Jenkins: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 3. Installing Jenkins

Introduction

One of the first things you will probably notice about Jenkins is how easy it is to install. Indeed, in less than five minutes, you can have a Jenkins server up and running. However, as always, in the real world, things aren’t always that simple, and there are a few details you should take into account when installing your Jenkins server for production use. In this chapter, we look at how to install Jenkins onto both your local machine and onto a fully fledged build server. We will also look at how to take care of your Jenkins installation once it’s up and running, and how to perform basic maintenance tasks such as backups and upgrades.

Downloading and Installing Jenkins

Jenkins is easy to install, and can run just about anywhere. You can run it either as a stand-alone application, or deployed on a conventional Java application server such as Tomcat or JBoss. This first option makes it easy to install and try out on your local machine, and you can be up and running with a bare-bones installation in a matter of minutes.

Since Jenkins is a Java application, you will need a recent version of Java on your machine. More precisely, you will need at least Java 5. In fact, on your build server, you will almost certainly need the full features of the Java Development Kit (JDK) 5.0 or better to execute your builds. If you’re not sure, you can check the version of Java on your machine by executing the java -version command:

$ java -version java version ...