming deprecation of the macOS native installer. We will review the replacement options and the rollout plan. Why? Maintaining installers is a significant maintenance effort for the project because installers require testing and, sometimes, specific platforms and environments for packaging. When installers lose relevance for the majority of the Jenkins audience, we remove them or handover maintenance to third parties on other areas. For macOS, there are currently two types of packages: native installers with GUI for desktop versions and Homebrew packages. Since Homebrew is now a defacto standard package manager for macOS users, from the Jenkins standpoint it made sense to deprecate the native installers. Why now? There is ongoing work on automating Jenkins Core releases within the Jenkins infrastructure. Long story short, we are moving Jenkins release pipelines to Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure. This environment does not offer macOS machines that are needed to produce native installers. If you are interested to know more, there will be a How Jenkins Builds and Delivers Jenkins in the Cloud talk presented by Olivier Vernin at DevOps World | Jenkins World 2019 Europe in Lisbon (use the JWFOSS code for a 30% discount!). We could have used an external service for building macOS installers, but it would have added an additional point of failure and implementation/maintenance overhead. So we discussed it in the developer mailing list and agreed that it is better to just deprecate and then remove the packages. Replacing native installers In the case of macOS, there are two main alternatives available: managing the service manually or migrating to Homebrew packages. Before doing a migration, we highly recommend backing up your instance. Managing Jenkins with WAR file on macOS If your Jenkins instance was previously set up with a native installer, to update Jenkins it will be enough to replace the jenkins.war file in the installation directory and restart the instance. The services will keep running as it was configured before the migration. The default installation directory is /Applications/Jenkins/jenkins.war Managing Jenkins with Homebrew Installing Jenkins with Homebrew is a way to go for those who want to install Jenkins using a package manager. There are two Homebrew formulas for Jenkins: jenkins for Weekly releases and jenkins-lts for LTS ones. These packages are supported by a third party (Homebrew community), and they may be not as frequently updated as packages supported by the Jenkins project directly. Before doing a migration from macOS Native installers to HomeBrew, please make sure to backup your Jenkins instance. There are no automatic migration tools available, and the installation may corrupt your JENKINS_HOME or service configuration files in edge cases. If you switch to Homebrew, you will need to properly migrate the JENKINS_HOME data to the new location. We do not provide an official migration guide, but it is possible to find some guidelines on the Web. Sample commands: Install the latest Weekly version: brew install jenkins Install a specific Weekly version: brew install jenkins@YOUR_VERSION Start the Jenkins service: brew services start jenkins Restart the Jenkins service: brew services restart jenkins Update the Jenkins version: brew upgrade jenkins For more information see the documentation for Homebrew packages on the macOS Download pages. Rollout plan macOS native packaging is considered as deprecated starting from Jenkins 2.206 and Jenkins LTS 2.204.1 For Jenkins Weekly macOS native packaging will be removed with the switch to the new Jenkins release flow. The exact date is to be determined. After the change, there will be no macOS native installers produced for new Jenkins Weekly releases Releases for previous versions will be available in this archive For Jenkins LTS macOS will be removed with the switch to the new Jenkins release flow in the LTS baseline. This change will happen only after the deployment of the new release flow in Jenkins Weekly. After the switch, there will be no macOS native installers produced for new Jenkins LTS releases Releases for previous versions will be available in this archive See the discussion on the developer mailing list for more information. Questions and feedback If you have any questions or want to provide feedback, please use the developer mailing list thread mentioned above Platform SIG channels (chat, google group). Any feedback will be much appreciated because we plan more installer/ and platform deprecations in the future.