git plugin for Jenkins fails to clone a repo from local machine. Error code 128

When installing Jenkins as a service, by default, Jenkins does not create a user directory as in: /home/jenkins. Jenkins default home directory is set to /var/lib/jenkins. From my work-around, as you would expect, jenkins has trouble accessing local resources from other users directory.

I moved my cloned repo under Jenkins default home directory i.e. under /var/lib/jenkins so my Repository URLin Jenkins Project configuration looks like: file:///${JENKINS_HOME}/repo/<myprojectname>

UPDATE: The above works fine ...but I found a better way to do it from this blog

The steps are outlined here:

look up /etc/init.d/jenkins script. There are a few $JENKINS variables defined. This should lead you to the sysconfig for jenkins i.e. /etc/sysconfig/jenkins.Stop your jenkins instance:

sudo /sbin/service jenkins stop

Take a backup

cp /etc/sysconfig/jenkins /etc/sysconfig/jenkins.bak

In this file, change the following property:

$JENKINS_USER="<your desired user>"

Change ownership of all related Jenkins directories:

chown -R <your desired user>:<your user group> /var/lib/jenkins

chown -R <your desired user>:<your user group> /var/cache/jenkins

chown -R <your desired user>:<your user group> /var/log/jenkins

Restart jenkins and that error should disappear

sudo /sbin/service jenkins start

This error should go away now!

It's been a while since this question was asked, but I had this problem today and there are very few resources. Most probably, because people tend to connect to git repositories remotely.

I checked using strace what exactly jenkins was doing and yes, it was a problem with permissions.

But I solved it in a simpler way than answer #2 - by adding jenkins to the git server group - in my case, git1:root# gpasswd -a jenkins git1root# service jenkins restart

I'm running Jenkins on Windows and had the same problem. I was able to solve this by having the Jenkins service log in as my user on my laptop.

(Windows 7)

1. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Escape)
   1. (Windows 10 only) Click on More Details in the lower left corner of the pop up window
2. Go to the Services tab
3. Click the Services... button
4. Find "Jenkins" in the list of services
5. Right-click "Jenkins" and click on Properties
6. Click the Log On tab in the Jenkins Properties window
7. Choose This account: under Log on as:
8. Enter your username and password
9. Click OK
10. Restart the Jenkins service
11. Then Bob's your uncle.