If you're running Jenkins v2.54+, the easiest test would be to generate an API token on any user (https://jenkins.example.com/me/configure) and run the who-am-i command. Let's say that user is elasticdog and the token is 9654e454df796c020800492838f2c823. Then (if you adjust the paths to java and jenkins-cli.jar and the server address accordingly):

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s https://jenkins.example.com/ -http -auth elasticdog:9654e454df796c020800492838f2c823 who-am-i

...you would expect to see the proper auth output:

Authenticated as: elasticdog
Authorities:
  authenticated

However, if you're running the latest version of the plugin (v0.26), you'll always see this:

Authenticated as: anonymous
Authorities:
  anonymous

Revert back to v0.25 and you do get the expected output. Does that help?

Similar to the above with the -i flag

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080 -i /etc/jenkins/admin/id_rsa who-am-i

Where the id_rsa file is a public key for a local (not GHE) admin user.

The -i flag like Jake shows is what we used prior to Jenkins v2.54, which changed a few things. I think that command will still work if you explicitly use the deprecated -remoting auth method, but the newer syntax is slightly different. Also, Jenkins no longer enables the internal Apache SSH server by default, so if you want to test that, you have to manually enable it, and then use the newer ssh syntax:

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080 -i /etc/jenkins/admin/id_rsa -ssh -user elasticdog who-am-i

 ...so the username is no longer inferred (you must be explicit) and you also have to say you're using the ssh client authentication method. That should show the same behavior as long as you're defined an SSH public key on the user's configuration (similar to what you do to set an API token).

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if I can resolve it.

FWIW here's using -username and -pasword options:

$ java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080/ -noKeyAuth who-am-i --username samrocketman --password [REDACTED personal access token]
Authenticated as: samrocketman
Authorities:
  authenticated
  jenkinsci
  jenkinsci*Everyone
  sandscape
  kata-seeds
  kata-seeds*Groovy
  Gitorious-backup
  Gitorious-backup*Owners
  gimp-ci
  gimp-ci*developers

I understand the fix. Patch incoming.

Code changed in jenkins
User: Sam Gleske
Path:
src/main/java/org/jenkinsci/plugins/GithubSecurityRealm.java
http://jenkins-ci.org/commit/github-oauth-plugin/4690bfb6ce3989c940f5dd5f93dfc1ef315ea5de
Log:
JENKINS-43822 Fix Jenkins CLI transport auth

This fixes using authentication in the following ways using HTTP
transport auth and SSH authentication.

Please review my PR.

https://github.com/jenkinsci/github-oauth-plugin/pull/83

I tested it locally and it resolved the issue for both cases presented.

Code changed in jenkins
User: Sam Gleske
Path:
src/main/java/org/jenkinsci/plugins/GithubSecurityRealm.java
http://jenkins-ci.org/commit/github-oauth-plugin/8d7c27e2f4808d54aaaa4f8f5f3b732bb634ffba
Log:
JENKINS-43822 Fix Jenkins CLI transport auth

This fixes using authentication in the following ways using HTTP
transport auth and SSH authentication.

Code changed in jenkins
User: Sam Gleske
Path:
src/main/java/org/jenkinsci/plugins/GithubSecurityRealm.java
http://jenkins-ci.org/commit/github-oauth-plugin/72075ba852186552e2779e59fa65e34d5a93edd4
Log:
Merge pull request #83 from jenkinsci/fix-transport-auth

JENKINS-43822 Fix Jenkins CLI transport auth

Compare: https://github.com/jenkinsci/github-oauth-plugin/compare/05313d07327f...72075ba85218

0.27 released https://repo.jenkins-ci.org/releases/org/jenkins-ci/plugins/github-oauth/0.27/github-oauth-0.27.hpi