Jenkins operator is a Kubernetes native operator which fully manages Jenkins on Kubernetes. It was built with immutability and declarative configuration as code in mind.

Out of the box it provides:

integration with Kubernetes (Jenkins kubernetes-plugin)
pipelines as code (Jenkins pipelines)
extensibility via groovy scripts (similar to Jenkins script console) or (configuration as code plugin)
secure defaults and hardening (see the security section of the documentation)

Problem statement and goals

The main reason why we decided to implement the Jenkins Operator is the fact that we faced a lot of problems with standard Jenkins deployment. We want to make Jenkins more robust, suitable for dynamic and multi-tenant environments.

Some of the problems we want to solve:

installing plugins with incompatible versions or security vulnerabilities
better configuration as code
security and hardening out of the box
make errors more visible for end users
backup and restore for jobs history
orphaned jobs with no JNLP connection
handle graceful shutdown properly
proper end to end tests for Jenkins lifecycle

Documentation

Go to our documentation website for more information.

Selected content:

Common Jenkins issues and workarounds

Multibranch pipelines and backup issues: https://github.com/jenkinsci/kubernetes-operator/issues/104#issuecomment-554289768

Community & Contribution

There is a dedicated channel #jenkins-operator on virtuslab-oss.slack.com (Invite form)

Feel free to file issues or pull requests.

Before any big pull request please consult the maintainers to ensure a common direction.

Presentations

Jenkins World 2019 Lisbon

About the authors

This project was originally developed by VirtusLab and the following CONTRIBUTORS.