Recently, I set up Jenkins on my machine and it was not a trivial task. Therefore, this post will serve me as a memo for later.

1. Get jenkins.war and put it somewhere. In my case, /opt/bin
2. Create a dedicated user who will run Jenkins
   • Find out free UniqueID and PrimaryGroupID using
     

     dscl . -list /Users UniqueID
     dscl . -list /Groups PrimaryGroupID

     In my case 503 was free.
   • Create the group and user “jenkins”
     

     dscl . -create /Groups/jenkins
     dscl . -create /Groups/jenkins PrimaryGroupID 503
     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins
     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins UserShell /usr/bin/false
     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins RealName "Jenkins"
     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins UniqueID 503
     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins PrimaryGroupID 503

   • Set the home of the jenkins user
     

     dscl . -create /Users/jenkins NFSHomeDirectory /opt/var/jenkins

3. Copy the following runner script to somewhere. I put it in /opt/bin/jenkins-runner.sh. This script is from the Mac installer of Jenkins.

   #!/bin/bash
   #
   # Startup script used by Jenkins launchd job.
   # Mac OS X launchd process calls this script to customize
   # the java process command line used to run Jenkins.
   # 
   # Customizable parameters are found in
   # /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci.plist
   #
   # You can manipulate it using the "defaults" utility.
   # See "man defaults" for details.
   
   defaults="defaults read /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci"
   
   war=`$defaults war` || war="/Applications/Jenkins/jenkins.war"
   
   javaArgs=""
   heapSize=`$defaults heapSize` && javaArgs="$javaArgs -Xmx${heapSize}"
   
   home=`$defaults JENKINS_HOME` && export JENKINS_HOME="$home"
   
   add_to_args() {
       val=`$defaults $1` && args="$args --${1}=${val}"
   }
   
   args=""
   add_to_args prefix
   add_to_args httpPort
   add_to_args httpListenAddress
   add_to_args httpsPort
   add_to_args httpsListenAddress
   add_to_args ajp13Port
   add_to_args ajp13ListenAddress
   
   echo "JENKINS_HOME=$JENKINS_HOME"
   echo "Jenkins command line for execution:"
   echo /usr/bin/java $javaArgs -jar "$war" $args
   exec /usr/bin/java $javaArgs -jar "$war" $args

4. Create a property list for Jenkins

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci war /opt/bin/jenkins.war
   defaults write /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci JENKINS_HOME /opt/var/jenkins
   defaults write /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci heapSize 512m
   defaults write /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci httpPort 8447

5. Create a launch daemon for Jenkins and save it as /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist. You must change the owner of this file to root. The following is also from the Mac installer of Jenkins.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
   <plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
   	<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
   	<dict>
   		<key>JENKINS_HOME</key>
   		<string>/opt/var/jenkins</string>
   	</dict>
   	<key>GroupName</key>
   	<string>jenkins</string>
   	<key>KeepAlive</key>
   	<true/>
   	<key>Label</key>
   	<string>org.jenkins-ci</string>
   	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
   	<array>
   		<string>/bin/bash</string>
   		<string>/opt/bin/jenkins-runner.sh</string>
   	</array>
   	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
   	<true/>
   	<key>UserName</key>
   	<string>jenkins</string>
   </dict>
   </plist>

6. Start Jenkins using

   launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist

   and go to http://localhost:8447
7. If something does not work, stop Jenkins using

   launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist

   and … here the magic happens … and start it again. :)