Jenkins Tutorial For Beginners: Step by Step Guides

[DevOpsCube]

Jenkins is the widely adopted open source continuous integration tool. A lot has changed in Jenkins 2.x when compared to the older version. In this Jenkins tutorial series, we will try to cover all the essential topics for a beginner to get started with Jenkins.

Jenkins is not just a Continuous Integration tool anymore. It is a Continuous Integration and Continuous delivery tool. You can orchestrate any application deployments using Jenkins with a wide range of plugins and native Jenkins workflows.

Jenkins Tutorials For Beginners

In this collection of Jenkins tutorial posts, we will be covering various Jenkins tutorials, which will help beginners to get started with many of the Jenkins core functionalities.

Following is the list of Jenkins beginner tutorials. It is a growing list of Jenkins step by step guides.

Jenkins Administration

1. Jenkins Architecture Explained
2. Installing and configuring Jenkins 2.0
3. Setting up Jenkins on Kubernetes Cluster
4. Configure SSL on Jenkins Server
5. Setting up a distributed Jenkins architecture (Master and slaves)
6. Backing up Jenkins Data and Configurations
7. Setting up Custom UI for Jenkins
8. Running Jenkins on port 80

Jenkins Pipeline Development

1. Jenkins Pipeline as Code Tutorial for Beginners
2. Beginner Guide to Parameters in Declarative Pipeline
3. Jenkins Shared Libary explained
4. Creating Jenkins Shared Library
5. Jenkins Multi-branch Pipeline Detailed Guide for Beginners

Scaling Jenkins

1. Configuring Docker Containers as Build Slaves
2. Configuring ECS as Build Slave For Jenkins

CI/CD With Jenkins

1. Java Continuous Integration with Jenkins
2. Jenkins PR based builds with Github Pull Request Builder Plugin

Jenkins Core Features

Lets have look at the overview of key Jenkins 2.x features that you should know.

1. Pipeline as Code
2. Shared Libraries
3. Better UI and UX
4. Improvements in security and plugins

Pipeline as Code

Jenkins introduced a DSL by which you can version your build, test, deploy pipelines as a code. Pipeline code is wrapped around groovy script which is easy to write and manage. An example pipeline code is shown below.

node(‘linux’){
  git url: 'https://github.com/devopscube/simple-maven-pet-clinic-app.git'
  def mvnHome = tool 'M2'
  env.PATH = "${MNHOME}/bin:${env.PATH}"
  sh 'mvn -B clean verify'
}

Using pipeline as a code you can run parallel builds on a single job on different slaves. Also, you have good programmatic control over how and what each Jenkins job should do.

Jenkinsfile is the best way to implement Pipeline as code. There are two types of pipeline as code.

1. Scripted Pipeline and
2. Declarative Pipeline.

Our recommendation is to use only declarative pipeline for all your Jenkins based CI/CD workflows as you will have more control and customization over your pipelines.

Jenkins Shared Libraries

Jenkins shared library is a great way to reuse the pipeline code. You can create libraries of your CI/CD code which can be referenced in your pipeline script. The extended shared libraries will allow you to write custom groovy code for more flexibility.

Jenkins X

Jenkins X is a project from Jenkins for CI/CD on Kubernetes. This project is entirely different from normal Jenkins.

Better UI and UX

Jenkins 2.0 has a better User interface. The pipeline design is also great in which the whole flow is visualized. Now you can configure the user, password, and plugins right from the moment you start the Jenkins instance through awesome UI.

Also, Jenkins Blueocean is a great plugin which gives a great view for pipeline jobs. You can even create a pipeline using the blue ocean visual pipeline editor. Blueocen looks like the following.

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