Master Jenkins CI: Step-by-Step Setup, Plugins, and Automated Deployment

Introduction

Continuous integration has become mainstream, enabling frequent testing and early issue detection; automated deployment speeds up releases and reduces human error.

1. Development Environment

The development environment includes:

Maven for project management.

Git for source control.

SpringMVC + Spring + MyBatis framework.

MySQL with Druid connection pool.

Unitils testing framework.

Hibernate Validator for data validation.

Log4j for logging.

2. Jenkins Installation

Jenkins (formerly Hudson) can be downloaded from http://jenkins-ci.org/. Install by placing the WAR file into Tomcat and starting Tomcat. Configuration files reside in ~/.jenkins. It is recommended to run Jenkins on Linux to avoid missing commands like ssh.

3. Jenkins Plugins

After installation, access http://IP:port/jenkins, go to “Manage Jenkins → Manage Plugins”. Initially the plugin list may be empty; wait a minute.

3.1 Git Plugin

Install “Git plugin” from “Available Plugins” and enable the restart‑after‑install option.

3.2 Email Plugin

Update “Mailer Plugin” and optionally install “Email Extension Plugin” for richer email content.

3.3 Other Plugins

Common plugins such as Maven and JUnit are installed by default; upgrade if needed.

4. System Settings

Navigate to “Manage Jenkins → Configure System”. Important items:

Set paths for Java, Git, Maven.

Verify the automatically generated Jenkins URL.

Configure email settings, including the system administrator address and extended e‑mail notification.

5. Project Configuration

Create a new job and configure:

1. Source Code Management: select Git, provide Repository URL and credentials (private key can be pasted directly).

2. Build Triggers: enable “Build periodically” and “Poll SCM” with the same schedule, e.g., “H/15 * * * *”.

3. Build Steps: add “Execute shell” and “Invoke top‑level Maven target” in the desired order.

Example shell script (customize as needed) can modify database connection settings; the Maven step runs “mvn clean test”.

4. Publish JUnit test result report: add “*/target/surefire-reports/*.xml”.

5. Email Notification: add “Editable Email Notification”, specify recipients, use global variables, and set trigger conditions.

6. Security Configuration

After a successful build, enable security under “Configure Global Security”:

Enable security.

Use Jenkins’ own user database and allow user registration.

Set authorization strategy to “Matrix‑based security”, create an “admin” user with all permissions.

Set admin password.

After testing the admin login, disable anonymous access and remove its permissions.

7. Automated Deployment

Deployment is triggered manually via a custom script to avoid excessive redeployments during frequent testing. Example script:

#!/bin/sh

# update code
git pull

# package
mvn clean
mvn package -Dmaven.test.skip=true

# deploy
WAR=`ls target | grep war`
TOMCAT=/home/test/apache-tomcat-6.0.41
mv target/$WAR $TOMCAT
cd $TOMCAT
# invoke another deploy script
sh deploy-war.sh $WAR webapps