What Is New in Jenkins 2.568
| Category | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Improvements |
|
| Bug Fixes |
|
| Breaking Changes | Windows 2019 controller images have been dropped from this release |
What happened to Windows 2019 support in Jenkins 2.568?
Windows 2019 controller images are no longer published as of this release. In practice, this only affects teams running the official Windows container image for the Jenkins controller, not agents or general Windows job execution.
If your controller is stuck on Windows 2019, you have two workarounds:
- Install the Jenkins controller using the MSI installer available from the Windows links on the official downloads page
- Build your own custom container image based on Windows 2019
This matters if you manage controller infrastructure as code and pin a specific base image tag. Teams that already track the latest supported Windows Server release will not notice any difference. Given that Windows Server 2025 container support was added earlier in this branch, most production environments should plan a migration path toward that release rather than maintaining a custom 2019 build long term.
What UI changes should administrators expect in Jenkins 2.568?
Jenkins 2.568 continues the ongoing UI modernization effort with a dialog-based editor for descriptions across jobs, builds, views, and computers, replacing older inline editing patterns. The 'System' and 'Users' pages under Manage Jenkins have also been visually refined for better readability.
- Administrative monitors now display with a cleaner, more consistent layout
- Dialog boxes across the UI have refined spacing and appearance
- Build causes are deduplicated in the queue tooltip and build overview, reducing visual clutter when a build was triggered by multiple identical causes
Watch out for: teams that automate UI testing with tools relying on DOM structure around description fields or dialogs may need to review their selectors after upgrading. A new disableStickyPositioning HTTP cookie is also available to disable sticky elements, which is primarily intended for acceptance test environments.
Does Jenkins 2.568 improve performance for large installations?
Yes, this release specifically targets two performance pain points reported by larger installations: agent creation time under high usage and queue maintenance for jobs with extensive build histories.
In practice, controllers managing hundreds of concurrent agent provisioning requests should see faster agent startup, since agent creation was optimized to reduce contention during peak load. Separately, queue maintenance routines were reworked to scale better against jobs that have accumulated very large build histories, which previously could slow down queue processing on busy controllers.
Most teams running small to mid-sized instances will not notice a dramatic difference, but organizations running high-throughput CI pipelines with thousands of jobs should see measurable gains in queue responsiveness.
What security and framework updates are included in Jenkins 2.568?
Jenkins 2.568 bundles updated versions of its core security and framework dependencies. Spring Security moves from 7.0.5 to 7.1.0, Spring Framework moves from 7.0.7 to 7.0.8, and the bundled Script Security Plugin receives an update as well.
This matters if you maintain a strict dependency audit process, since these updates typically bring both minor security hardening and bug fixes upstream. Teams running vulnerability scanners against their Jenkins deployment should re-baseline expected findings after upgrading, as version numbers for these bundled libraries will change in scan reports.
No configuration changes are required for these updates. They are applied automatically as part of the controller upgrade.
What bug fixes matter most for daily Jenkins operations?
Several fixes in 2.568 address small but frequently noticed UI annoyances rather than functional regressions. The "Add" button on full lists now re-enables immediately after an item is deleted, fixing a regression introduced in 2.536. The combobox suggestion list no longer flashes and closes unexpectedly when clicked, and long unbroken strings now wrap correctly inside dialogs instead of overflowing.
- The job name is restored in the page title on the build console and changes pages, which is useful when navigating multiple tabs
- URLs in widgets loaded via ajax now resolve correctly
- Stray lines were removed from the log recorder page
None of these fixes require action on your part. They are quality-of-life improvements that should reduce minor UI friction for teams using the web interface daily.
Frequently Asked Questions about Jenkins 2.568
Does Jenkins 2.568 remove Windows 2019 controller support entirely?
It removes the official prebuilt Windows 2019 controller container images, but you can still run a controller on Windows 2019 using the MSI installer or by building your own custom image.
Do I need to change my playbooks or pipeline scripts after upgrading to 2.568?
No, this release does not introduce pipeline syntax changes, so existing Jenkinsfiles and job configurations continue to work unchanged.
Will the new description dialog break my automated UI tests?
Possibly, if your tests rely on the old inline description editing markup, since descriptions for jobs, builds, views, and computers now use a dialog-based editor instead.
Is upgrading to Jenkins 2.568 worth it just for performance improvements?
Yes, if you run a high-throughput controller, since agent creation time and queue maintenance for jobs with large build histories were both specifically optimized in this branch.
What is the disableStickyPositioning cookie used for?
It is a control used mainly in acceptance testing that disables sticky UI elements when set, for example by adding it as an HTTP cookie in a test harness like document.cookie = disableStickyPositioning=true.
Do the Spring Security and Spring Framework updates require any manual configuration?
No, these dependency updates are applied automatically as part of the upgrade and do not require configuration changes.