Jenkins pipeline sh fail with "cannot run program nohup" on windows

From a very quick search, it looks like your error is related to the following issue : JENKINS-33708

The main cause looks like the sh step is not supported on the Windows. You may use bat or install Cygwin for instance.

Nevertheless two solutions were proposed in the previous link, suggesting you to do the following steps :

  • Install git-bash
  • Ensure the Git\bin folder (i.e.: C:\Program Files\Git\bin) is in the global search path, in order for Jenkins to find sh.exe
  • Make nohup available for Jenkins, doing the following in git-bash (adapt your paths accordingly) :
    • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\nohup.exe" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\nohup.exe"
    • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\msys-2.0.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-2.0.dll"
    • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\msys-iconv-2.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-iconv-2.dll"
    • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\msys-intl-8.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-intl-8.dll"

Depending on your installation you may have to use these paths :

  • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\nohup.exe" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\nohup.exe"
  • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\msys-2.0.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-2.0.dll"
  • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\msys-iconv-2.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-iconv-2.dll"
  • mklink "C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\msys-intl-8.dll" "C:\Program Files\git\usr\bin\msys-intl-8.dll"

If you are executing on Windows, just change sh to bat. it will work as expected. Example:

pipeline { agent any stages { stage ('Compile Stage') {

        steps {
            withMaven(maven : 'apache-maven-3.6.1') {
                bat'mvn clean compile'
            }
        }
    }

} }


With Git for Windows, I had to add C:\Program Files\Git\bin to the PATH environment variable of the slave node in Jenkins (to get access to sh), then add C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin to the PATH locally on the Windows slave too (to get access to nohup).


With Git for Windows 2.16.2, I was able to add C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin to the PATH (rather than C:\Program Files\Git\bin) and consequently my sh commands work in both FreeStyle and Pipeline builds. No mklink was necessary. (Source)