Running Jenkins on Kubernetes

Jenkins is a self-contained, open source automation server which can be used to automate all sorts of tasks related to building, testing, and delivering or deploying software.

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Prerequisites:

• Kubernetes cluster
• Helm 4.x

Installing Jenkins with Helm:

Helm v3.0+ must be installed on your workstation.

Artifact Hub is a web-based application that enables finding, and installing, packages for Cloud Native packages.

Add the jenkins Helm repository:

helm repo add jenkins https://charts.jenkins.io

Fetch the latest charts from the repository:

helm repo update

Retrieve the package from jenkins repository, and download it locally:

helm fetch jenkins/jenkins --untar

Lets update values.yaml file as follow,

# Change admin password
controller:
  admin:
    username: "admin"
    password: 'SecureP@ssw0rd!'

# Install Additional Plugins
controller:
  additionalPlugins: ['pipeline-graph-view', 'job-dsl', 'junit', 'coverage', 'dark-theme']

# Configure Dark Theme
controller:
  JCasC:
    configScripts:
      dark-theme: |
        appearance:
          themeManager:
            disableUserThemes: true
            theme: "dark"

# Configure welcome message
controller:
  JCasC:
    configScripts:
      welcome-message: |
        jenkins:
          systemMessage: 🚀🚀🚀 Jenkins Prod instance 🚀🚀🚀

Install jenkins in the jenkins namespace:

helm install jenkins jenkins/jenkins --values jenkins-values.yaml -n jenkins --create-namespace

To confirm that the deployment succeeded, run:

kubectl -n jenkins get pods -w

kubectl logs jenkins-0 -n jenkins -c init --tail=50 -f

watch -n 5 "kubectl get events -n jenkins"

port forward:

kubectl --namespace jenkins port-forward svc/jenkins 8080:8080

Get the Jenkins URL to visit by running these commands in the same shell:

kubectl patch svc jenkins --namespace jenkins -p '{"spec": {"type": "NodePort"}}'

export NODE_PORT=$(kubectl get --namespace jenkins -o jsonpath="{.spec.ports[0].nodePort}" services jenkins)

export NODE_IP=$(kubectl get nodes --namespace jenkins -o jsonpath="{.items[0].status.addresses[0].address}")

echo http://$NODE_IP:$NODE_PORT

jenkinsUrl must be set correctly else stylesheet won’t load and the dark theme.

controller:
  jenkinsUrl: http://$NODE_IP:$NODE_PORT
  jenkinsAdminEmail: mkbn@mkbn.com
  # don't set these via JCasC, set as helm chart values

Run helm upgrade

helm upgrade jenkins jenkins/jenkins --values /tmp/jenkins/values.yaml -n jenkins

Login with the username: admin and password: SecureP@ssw0rd!

Reference Links:

• jenkins