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How To Install Jenkins on Ubuntu 18.04

Updated on March 15, 2021
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How To Install Jenkins on Ubuntu 18.04
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Ubuntu 18.04

Introduction

Jenkins is an open-source automation server that automates the repetitive technical tasks involved in the continuous integration and delivery of software. Jenkins is Java-based and can be installed from Ubuntu packages or by downloading and running its web application archive (WAR) file — a collection of files that make up a complete web application to run on a server.

In this tutorial, you will install Jenkins by adding its Debian package repository, and using that repository to install the package with apt.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you will need:

Step 1 — Installing Jenkins

The version of Jenkins included with the default Ubuntu packages is often behind the latest available version from the project itself. To take advantage of the latest fixes and features, you can use the project-maintained packages to install Jenkins.

First, add the repository key to the system:

  1. wget -q -O - https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable/jenkins.io.key | sudo apt-key add -

When the key is added, the system will return OK. Next, append the Debian package repository address to the server’s sources.list:

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

When both of these are in place, run update so that apt will use the new repository:

  1. sudo apt update

Finally, install Jenkins and its dependencies:

  1. sudo apt install jenkins

Now that Jenkins and its dependencies are in place, we’ll start the Jenkins server.

Step 2 — Starting Jenkins

Let’s start Jenkins using systemctl:

  1. sudo systemctl start jenkins

Since systemctl doesn’t display output, you can use its status command to verify that Jenkins started successfully:

  1. sudo systemctl status jenkins

If everything went well, the beginning of the output should show that the service is active and configured to start at boot:

Output
● jenkins.service - LSB: Start Jenkins at boot time
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/jenkins; generated)
   Active: active (exited) since Mon 2018-07-09 17:22:08 UTC; 6min ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
    Tasks: 0 (limit: 1153)
   CGroup: /system.slice/jenkins.service

Now that Jenkins is running, let’s adjust our firewall rules so that we can reach it from a web browser to complete the initial setup.

Step 3 — Opening the Firewall

By default, Jenkins runs on port 8080, so let’s open that port using ufw:

  1. sudo ufw allow 8080

Check ufw’s status to confirm the new rules:

  1. sudo ufw status

You will see that traffic is allowed to port 8080 from anywhere:

Output
Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere
8080                       ALLOW       Anywhere
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
8080 (v6)                  ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)

Note: If the firewall is inactive, the following commands will allow OpenSSH and enable the firewall:

  1. sudo ufw allow OpenSSH

  2. sudo ufw enable

With Jenkins installed and our firewall configured, we can complete the initial setup.

Step 4 — Setting Up Jenkins

To set up your installation, visit Jenkins on its default port, 8080, using your server domain name or IP address: http://your_server_ip_or_domain:8080

You should see the Unlock Jenkins screen, which displays the location of the initial password:

Unlock Jenkins screen

In the terminal window, use the cat command to display the password:

  1. sudo cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword

Copy the 32-character alphanumeric password from the terminal and paste it into the Administrator password field, then click Continue.

The next screen presents the option of installing suggested plugins or selecting specific plugins:

Customize Jenkins Screen

We’ll click the Install suggested plugins option, which will immediately begin the installation process:

Jenkins Getting Started Install Plugins Screen

When the installation is complete, you will be prompted to set up the first administrative user. It’s possible to skip this step and continue as admin using the initial password we used above, but we’ll take a moment to create the user.

Note: The default Jenkins server is NOT encrypted, so the data submitted with this form is not protected. When you’re ready to use this installation, follow the guide How to Configure Jenkins with SSL Using an Nginx Reverse Proxy on Ubuntu 18.04. This will protect user credentials and information about builds that are transmitted via the web interface.

Jenkins Create First Admin User Screen

Enter the name and password for your user:

Jenkins Create User

You will see an Instance Configuration page that will ask you to confirm the preferred URL for your Jenkins instance. Confirm either the domain name for your server or your server’s IP address:

Jenkins Instance Configuration

After confirming the appropriate information, click Save and Finish. You will see a confirmation page confirming that “Jenkins is Ready!”:

Jenkins is ready screen

Click Start using Jenkins to visit the main Jenkins dashboard:

Welcome to Jenkins Screen

At this point, you have completed a successful installation of Jenkins.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have installed Jenkins using the project-provided packages, started the server, opened the firewall, and created an administrative user. At this point, you can start exploring Jenkins.

When you’ve completed your exploration, if you decide to continue using Jenkins, follow the guide How to Configure Jenkins with SSL Using an Nginx Reverse Proxy on Ubuntu 18.04 to protect your passwords, as well as any sensitive system or product information that will be sent between your machine and the server in plain text.

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About the authors
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Melissa Anderson

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Kathleen Juell

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x41102 • September 6, 2018

Hi, Thanks for this. Ran into an error after installation though, jenkins failed to start: “”" ERROR: No Java executable found in current PATH: /bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin If you actually have java installed on the system make sure the executable is in the aforementioned “”" Had to install Java(8) and it was all good after that. Read somewhere else that 18.04 defaults to Java 9 which Jenkins “doesn’t want”.

Francisco Solis • March 14, 2021

Hey guys, if someone is having this issue:

Reading package lists... Done  
W: GPG error: https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
E: The repository 'http://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ Release' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

Use the follwing commands to fix it:

wget -qO - https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable/jenkins.io.key | apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo deb http://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list'
sudo apt-get update
HarishST • February 22, 2021

Nice Tutorial!

It seems the repository key and repository URL is changed from what is given in the tutorial.

I was able to install the Jenkins once I updated the repository key URL from here: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable/

I hope you will update the article with the same soon! Many thanks for giving such nice tutorials with completeness! Very much appreciated!

dimuthuk • August 8, 2020

I don’t what is wrong with Digital Ocean’s tutorial guides. Always stuck in errors when I follow these. Guides in other websites are working fine. I’m really worried about the quality of digital ocean’s tutorials

fody • May 2, 2020

ALL of my plugins are failing to install. I opened the firewall and I do not have a proxy running in the middle. Details from failure below.

java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
	at java.base/java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead0(Native Method)
	at java.base/java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead(SocketInputStream.java:115)
	at java.base/java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:168)
	at java.base/java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:140)
	at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:252)
	at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.read1(BufferedInputStream.java:292)
	at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:351)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.parseHTTPHeader(HttpClient.java:754)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.parseHTTP(HttpClient.java:689)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream0(HttpURLConnection.java:1610)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1515)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getHeaderField(HttpURLConnection.java:3094)
	at java.base/java.net.URLConnection.getHeaderFieldLong(URLConnection.java:636)
	at java.base/java.net.URLConnection.getContentLengthLong(URLConnection.java:508)
	at java.base/java.net.URLConnection.getContentLength(URLConnection.java:492)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$UpdateCenterConfiguration.download(UpdateCenter.java:1227)
Caused: java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
	at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.GeneratedConstructorAccessor66.newInstance(Unknown Source)
	at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
	at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:490)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection$10.run(HttpURLConnection.java:1969)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection$10.run(HttpURLConnection.java:1964)
	at java.base/java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getChainedException(HttpURLConnection.java:1963)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream0(HttpURLConnection.java:1531)
	at java.base/sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1515)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$UpdateCenterConfiguration.download(UpdateCenter.java:1243)
Caused: java.io.IOException: Failed to load http://updates.jenkins-ci.org/download/plugins/trilead-api/1.0.6/trilead-api.hpi to /var/lib/jenkins/plugins/trilead-api.jpi.tmp
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$UpdateCenterConfiguration.download(UpdateCenter.java:1250)
Caused: java.io.IOException: Failed to download from http://updates.jenkins-ci.org/download/plugins/trilead-api/1.0.6/trilead-api.hpi (redirected to: http://ftp-chi.osuosl.org/pub/jenkins/plugins/trilead-api/1.0.6/trilead-api.hpi)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$UpdateCenterConfiguration.download(UpdateCenter.java:1284)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$DownloadJob._run(UpdateCenter.java:1832)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$InstallationJob._run(UpdateCenter.java:2110)
	at hudson.model.UpdateCenter$DownloadJob.run(UpdateCenter.java:1806)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:515)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
	at hudson.remoting.AtmostOneThreadExecutor$Worker.run(AtmostOneThreadExecutor.java:111)
	at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)
fody • May 1, 2020
sudo sh -c 'echo deb http://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list'

does not work for me. I get an error when doing the sudo apt update

W: GPG error: https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9B7D32F2D50582E6
E: The repository 'http://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ Release' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

However removing the “-stable” from the line allows it to work for me

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

tried on Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04

pcampbelledu • April 30, 2020

Jenkins is no longer in the repos https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/jenkins/+bug/1294005

Install http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable/

digital40de01d99ecb8cba93c • November 10, 2018

Thank you, worked like a charm. Concise and easy to read.

Creative CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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