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Martin
Asked: 2011-07-18 09:52:09 +0800 CST

What are the Jenkins/Hudson key files for?

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After I have installed Jenkins (on Windows), the program folder contains, among others, two files:

  • identity.key (28 lines)

    -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEow......
...
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

  • secret.key (64 characters)

    d6....38

(I've already asked on the Jenkins mailing list, but didn't get any response there.)

Can anyone explain what these two files are used for by Jenkins/Hudson?

I'm specifically interested whether:

  • I need to backup them?
  • they are machine specific, i.e. if I need to do anything about these files when moving the Jenkins/Hudson server to a different machine.
hudson encryption rsa keys jenkins

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    According to the Internet: What are the .key files for?

    Short story:

    I strongly suggest backing up the files somewhere. As already mentioned in this thread, the secret.key is used to encrypt sensitive data in configuration files, e.g. the proxy password in update center. Without the key file these configuration values are useless.

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