Jenkins install on EKS using helm charts

Aravind Pratapagiri September 12th, 2021 – 5 min read

Introduction:

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

A Kubernetes cluster adds a new automation layer to Jenkins. Kubernetes makes sure that resources are used effectively and that your servers and underlying infrastructure are not overloaded. Kubernetes’ ability to orchestrate container deployment ensures that Jenkins always has the right amount of resources available. This section will describe option to install/run Jenkins on Kubernetes.

Prerequisites:

Install Helm

To install Helm CLI, follow the instructions from the Installing Helm page.

Macos : brew install helm

Windows : choco install kubernetes-helm


Once Helm is installed and set up properly, add the Jenkins repo as follows:

Configure Helm:

$ helm repo add jenkinsci https://charts.jenkins.io
$ helm repo update

The helm charts in the Jenkins repo can be listed with the command:

$ helm search repo jenkinsci

Install Steps: Jenkins on EKS using helm.

Step 1: Create Namespace


$ kubectl create namespace jenkins
namespace/jenkins created

Step 2: Install Jenkins using helm charts. Attached values.yaml


$ helm upgrade –install jenkins –namespace jenkins -f jenkinsvalues.yaml jenkinsci/jenkins
Release “jenkins” does not exist. Installing it now.

  1. Get your ‘admin’ user password by running:
    kubectl exec –namespace jenkins -it svc/jenkins -c jenkins — /bin/cat /run/secrets/chart-admin-password && echo
    8J1n3lV2SeIXbAVoYcnHl9
  2. Get the Jenkins URL to visit by running these commands in the same shell:
    echo http://127.0.0.1:8080
    kubectl –namespace jenkins port-forward svc/jenkins 8080:8080
  3. Login with the password from step 1 and the username: admin
  4. Configure security realm and authorization strategy
  5. Use Jenkins Configuration as Code by specifying configScripts in your values.yaml file

Step 3: Apply ingress.


$ kubectl –namespace jenkins apply -f ing-jen1-west-1.yaml
Warning: extensions/v1beta1 Ingress is deprecated in v1.14+, unavailable in v1.22+; use networking.k8s.io/v1 Ingress
ingress.extensions/tcp created

$ kubectl -n jenkins get ing
NAME   CLASS    HOSTS                  ADDRESS                                                            PORTS   AGE
tcp    <none>   *.xxxxxxxxxxxx.com   jenkins.us-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com   80      17s

Uninstall Steps Jenkins from EKS:


$ helm uninstall jenkins -n jenkins
release “jenkins” uninstalled

$ kubectl delete ns jenkins
namespace “jenkins” deleted

Access Jenkins Console:

http://jenkins.us-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com


Github repo: helm-charts/charts/jenkins at main · jenkinsci/helm-charts

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