I need a little help (more information) to get this plug-in working.  I have two machines, an AIX Hudson master and a Windows machine running XP as the Hudson slave.  The slave agent is installed as a service.  It works great. I actually have the slave machine building my Java docs.  So the setup works, but I am unable to copy any files from the master machine to slave using this plug-in.   Here's what I do:

1. Create new job.
2. No source control, because I'm just testing file copy.
3. Tie job to slave node.
4. Click on "Copy files to slave node before building"

Step 4 is when I start running into trouble.  When I specify "/test/build.xml" the edit box complains it can't find the file.  I've verified the file exists.  I even copy-pasted the path from the console window to make sure it's not a typo.  Hudson edit box says it can't find the file.  Ok, fine, I ignore it and run the job anyway.  The job reports success... but there is no file copied over, and I don't see anything in the job console output showing a file being copied over, but the plug-in also doesn't complain that it's not finding any files.  I'm using plug-in 1.2.  I'm using Hudson 1.348.

The help text for each option is confusing.  The help says:

"When a build takes place on a slave node, copies a set of files from the master node to this slave node. This is useful, for example, when some files required for the build to take place are not present in the SCM and are located direclty in the project's workspace.
Of course, no copy will take place if the build is run on the master node."

"Comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files/directories to be copied from the master node to the slave one. See the @includes of Ant fileset for the exact format. The base directory is the workspace.
E.g.: *.xml,*/.properties"

The part that's confusing me is that when a job is tied to a slave node the "workspace" is now on the slave machine, not local to the master, so any file paths using the workspace as the base wouldn't work since the files I need to copy aren't on the slave, obviously.  I'm thinking this is just bad text, or maybe I'm missing something obvious about the wording.

So here is what I do know. 

1. The file copy edit box reports it can't find the file specified, even though I copy pasted the path and the file exists on the master machine.
2. The job runs successfully but there is no output in the console showing a file being copied.
3. The job runs successfully but there is no output showing that the plug-in did not find the file specified.

If you could provide any insight as to what I'm doing wrong I'd really appreciate it.  I've systematically tried just about everything I can think of and have been completely unsuccessful at getting the plug-in to work for me.

I appreciate the help.

  Mark

It would be awesome if this  plugin  cloned the work  space  from the master to a slave for building.  

For example in my  environment we cant install  clearcase on linux machines and there are some applications that need to be build  from  a linux environment.   My hudson install it's  on a windows server,  if I could checkout the code from the windows hudson  and then send that to the slave that would be great!

I'm having exactly the same issue as Vincent Latombe.  I can specify ** as the files to copy to the slave, and get every
file in the workspace.  However, if I specify "../**" or any relative path, I get nothing.  I'm running Hudson 1.355 on a
Windows 2003 system.

Any assistance resolving this issue would be appreciated.

Hi all:

  what's the execution order between copy-to-slave and groovyo-postbuild plugin ?

  I want to run copy-to-slave first,then groovy-postbuild ,but since I install groovy-postbuild plugin ,then install copy-to-slave plugin ,Hudson always run groovy-postbuild first.

  somebody help me ? :(

  Hudson version: 1.383

  copy-to-slave: 1.2

  groovy-postbuild: 1.3

Hey you, I want to use this pretty cool plugin to copy some generally needed scripts from master to several slaves.

The files are located in $HUDSON_HOME/userContent/* and the upload to slaves work quite good (at least on my Linux slaves ... there are some problems on AIX slaves btw).

What I now see is that on the slaves the files get copies to $WORKSPACE and the relative path from the master is preserved, ie. on the slave a new directory userContent is created. I think it would be a fine option for the plugin to be able to set the path on the slave (relative to $WORKSPACE) within the job configuration.

This plugin is interesting. However, in the case of a maven2 project I noticed it runs after the pre-build steps, which is too late for what I would need it to. Is there a way to bump its execution order to occur before the pre-build steps?

I can copy singular files, but not directories. This is my tree:

~/userContent$ tree
.
├── readme.txt
├── testdir
│   └── testfile.txt
└── workspace -> /home/dtka/workspace

2 directories, 2 files

The console informs me as following: 

[copy-to-slave] Copying 'testdir', excluding nothing, from 'file:/var/lib/jenkins/userContent/' on the master to 'file:/home/dtka/hudson-slave-root/workspace/LoginCheckProfileTest/' on 'aresboxa'.

but nothing has been copied.

It does work if I copy the readme.txt file in that directory. What am I missing?

Isn't anyone, including author, sees that plugin is a security hazard? Jenkins allows to have access separation, where only users with admin permissions haev access to global config. However, with this plugin installed, any user who has job create/edit permission can fetch Jenkins' config.xml, and that may contain sensitive data, like EC2 credentials for example.

That's why carefully written plugins split there config in 2 parts: global config where arbitrary paths, credentials, etc. are set, job config, where usually user can just select a choice from predefined set using a dropdown.

Suggestions for alleviating immediate security threat: remove "HUDSON_HOME" option, replace it with "HUDSON_HOME/copyToSlave" option. The latter option is still required to preserve generality of plugin, as "HUDSON_HOME/userContent" is not suitable for all content, as it is publicly accessible via http://<jenkins>/userContent. "Job's workspace on master" on its own is not enough either, as for the case of hundreds of jobs all requiring same prerequisites, it's very cumbersome to configure each job's workspace.

And well, this assumes that you didn't try to patch Ant's file pattern code which by all means should prohibit ".." syntax to access files outside of the specified prefix, because otherwise this plugin can be used to access any file on master's filesystem which is very big security risk.

Would be great to use this also as a build step and not only pre or post build.

This is useful for cases like you want to copy the build log file to the slave and do something with it, or for example, i had an issue where i needed to view scm-polling.log file on the slave, and it appears only on the master. this file only updates after build starts so i couldnt use the plugin to copy it.

Hi,

I've found a bug with permissions, I've tried to copy .sh script to workspace and plugin copied it as text file however I've made it executable (chmod 755)

Hi,

I can see only options like copy files from master to slave before building and slave to master after build.

Is there a way to copy files like build.xml which is generated after the build  from master to slave?

Thanks,

Sangeetha.

I was trying this plug-in with copying the default readme.txt file to a slave but hit this error:
Building remotely on 10.8.26.213 in workspace /opt/jenkins/workspace/Test_deploy_build_to_slave
copy-to-slave Copying 'readme.txt', excluding nothing, from 'file:/C:/Users/Administrator/.jenkins/userContent/' on the master to 'file:/opt/jenkins/workspace/Test_deploy_build_to_slave/' on '10.8.26.213'.
FATAL: null
java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.util.regex.Matcher.getTextLength(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Matcher.reset(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Matcher.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.matcher(Unknown Source)
at hudson.plugins.xshell.XShellBuilder.perform(XShellBuilder.java:78)
at hudson.tasks.BuildStepMonitor$1.perform(BuildStepMonitor.java:19)
at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.perform(AbstractBuild.java:717)
at hudson.model.Build$BuildExecution.build(Build.java:199)
at hudson.model.Build$BuildExecution.doRun(Build.java:160)
at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.run(AbstractBuild.java:499)
at hudson.model.Run.execute(Run.java:1502)
at hudson.model.FreeStyleBuild.run(FreeStyleBuild.java:46)
at hudson.model.ResourceController.execute(ResourceController.java:88)
at hudson.model.Executor.run(Executor.java:236)

Any idea on this? Thanks a lot!

I am trying to copy a file from another master job's workspace(upstream)  to slave(note both master and slave are windows boxes)

Files to copy specified as  "../jobs/testproj/TestData/TestData.xml"

Paths are relative to selected as "$JENKINS_HOME/userContent"copy-to-slave Copying '../jobs/testproj/TestData/TestData.xml', excluding nothing, from 'file:/C:/.jenkins/userContent/' on the master to 'file:/C:/Jenkins/Slave/workspace/testslaveproj/workspace/' on '<slave machine>l'.
This is not working.

but readme.txt copied fine from userContent directory. what am i doing wrong?

Also, want to specify the user input variable in the Files to Copy like ../jobs/testproj/TestData/$file.xml, this does not work unless i specify a quotes around "$file", but it also adds quotes around the $file value. is it possible to use job variable in Files to Copy section?

I'm running into a problem with a Jenkins server no Windows.  The specified file is not being copied to the slave.  I think it has to do with spaces in my Jenkins home dir.  Notice the %20 substrings in the Jenkins home directory:copy-to-slave Copying 'logParsingRules/.', excluding nothing, from 'file:/C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Jenkins/userContent/' on the master to 'file:/users/tparker/jenkins-slave/workspace/SHAPE-linux/' on 'estragon'.

Hello I am using Copy to slave plugin for copying file from slave to master. I have android slave running and copying *.apk to master.

[copy-to-slave] Copying '*.apk', excluding nothing, from 'file:/C:/JenkinsSlave/workspace/ABC/PLATFORM/android/' on 'hudson.slaves.DumbSlave[Android slave]' 
to 'file:/mnt/jenkins/builds/workspace/ABC/' on the master.

so where to see my file has been copied ? can anyone help me ?
Thanks.

HI,

    I am able to copy workspace from Docker executor to master for regular jobs but is there any way how to configure this plugin for pipeline jobs 

please let me know if any solution for this

Thanks

@Romain Seguy, @ Sergey Shelomentsev,

Thanks for this plug-in. I was looking for such a nice plugin.  I am facing some difficulties in using this plugin. When I use the suggested Jenkins-UserContent folder, the copy is working like charm, but if I provide a custom location on the same machine, it is not working.

See the below out put :

started by user admin
building remotely on test_node in workspace c:\worksapce\Test_copy
[copy-to-slave] Copying 'bext.txt', excluding nothing, from 'file:/home/devuser/' on the master to 'file:/c:/workspace/Test_copy/' on 'test_node'.
Finished : SUCCESS

But it didn't copied any files

C:\worskapce\Test_copy> dir
Volume in drive C is AFDD
Volume Serial Number is 999D-2DDF
Directory of C:\workspace\Test_copy
31/07/2017 10:12 <Dir> .
31/07/2017 10:12 <Dir> ..
03/08/2017 14:05       910 test.txt
=========

You can see the bext.txt on the home directory

[devuser@myapp ~]$ ls  file:/home/devuser/ 
bext.txt  

started by user admin
building remotely on test_node in workspace c:\worksapce\Test_copy
[copy-to-slave] Copying 'bext.txt', excluding nothing, from 'file:/apps/jenkins/var/lib/jenkins/userContent/' on the master to 'file:/c:/workspace/Test_copy/' on 'test_node'.

[copy-to-slave] Copying 'text.txt', excluding nothing, from 'file:/c:/worksapce/Test_copy' on 'hudson.slaves.DumbSlave[test node]' to 'file:/apps/jenkins/var/lib/jenkins/jobs/Test_copy/workspace/' on the master.
Finished : SUCCESS

[devuser@myapp ~]$ ls /apps/jenkins/var/lib/jenkins/userContent
bext.txt readme.txt

===========
C:\worskapce\Test_copy> dir
Volume in drive C is AFDD
Volume Serial Number is 999D-2DDF
Directory of C:\workspace\Test_copy
31/07/2017 10:12 <Dir> .
31/07/2017 10:12 <Dir> ..
03/08/2017 14:05       910 test.txt
07/08/2017 10:10       910 bext.txt

My requirement is :
Jenkins runs on X machine (Linux)
Code/artifacts on Y machine (Windows, Jenkins is not building these artifacts)

Deploy to Z machine (windows).... So, I am planning to use this plugin for copying files from Y to Z. So, if this plugin cant access directories other than Jenkins userContent Folder, I fail to achieve my plan.

Please help.