CJE Distributed Builds & Agent Management 2

Question 1

What is the purpose of the 'agent' directive in a Jenkins Declarative Pipeline?

Accepted Answer

To specify where the entire pipeline or a specific stage should execute

Answer

To define environment variables available throughout the build

Answer

To configure credential bindings for the pipeline

Answer

To set the timeout duration for the pipeline or stage

Question 2

What does 'agent none' at the top level of a Declarative Pipeline mean?

Accepted Answer

No global agent is allocated; each stage must define its own agent directive

Answer

No agents are registered in the Jenkins cluster

Answer

The pipeline will run exclusively on the Jenkins controller

Answer

The pipeline is paused until an agent becomes available

Question 3

What is the Jenkins best practice regarding the number of executors on the controller node?

Accepted Answer

Set it to 0 so the controller does not run builds and reserves resources for system management

Answer

Set it to match the number of CPU cores on the controller for maximum efficiency

Answer

Set it to 1 so the controller can handle lightweight builds only

Answer

Set it to the same value as the busiest agent to maintain consistency

Question 4

In a Declarative Pipeline using a Docker agent, what does the 'args' parameter in 'docker { image "..." args "..." }' specify?

Accepted Answer

Additional flags passed directly to the 'docker run' command when starting the container

Answer

The name of the Docker image to pull from the registry

Answer

The registry authentication credentials to use

Answer

The port mappings exposed from the container to the host

Question 5

What is a 'flyweight executor' in Jenkins?

Accepted Answer

A lightweight executor on the controller used for administrative tasks like SCM polling and pipeline orchestration steps

Answer

A dedicated executor type for running Docker container builds

Answer

A minimal executor with restricted file system permissions for security

Answer

An executor optimized specifically for fast-running unit test builds

Question 6

How can you configure a Declarative Pipeline to run different stages on different agents or node types?

Accepted Answer

By defining an 'agent' directive at the individual stage level within the pipeline

Answer

By creating a separate Jenkinsfile for each stage and chaining them with triggers

Answer

By using only the 'parallel' block to distribute stages across nodes

Answer

By creating separate downstream jobs for each stage and triggering them sequentially

Question 7

What does Jenkins Node Monitoring automatically check to determine whether an agent should be taken offline?

Accepted Answer

Health metrics such as available disk space, clock difference from controller, and response time

Answer

Network packet loss and latency between the agent and external services

Answer

CPU utilization and memory consumption against configurable thresholds

Answer

The number of failed builds in the last hour on that agent