Step-by-Step Guide to Automate Spring Boot Deployment with Jenkins, Docker, and Maven

This article provides a comprehensive, hands‑on guide for automatically deploying a Spring Boot project using Jenkins, Docker, and Maven on a CentOS 7 environment.

Environment : CentOS 7 with Git (Gitee) installed.

1. Install Docker CE

yum update

yum remove docker docker-common docker-selinux docker-engine

yum install -y yum-utils device-mapper-persistent-data lvm2

yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

yum install docker-ce

systemctl start docker

systemctl enable docker

docker version

2. Install Jenkins (Docker image)

docker run --name jenkins -u root --rm -d -p 8080:8080 -p 50000:50000 -v /var/jenkins_home:/var/jenkins_home -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock jenkinsci/blueocean

Access Jenkins at http://{JENKINS_HOST_IP}:8080 and wait for initialization.

2.1 Unlock Jenkins

Enter the container: docker exec -it {JENKINS_CONTAINER} bash Retrieve the admin password: cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword Paste the password into the web UI.

2.2 Install Plugins

Choose “Install suggested plugins”.

After installation, create the admin user.

3. System Configuration

Navigate to Manage Jenkins → Manage Plugins → Available and install:

4. Maven Configuration

Go to Manage Jenkins → Global Tool Configuration and set up Maven installation.

5. Create a Jenkins Job

Click “New Item”, name the job, select “Freestyle project”.

In Source Code Management , choose Git, enter the repository URL and credentials.

In Build Triggers , add a build step “Invoke top‑level Maven targets” with goal clean install -Dmaven.test.skip=true.

Save the job.

6. Test Build

Click “Build Now”.

Check the console output to ensure a JAR is produced.

7. Run the Project

Because the Jenkins server and the application share the same host, a shell script builds a Docker image and runs it.

7.1 Dockerfile

FROM jdk:8
VOLUME /tmp
ADD target/zx-order-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar app.jar
EXPOSE 8888
ENTRYPOINT ["Bash","-DBash.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom","-jar","/app.jar","--spring.profiles.active=prd"]

7.2 Jenkins Job Commands

cd /var/jenkins_home/workspace/zx-order-api

docker stop zx-order || true

docker rm zx-order || true

docker rmi zx-order || true

docker build -t zx-order .

docker run -d -p 8888:8888 --name zx-order zx-order:latest

Note: Adding || true prevents the script from failing if a command does not succeed.

8. Verify Deployment

Run docker ps to see the running container.

Check logs with docker logs zx-order.

Open a browser and navigate to http://{HOST_IP}:8888 to confirm the application is reachable.

The article concludes with screenshots of successful Jenkins console output and instructions for further testing.