Jenkins Windows Services: YAML Configuration Support

On Windows machines Jenkins controller and agents can be installed as Windows Services in order to get better robustness and manageability within the system. This is a functionality bundled into the Jenkins core directly. When installed as a service, Jenkins uses the Windows Service Wrapper executable (.NET, written in C#) which is being configured by XML config files. Currently there are only few configuration checks there (no XML Schema, limited validation, etc.), and it’s often that the service wrapper is misconfigured by Jenkins users.

In this project we propose to update Windows Service Wrapper to support YAML files as configuration inputs and to introduce better configuration validation during the service installation and startup. Usage of YAML should simplify configuration management in Jenkins, especially when automated tools are used. On the Jenkins side, patches could be proposed to the Jenkins Core and Windows Agent Installer module to switch them from XML to YAML once the new version of WinSW is integrated.

In this project students can also propose various extra enhancements to the Windows Service Wrapper project especially around logging and diagnosability. Students are welcome to explore the tool and to make other suggestions in their project proposal.