Jenkins in the Cloud for Continuous Integration in AWS

In this blog article, we will delve into the use of Jenkins for deploying continuous integration on the AWS platform.

1. Why Jenkins?

• Scalability: The cloud’s on-demand resource provisioning means Jenkins can scale without hardware limitations.
• Cost-Effective: Only pay for the compute resources you use.
• Collaboration: Cloud setups enable distributed teams to access the Jenkins CI/CD pipelines from anywhere.

2. Setting up Jenkins on a Cloud Platform (e.g., AWS EC2):

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

• An AWS account: You need an AWS account to create and manage EC2 instances.
• AWS CLI (Command Line Interface): Install the AWS CLI on your local machine. You can find installation instructions here: AWS CLI Installation Guide.

Step 2: Launch an EC2 Instance

• Open your terminal or command prompt.
• Use the AWS CLI to launch an EC2 instance. Replace the placeholders with your actual values:

aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-name YourKeyName --security-group-ids your-security-group-id

• ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0: This is the Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for an Amazon Linux 2 instance.
• t2.micro: This is the instance type, which is in the AWS Free Tier.
• YourKeyName: Replace this with the name of your AWS key pair.
• your-security-group-id: Replace this with the security group ID you want to use for your instance.
• Wait for the instance to be launched. You will receive information about the new instance, including its public IP address.

Step 3: Connect to the EC2 Instance

• Once the EC2 instance is running, use SSH to connect to it. Replace YourKeyName.pem with the path to your private key file and YOUR_EC2_PUBLIC_IP with the instance’s public IP address:

ssh -i "YourKeyName.pem" ec2-user@YOUR_EC2_PUBLIC_IP

• You should now be connected to your EC2 instance.

Step 4: Install Jenkins

• Update the system’s packages and install Jenkins by running the following commands:

sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install jenkins -y

•  Wait for Jenkins to be installed.

Step 5: Start Jenkins

• Start the Jenkins service with the following command:

sudo service jenkins start

1. Jenkins is now running on your EC2 instance.

Step 6: Access Jenkins

1. Open a web browser and navigate to http://YOUR_EC2_PUBLIC_IP:8080. Replace YOUR_EC2_PUBLIC_IP with your instance’s public IP address.
2. You will be prompted to enter an initial admin password. To retrieve the password, SSH into your EC2 instance again and run:

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

1. Copy the password and paste it into the Jenkins setup wizard in your browser.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Jenkins setup.

Step 7: Configure Jenkins

You can now configure Jenkins according to your needs, including setting up jobs, plugins, and integrations for your continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.

That’s it! You’ve successfully deployed Jenkins on an AWS EC2 instance and can start using it for your automation and CI/CD tasks.

At GDS Consulting Services, we specialize in providing AWS infrastructure solutions. Feel free contact us for more information or visit our blog.