Are you a Mac user? Do you like Mac applications because they are easy to install, uninstall, start and stop?

Are you a Mac user who likes Jenkins? Do you find Jenkins a bit hard to install, uninstall, start and stop? Then Jenkins.app is for you.

(What is Jenkins? Jenkins is software for continuous integration. You can learn more about it at http://jenkins-ci.org)

Installation

1. Download Jenkins.zip from https://github.com/stisti/jenkins-app/downloads.
2. Double-click Jenkins.zip to unpack Jenkins.app.
3. (Optional) Move Jenkins.app wherever you want.
4. You're done!

Starting Jenkins

1. Double-click on Jenkins.app
2. If this is the first time you have run Jenkins.app, it will download the actual Jenkins server software.
3. When the Jenkins server is ready to run, a dialog will be shown, asking if you want to customize the command-line used to start the Jenkins server. The command-line is explained at https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Starting+and+Accessing+Jenkins. You can also leave the command-line empty to go with the defaults.
4. Click on OK to start the Jenkins server.
5. Your web browser will automatically open the Jenkins UI if you did not change the http port. If you changed the http port, you need to open localhost:<http port you gave to Jenkins> yourself.

Stopping Jenkins

Quit Jenkins.app.

Upgrading Jenkins

Jenkins project usually releases a new version every week. You can upgrade Jenkins normally in the Manage Jenkins page. Just tell Jenkins to restart itself. You do not have to stop and restart Jenkins.app.

Uninstalling Jenkins

Drag Jenkins.app to the Trash.

If you used Jenkins for building software, running tests and such, there are some files in ~/.jenkins that you may want to move to Trash too.

How do I make Jenkins.app start automatically?

Jenkins.app is a Mac application, and you can make any app start automatically when you log in by making it a login item. You do this by right-clicking on the app's Dock icon when it is running and choose to open it upon login.

If you need Jenkins.app to start automatically on boot, you need to configure one user account to automatically log in on boot. You probably also want to set up screensaver with a short idle period to prevent anyone unauthorized from using the Mac.

Why would I want to use Jenkins.app?

The official Jenkins installer for Mac sets up Jenkins as a launch daemon running under a dedicated user account. This has the advantage that it starts up automatically when the Mac boots up. It also has the disadvantage of not being able to access things in a user context, like Keychain for code signing or the Windowserver for drawing windows.

Jenkins.app runs Jenkins in your user session, so Jenkins and the processes started by Jenkins have full access to e.g. Keychain or Windowserver.

Jenkins.app is an alternative way to run Jenkins on the Mac. Or you can use the official installer. You can choose the best for your situation.