Memory Exhaustion from Build Artifact Accumulation
criticalResource ContentionUpdated Nov 5, 2024
Jenkins heap memory fills up due to insufficient build discard policies and accumulation of old artifacts, leading to OutOfMemoryError crashes and service unavailability.
Sources
DevOps Real-Time Troubleshooting: Resolving Common Jenkins Issuesmedium.com
Troubleshooting Common Jenkins Build Issues | Reintech mediareintech.io
Troubleshooting Jenkins: Resolving Common Issueswww.linkedin.com
Diagnosing Errorswww.jenkins.io
Troubleshooting Jenkins Performance: Kubernetes Edition - Part 2www.cloudbees.com
Optimizing Jenkins to ensure fast build times with Dynatracewww.dynatrace.com
How to detect:
Monitor heap memory usage ratio (vm.memory.heap.usage). Alert when heap usage exceeds 85% for 3+ minutes. Check disk space on /var/lib/jenkins for artifact storage exhaustion. Look for correlation with build count and artifact retention.
Recommended action:
Increase JVM heap space with -Xmx flags (minimum 2GB for production). Implement buildDiscarder with logRotator to retain only recent builds. Enable cleanWs() in pipeline post-actions. Archive critical artifacts to external storage (S3, Artifactory).