How to Install and Configure Jenkins 2 on centos/Redhat Servers

In our previous post, we explained the latest Jenkins features and installation for Debian-based servers. As per a few user requests, we have created the steps for installing Jenkins 2 versions on centos and Redhat servers.

Jenkins 2 on centos/Redhat

This tutorial will guide you to install Jenkins 2 on a centos/Redhat machines.

Prerequisites:

1. Make sure port 22 and 8080 are open in your server firewall.
2. You should have sudo access to execute the commands.

Step 1: Install prerequisites.

 sudo yum install wget git -y

Step 2: Install java 11 JDK

sudo yum install java-11-openjdk-devel -y

Step 3: Add the LTS Jenkins repository.

sudo wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/jenkins.repo http://pkg.jenkins-ci.org/redhat/jenkins.repo

Note: It is recommended to use the LTS version for Jenkins. You can check out the latest LTS version from here.

Step 4: Import the repo key.

sudo rpm --import https://jenkins-ci.org/redhat/jenkins-ci.org.key

Step 5: There are many Jenkins 2 versions. To install the specific version, you need to get the version list from yum. Use the following command to get the list of available Jenkins versions.

sudo yum --showduplicates list jenkins | expand

You will see a list like the following.

jenkins.noarch                         2.6-1.1                           jenkins
jenkins.noarch                         2.7-1.1                           jenkins
jenkins.noarch                         2.8-1.1                           jenkins
jenkins.noarch                         2.9-1.1                           jenkins

Step 6: Select a specific version of your choice and install it using the following syntax.

sudo yum install (package name)-(version info)

For example, if you want to install 2.9-1.1, you can execute the command as shown below.

sudo yum install jenkins-2.222.1-1.1

Or simply execute the following command, it will install the latest LTS version.

sudo yum install jenkins -y

Step 7: Start the Jenkins 2 service.

sudo systemctl start jenkins

Step 8: Enable Jenkins as a startup service.

sudo systemctl enable jenkins

Step 9: Access the Jenkins dashboard on port 8080 using your servers IP address.

http://<jenkins-ip>:8080

Step 10: Open the following file in the terminal and copy the password. supply the password on the dashboard.

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

Step 11: Install suggested plugins

Step 12: Create a admin Jenkins user.

Step 13: All the other steps are self-explanatory. You can follow the dashboard steps start using Jenkins

To add slaves, you can follow the Jenkins SSH slave setup article.