Hey there! If deploying apps feels like a headache, this guide is for you. I’ve shared exactly how to set up Jenkins, Docker, and agents so you can deploy your app with just one click no hassle, no fuss. I also put together a GitHub project you can follow, and for more details, check out my full blog post here. In just 30 minutes, you’ll have a hands free pipeline up and running!

Follow below steps to execute the project with setup of Jenkins, AWS and Docker with pipeline creation.

Go to AWS – Open your AWS Management Console and sign in with your credentials.
Go to Instances – In the AWS Console, locate and click on "EC2" to access your instances.
Click on Launch Instance – Select "Launch Instance" to begin setting up a new instance.

Name the instance jenkins_server and select Ubuntu as the OS image.

Select the instance type as t2.micro (choose Free tier only, so it won’t cost you anything).
Create a new .pem key pair. This will download the key.

Enable traffic for SSH, HTTP, and HTTPS.

8 GB of storage is sufficient.

Add 2 Instance: Master and Worker(Agent).

Now rename the instances as jenkins-master & jenkins-worker.

Note: The jenkins-worker is simply an agent.
Now open each instance in separate tabs and click on Connect.

Open your terminal. I'm using Mobaxterm (Windows).
Navigate to the folder where you saved the .pem key created during instance setup.
Set permissions for the .pem key as shown in point number 3 in the screenshot below.
Now run the ssh command for the master and worker in two separate tabs.

Java should be installed on both instances.

Note: Refer to this documentation ( Jenkis Installation ) for the installation of Jenkins.
```
  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install fontconfig openjdk-17-jre
```
Now, we need to install Jenkins only on the Master instance.

WHY install Jenkins on Master Instance only?

- We install Jenkins on the master so it can manage and assign tasks, while agents focus only on running those tasks efficiently.

sudo wget -O /usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc \
  https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable/jenkins.io-2023.key
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc]" \
  https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian-stable binary/ | sudo tee \
  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jenkins

Now install Docker and Docker Compose on both the instances:

sudo apt-get install docker.io docker-compose-v2

Now, give the jenkins user permission to join the docker group on the Master Instance.

sudo usermod -aG docker jenkins

Now, give the current $USER permission to join the docker group on the Worker Instance.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Now run sudo newgrp docker on both instances to refresh the groups.
Now connect to the jenkins-master. Copy the IP address and add port 8080 in the browser.

Note: 8080 is the port number for Jenkins.

Before connecting, you need to add an Inbound entry for port range 8080 with the source set to My IP in the jenkins-master instance.

Now run the command below, so that if our instance reboots, Jenkins will start automatically.

sudo systemctl enable jenkins

Open your browser, and the window below will appear. You need to unlock Jenkins.
Run cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword on the jenkins-master to get the password.

Always remember, we only need to setup the master once and then send work to the worker.
Agent concepts are based on SSH. If we want to connect from server_a to server_b, we use SSH concepts.
Create admin user:

Once the setup is complete, click on "Set up an agent"

Create a new node worker (Agent).

What is the "Number of executors"?
- If you want to perform multitasking or run multiple builds, you can add n number of executors. Here, we are assigning 1 executor.
What is the "Remote Working Directory"?
- This is the directory where you want to store all the Jenkins jobs on the Worker Instance.
What is a "Label"?
- When we write agent any in a pipeline, it will run tasks on any available agent.
- But if you want to run tasks on a specific node, you need a specific label name.
What is “Usage“?
- Used for multi-branch pipelines like prod, dev, and stage. It only builds jobs with label expressions that match.

Worker(Agent) IP:

Credential details:

What is the "Host Key Verification Strategy"?
- If your hosts are unknown to each other, use the "Non-verifying Verification Strategy." It will verify using SSH.

Now save. Your dev-server is in sync.

Now, if you go to the Jenkins worker (agent instance), you will see some folders and files. These has been created using Jenkins.

Now we can assigns tasks to our jenkins-worker.

Go to Jenkins Dashboard and click on “Create a job".

Now add the GitHub project. (I have added the node todo CICD project.)
- You can also refer to this project: https://github.com/Chetan-Mohod/node-todo-cicd

Now add below groovy code into pipeline block:

pipeline {
    agent { label 'dev-server' }
    stages {
        stage("Code Clone") {
            steps {
                git url: "https://github.com/Chetan-Mohod/node-todo-cicd.git", branch: "master"
            }
        }
        stage("Code Build & Test") {
            steps {
                sh "docker build -t node-app ."
            }
        }
        stage("Deploy") {
            steps {
                sh "docker-compose down && docker-compose up -d --build"
            }
        }
    }
}

After saving above code, go to Dashboard and run the Node.

Now you can see Built-In-Node assigning its task to dev-server. It has been deployed, as shown in the image below.

Now to check you’re application is running on jenkins-worker.
- Go to AWS → Instances → select jenkis-worker → Security → Edit Inbound Rules → Add Port 8000 , Anywhere-IPv4 → Save

Now copy the public IP from jenkins-worker and paste it into the browser with port 8000 to run the application.
- http://jenkins_worker_public_ip:8000

Congratulations! Application is running successfully.

Deploy in 30 Minutes: Zero-Touch Setup with Jenkins, Docker, and Agent Configuration

Thanks for reading the blog! Happy Learning! :)

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Chetan Mohanrao Mohod

Chetan Mohanrao Mohod