Issue

• I am trying to port some legacy Jenkins build jobs that used Linux shell scripts (to Jenkins Workflow scripts) to download and stage/deploy to multiple server nodes.
  I need to be able to save and manipulate files to the Workflow workspace (or to somewhere under /tmp) directory structure.
• When we use groovy library classes (AntBuilder, File) it is working fine on Client-controller but it is not working on Agent machines.

Environment

• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on modern cloud platforms - Managed controller
• CloudBees CI (CloudBees Core) on traditional platforms - Client controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise - Managed controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Platform - Client controller
• CloudBees Jenkins Distribution
• Jenkins LTS

Resolution

The operations with File class are run on the controller, so only works if the build is run on controller.
In this example, I create a file and check if I can access it on a node using the method exists. The file can’t be found because the new File(file) code is executed on the controller. To double-check this, I did the same for the folder Users, which exists on my controller but not in the node.

stage 'file move wrong way'

//it only works on master
node('agent') {

    def ws = pwd()
    def context  = ws + "/testArtifact"
    def file = ws + '/file'
    sh 'touch ' + file
    sh 'ls ' + ws

    echo 'File on node : ' + new File(file).exists()
    echo 'Users : ' + new File('/Users').exists()

    sh 'mv ' + file + ' ' + context
    sh 'ls ' + ws
}

To execute file manipulation command we recommend to use native commands.

This is a simple example of operations in shell

stage 'Init'
node {
    stage 'Environment'
    sh 'export'

    stage 'Create file'
    sh 'touch test.txt'

    stage 'List relative Directory'
    sh 'ls ../../../../../'

    stage 'List / dir'
    sh 'ls /'

    stage 'List Home of user'
    sh 'ls $HOME'

    stage 'List Home of agent'
    sh 'ls $JENKINS_HOME'

    stage 'List temp'
    sh 'ls $TMPDIR'

    stage 'List job dir'
    sh '''
        echo $(pwd)
        ls .
        ls $(pwd)
        '''

    stage 'download file'
    def out='$(pwd)/download/maven.tgz'
    sh 'mkdir -p ./download'
    sh 'curl -L http://ftp.cixug.es/apache/maven/maven-3/3.3.9/binaries/apache-maven-3.3.9-bin.tar.gz -o ' + out

    stage 'move/rename'
    def newName = 'mvn.tgz'
    sh 'mkdir -p $(pwd)/other'
    sh 'mv ' + out + ' ' + newName
    sh 'cp ' + newName + ' ' + out
}

Reference

• Pipeline as Code in Jenkins
• Also take a look to Pipeline Examples and Pipeline Utility Steps Plugin