[JENKINS-68822] Don't keep Build Discarder/Logrotator's last stable/successful builds forever

[jenkins-infra-bot]

We current have the following Release workflow:
Every few days or weeks a new release-branch is created. This branch is then built and artifacts get archived. We usually keep the release-Branches over a year, so that we can compare any changes.

We also use the global build discarder with "days to keep artifacts"=90.

However we strangely still have builds with artifacts that are older than 90days. As these artifacts are rather big (>1GB) Jenkins is quickly running out of space.

After a bit of browsing through the Jenkins code I found a few lines of code that likely cause this issue:

jenkins/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/LogRotator.java

Lines 233 to 240 in ac66b47

	if (r == lsb) {
	LOGGER.log(FINER, "{0} is not to be removed or purged of artifacts because it’s the last successful build", r);
	return true;
	}
	if (r == lstb) {
	LOGGER.log(FINER, "{0} is not to be removed or purged of artifacts because it’s the last stable build", r);
	return true;
	}

A few statements regarding these lines of code:
1. According to git these lines were introduced 13 years ago with https://issues.jenkins.io/browse/JENKINS-2417. Some kind of flag inside Logrotater (like ``boolean alsoDeleteLastStableBuild``) would be helpful, if this behavior is not wanted like described above.
2. The above lines are not documented inside the "Global Build Discarders":

---

Originally reported by ab_xdev, imported from: Don't keep Build Discarder/Logrotator's last stable/successful builds forever

• status: Closed
• priority: Major
• component(s): core
• resolution: Fixed
• resolved: 2024-08-27T12:45:30+00:00
• votes: 1
• watchers: 2
• imported: 2025-11-24

Raw content of original issue

We current have the following Release workflow:
Every few days or weeks a new release-branch is created. This branch is then built and artifacts get archived. We usually keep the release-Branches over a year, so that we can compare any changes.

We also use the global build discarder with "days to keep artifacts"=90.

However we strangely still have builds with artifacts that are older than 90days. As these artifacts are rather big (>1GB) Jenkins is quickly running out of space.

After a bit of browsing through the Jenkins code I found a few lines of code that likely cause this issue: 

  

    

      jenkins/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/LogRotator.java
    
    

        Lines 233 to 240
      in
      ac66b47
    
  
  

    


        

          

          
 if (r == lsb) { 
        

        

          

          
     LOGGER.log(FINER, "{0} is not to be removed or purged of artifacts because it’s the last successful build", r); 
        

        

          

          
     return true; 
        

        

          

          
 } 
        

        

          

          
 if (r == lstb) { 
        

        

          

          
     LOGGER.log(FINER, "{0} is not to be removed or purged of artifacts because it’s the last stable build", r); 
        

        

          

          
     return true; 
        

        

          

          
 } 
        
    
  



A few statements regarding these lines of code:
1. According to git these lines were introduced 13 years ago with https://issues.jenkins.io/browse/JENKINS-2417. Some kind of flag inside Logrotater (like ``boolean alsoDeleteLastStableBuild``) would be helpful, if this behavior is not wanted like described above.
2. The above lines are not documented inside the "Global Build Discarders":
  

1 attachment

• image-2022-06-24-08-32-23-173.png