Automatically Restart a Failing Jenkins Docker Container with Bash and Cron

When a Jenkins container crashes due to insufficient CPU resources, manually restarting it with docker restart <container_id> is cumbersome. This article shows how to create a Bash script that checks the container’s status and restarts it automatically, grant execution permission, and schedule it with cron to run every 10 seconds.

Script to Detect and Restart the Container

#!/bin/bash
# Container name
CONTAINER_NAME="myjenkins"

check_and_restart_container() {
    # Get container ID
    CONTAINER_ID=$(docker ps -aqf "name=^${CONTAINER_NAME}$")
    if [[ -z "$CONTAINER_ID" ]]; then
        # Container does not exist, exit
        exit 0
    fi

    # Check container status
    STATUS=$(docker inspect -f '{{.State.Running}}' $CONTAINER_ID 2>/dev/null)

    # If container is not running, restart it
    if [[ "$STATUS" != "true" ]]; then
        docker restart $CONTAINER_ID >/dev/null 2>&1
    fi
}

Grant Execution Permission

chmod +x /local/cron/check_and_restart_container.sh

Add to Cron

Run the script every 10 seconds:

* * * * * /local/cron/check_and_restart_container.sh
* * * * * sleep 10 && /local/cron/check_and_restart_container.sh