Deploy Jenkins with Docker Compose on Windows: Handling Volume Mapping

To run Jenkins on a Windows machine with Docker Desktop, first create a jenkins_home directory for Jenkins data and a tool directory for installing JDK, Maven, etc., then place a docker-compose.yaml file in the same folder.

The compose file should contain the following content:

version: "3.6"
services:
  jenkins:
    image: jenkins/jenkins:lts
    container_name: jenkins_test
    restart: on-failure
    privileged: true
    user: root
    ports:
      - "38080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./jenkins_home:/var/jenkins_home
      - ./tool:/tool

The image used is jenkins/jenkins:lts. You can verify its availability with docker search jenkins. The container will be named jenkins_test, and port 8080 inside the container is mapped to host port 38080. On Windows Docker Desktop the volume mapping uses relative paths (e.g., ./jenkins_home), while a direct docker run command can use an absolute host path such as D:\SoftWare\jenkinshome:/var/jenkins_home.

Start the stack with: docker compose up -d If the container already exists, Docker Compose will reuse it without pulling a new image. After the command finishes, open http://localhost:38080 to reach the Jenkins UI, confirming that the jenkins_home volume is correctly mounted.

To speed up plugin downloads, edit the file jenkins_home/hudson.model.UpdateCenter.xml inside the mounted volume and replace the default update‑center URL with a domestic mirror, for example:

https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/jenkins/updates/update-center.json

After saving the change, restart the services:

docker compose down
docker compose up -d

Finally, obtain the initial administrator password with:

docker exec -it jenkins_test cat /var/jenkins_home/secrets/initialAdminPassword

Copy the printed password, then proceed with plugin installation and further Jenkins configuration.