Ansible Role: Jenkins CI

Installs Jenkins CI on RHEL/CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu servers.

Requirements

Requires curl to be installed on the server. Also, newer versions of Jenkins require Java 8+ (see the test playbooks inside the tests/ directory for an example of how to use newer versions of Java for your OS).

Role Variables

Available variables are listed below, along with default values (see defaults/main.yml):

jenkins_package_state: present

The state of the jenkins package install. By default this role installs Jenkins but will not upgrade Jenkins (when using package-based installs). If you want to always update to the latest version, change this to latest.

jenkins_hostname: localhost

The system hostname; usually localhost works fine. This will be used during setup to communicate with the running Jenkins instance via HTTP requests.

jenkins_home: /var/lib/jenkins

The Jenkins home directory which, amongst others, is being used for storing artifacts, workspaces and plugins. This variable allows you to override the default /var/lib/jenkins location.

jenkins_http_port: 8080

The HTTP port for Jenkins' web interface.

jenkins_admin_username: admin
jenkins_admin_password: admin

Default admin account credentials which will be created the first time Jenkins is installed.

jenkins_admin_password_file: ""

Default admin password file which will be created the first time Jenkins is installed as /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword

jenkins_admin_token: ""

A Jenkins API token (generated after installation) for authenticated scripted clients. You can use the admin token instead of a username and password for more convenient scripted access to Jenkins (e.g. for plugin management through this role).

jenkins_admin_token_file: ""

A file (with full path) on the Jenkins server containing the admin token. If this variable is set in addition to the jenkins_admin_token, the contents of this file will overwrite the value of jenkins_admin_token.

jenkins_jar_location: /opt/jenkins-cli.jar

The location at which the jenkins-cli.jar jarfile will be kept. This is used for communicating with Jenkins via the CLI.

jenkins_plugins: []

Jenkins plugins to be installed automatically during provisioning.

jenkins_plugins_state: present

Use latest to ensure all plugins are running the most up-to-date version.

jenkins_plugin_updates_expiration: 86400

Number of seconds after which a new copy of the update-center.json file is downloaded. Set it to 0 if no cache file should be used.

jenkins_plugin_timeout: 30

The server connection timeout, in seconds, when installing Jenkins plugins.

jenkins_version: "1.644"
jenkins_pkg_url: "http://www.example.com"

(Optional) Then Jenkins version can be pinned to any version available on http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian/ (Debian/Ubuntu) or http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat/ (RHEL/CentOS). If the Jenkins version you need is not available in the default package URLs, you can override the URL with your own; set jenkins_pkg_url (Note: the role depends on the same naming convention that http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/ uses).

jenkins_url_prefix: ""

Used for setting a URL prefix for your Jenkins installation. The option is added as --prefix={{ jenkins_url_prefix }} to the Jenkins initialization java invocation, so you can access the installation at a path like http://www.example.com{{ jenkins_url_prefix }}. Make sure you start the prefix with a / (e.g. /jenkins).

jenkins_connection_delay: 5
jenkins_connection_retries: 60

Amount of time and number of times to wait when connecting to Jenkins after initial startup, to verify that Jenkins is running. Total time to wait = delay * retries, so by default this role will wait up to 300 seconds before timing out.

# For RedHat/CentOS (role default):
jenkins_repo_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat/jenkins.repo
jenkins_repo_key_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat/jenkins-ci.org.key
# For Debian (role default):
jenkins_repo_url: deb http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian binary/
jenkins_repo_key_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian/jenkins-ci.org.key

This role will install the latest version of Jenkins by default (using the official repositories as listed above). You can override these variables (use the correct set for your platform) to install the current LTS version instead:

# For RedHat/CentOS LTS:
jenkins_repo_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat-stable/jenkins.repo
jenkins_repo_key_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat-stable/jenkins-ci.org.key
# For Debian/Ubuntu LTS:
jenkins_repo_url: deb http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable binary/
jenkins_repo_key_url: http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/debian-stable/jenkins-ci.org.key

It is also possible stop the repo file being added by setting jenkins_repo_url = ''. This is useful if, for example, you sign your own packages or run internal package management (e.g. Spacewalk).

jenkins_java_options: "-Djenkins.install.runSetupWizard=false"

Extra Java options for the Jenkins launch command configured in the init file can be set with the var jenkins_java_options. For example, if you want to configure the timezone Jenkins uses, add -Dorg.apache.commons.jelly.tags.fmt.timeZone=America/New_York. By default, the option to disable the Jenkins 2.0 setup wizard is added.

jenkins_init_changes:
  - option: "JENKINS_ARGS"
    value: "--prefix={{ jenkins_url_prefix }}"
  - option: "JENKINS_JAVA_OPTIONS"
    value: "{{ jenkins_java_options }}"

Changes made to the Jenkins init script; the default set of changes set the configured URL prefix and add in configured Java options for Jenkins' startup. You can add other option/value pairs if you need to set other options for the Jenkins init file.

Dependencies

• geerlingguy.java

Example Playbook

- hosts: jenkins
  vars:
    jenkins_hostname: jenkins.example.com
  roles:
    - role: geerlingguy.java
    - role: geerlingguy.jenkins
      become: true

License

MIT (Expat) / BSD

Author Information

This role was created in 2014 by Jeff Geerling, author of Ansible for DevOps.