How To Install Jenkins on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Jenkins on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server. For those of you who didn’t know, Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration tool written in Java. Jenkins provides continuous integration services for software development. It is a server-based system running in a servlet container such as Apache Tomcat. It supports SCM tools including AccuRev, CVS, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Clearcase, and RTC, and can execute Apache Ant and Apache Maven-based projects as well as arbitrary shell scripts and Windows batch commands.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Jenkins on a Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Jenkins on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Java.

In this step, we will install Java 7 from a PPA repository and install python-software-properties:

apt-get install python-software-properties

Then, add the Java repository:

add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa

Update the Ubuntu repository and install the Java OpenJDK with apt command:

apt-get update
apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

Verify Java installation by typing the command below:

java -version

Step 3. Installing Jenkins on Ubuntu 16.04.

Add the key and source list to apt:

wget -q -O - http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable/jenkins-ci.org.key | sudo apt-key add -

Create a sources list for Jenkins:

sudo sh -c 'echo deb http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable binary/ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list'

After the cache has been updated, start to proceed with installation Jenkins:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jenkins

Start Jenkins service:

systemctl start jenkins

Jenkins will write log files to /var/log/jenkins/jenkins.log. You can also fine-tune the configuration.

Step 4. Installing and Configuring Apache web server for Jenkins.

Install Apache web server on your system:

apt-get install apache2

Create a new virtual host directive in Apache. For example, create a new Apache configuration file named ‘jenkins.conf’ on your virtual server:

a2enmod proxy
a2enmod proxy_http
a2ensite jenkins
touch /etc/apache2/sites-available/jenkins.conf
ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/jenkins.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/jenkins.conf
nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/jenkins.conf

Add the following lines:

<Virtualhost *:80>
    ServerName        my.jenkins.id
    ProxyRequests     Off
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode

    <Proxy http://localhost:8080/*>
      Order deny,allow
      Allow from all
    </Proxy>

    ProxyPass         /  http://localhost:8080/ nocanon
    ProxyPassReverse  /  http://localhost:8080/
    ProxyPassReverse  /  http://my.jenkins.id/
</Virtualhost>

Save and close the file. Restart the apache and Jenkins service for the changes to take effect:

systemctl restart apache2
systemctl restart jenkins

Step 5. Accessing Jenkins on Ubuntu.

Jenkins will be available on HTTP port 8080 by default. Open your favorite browser and navigate to http://your-domain.com:8080 or http://server-ip:8080 and complete the required steps to finish the installation. If you are using a firewall, please open port 8080 to enable access to the control panel. Default installation password can be found at /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword as showing in below image.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Jenkins. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Jenkins on Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus server. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Jenkins website.

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