How to deploy Jenkins to Kubernetes with Pulumi

In this blog post, we’ll see how to run Jenkins on Kubernetes with Pulumi. We abstract away the complexity of the configuration into a reusable component to enable it to be reused by team mates. Our example is based on adapting a Helm template.

Reusing the Jenkins component

Once the component is created, it can be reused with just a few lines of implementation code.

import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as jenkins from "./jenkins";

const config = new pulumi.Config("jenkins");
const instance = new jenkins.Instance("jenkins", {
    name: "jenkins",
    credentials: {
        username: config.require("username"),
        password: config.require("password"),
    },
    resources: {
        memory: "512Mi",
        cpu: "100m",
    }
});

We could take the component code and prepare a fully reusable NPM package, but as this is just an example, we’ve simply maintained the code as an included class.

Running the App

Follow the steps in Pulumi Installation and Setup and Configuring Pulumi Kubernetes to get setup with Pulumi and Kubernetes.

Note: The code in this repo assumes you are deploying to a cluster that supports the LoadBalancer service type. This includes most cloud providers as well as Docker for Mac Edge w/ Kubernetes. If not (for example if you are targeting minikube or your own custom Kubernetes cluster), replace type: "LoadBalancer" with type: "ClusterIP" in jenkins.ts. See the Kubernetes Services docs for more details.

Clone the repo and navigate to the Jenkins example:

$ git clone https://github.com/pulumi/examples.git
$ cd kubernetes-ts-jenkins

Install dependencies:

$ npm install

Create a new stack:

$ pulumi stack init
Enter a stack name: kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev

Create configuration keys for the root username and password for the Jenkins instance we are about to create:

$ pulumi config set jenkins:username <your desired username>
$ pulumi config set jenkins:password <your desired password> --secret

Preview the deployment of the application:

$ pulumi preview
Previewing update of stack 'kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev'
     Type    Name    Status        Info
 *   global  global  unchanged
Previewing changes:

     Type                                            Name                                             Status        Info
 *   global                                          global                                           no change
 +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack                             kubernetes-ts-jenkins-kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev  create
 +   └─ jenkins:jenkins:Instance                     jenkins                                          create
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:Secret                 jenkins-secret                                   create
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:PersistentVolumeClaim  jenkins-pvc                                      create
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:Service                jenkins-service                                  create
 +      └─ kubernetes:extensions:v1beta1:Deployment  jenkins-deploy                                   create

info: 6 changes previewed:
    + 6 resources to create

Perform the deployment:

$ pulumi update --skip-preview
Updating stack 'kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev'
     Type    Name    Status        Info
 *   global  global  unchanged
Performing changes:

     Type                                            Name                                             Status        Info
 *   global                                          global                                           unchanged
 +   pulumi:pulumi:Stack                             kubernetes-ts-jenkins-kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev  created
 +   └─ jenkins:jenkins:Instance                     jenkins                                          created
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:Secret                 jenkins-secret                                   created
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:PersistentVolumeClaim  jenkins-pvc                                      created
 +      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:Service                jenkins-service                                  created
 +      └─ kubernetes:extensions:v1beta1:Deployment  jenkins-deploy                                   created

info: 6 changes performed:
    + 6 resources created
Update duration: 2m30.397621136s

The deployment is complete! Use kubectl to see the Service that we just deployed:

$ kubectl get services
NAME         TYPE           CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP     PORT(S)                      AGE
jenkins      LoadBalancer   10.43.241.251   35.230.56.127   80:30638/TCP,443:30204/TCP   3m

The Jenkins instance we just deployed is reachable through port 80 of the external IP address. You can now visit http://35.230.56.127/jenkins/login in a Web browser to begin the first-install flow for your new Jenkins instance. You can use the username and password that you saved in your Pulumi config to log in to your new Jenkins instance.

Note: If you are deploying to a cluster that does not support type: "LoadBalancer", and deployed the example using type: "ClusterIP" instead, run kubectl port-forward svc/jenkins 8080:80 to forward the cluster port to the local machine and access the service via localhost:8080.

When you’re ready to be done with Jenkins, you can destroy the instance:

$ pulumi destroy
Do you want to perform this destroy? yes
Destroying stack 'kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev'
Performing changes:

     Type                                            Name                                             Status      Info
 -   pulumi:pulumi:Stack                             kubernetes-ts-jenkins-kubernetes-ts-jenkins-dev  deleted
 -   └─ jenkins:jenkins:Instance                     jenkins                                          deleted
 -      ├─ kubernetes:extensions:v1beta1:Deployment  jenkins-deploy                                   deleted
 -      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:Service                jenkins-service                                  deleted
 -      ├─ kubernetes:core:v1:PersistentVolumeClaim  jenkins-pvc                                      deleted
 -      └─ kubernetes:core:v1:Secret                 jenkins-secret                                   deleted

info: 6 changes performed:
    - 6 resources deleted
Update duration: 18.202009282s

Next Steps

This example showed just a little of the potential of reusing components and code, instead of copy and pasting config, to improve productivity and comprehension for building cloud stacks.

Find out more:

• Get the example code on GitHub
• Read the docs on Kubernetes
• See the tutorial on building components