Install Jenkins Plugin via Command Line CLI

Jenkins has a built-in command line interface CLI that allows us to access Jenkins from shell. To do so we have to download jenkins-cli.jar on the jenkins server.

Download Jenkins CLI Jar on Windows:

You can download the JAR file for the client from the URL "/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar" on your Jenkins server.

e.g. My Jenkins server is installed on my local machine so url will be: 

http://localhost:8080/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar

https://example.com/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar

Download Jenkins CLI Jar on Linux

wget http://localhost:8080/jnlpJars/jenkins-cli.jar

How to Install Plugin via CLI

Now to install Jenkins Plugin using command line we have to run  Jenkins CLI jar with Jenkins server URL, install-plugin argument and plugin name. 

Windows:

java -jar C:\path\to\jarFile\jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080 install-plugin htmlpublisher

Linux:

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080 install-plugin htmlpublisher

Restart the Jenkins Server

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080 safe-restart

Error 'anonymous is missing the Overall/Read permission'

If you notice Error 'anonymous is missing the Overall/Read permission' while executing any commands, means authentication is missing. Please use authentication token in the request

Use: -auth username:password

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -auth username:password -s http://localhost:8080 install-plugin htmlpublisher

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -auth username:password -s http://localhost:8080 safe-restart