Running Cloud-Native Jenkins on Kubernetes

Why Run Jenkins on Kubernetes?

Running Jenkins natively on Kubernetes eliminates idle static build VMs. The Jenkins controller runs as a stateful workload backed by a PersistentVolumeClaim, while every pipeline execution dynamically provisions ephemeral Kubernetes agent pods that terminate immediately after the build completes.

Step-by-Step Deployment

1. Create Dedicated Namespace, ServiceAccount & RBAC

apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: devops-tools
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: jenkins-admin
  namespace: devops-tools
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: jenkins-admin-binding
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: jenkins-admin
    namespace: devops-tools

2. Deploy the Jenkins Controller with Persistent Storage

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: jenkins
  namespace: devops-tools
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: jenkins-server
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: jenkins-server
    spec:
      securityContext:
        fsGroup: 1000
        runAsUser: 1000
      serviceAccountName: jenkins-admin
      containers:
        - name: jenkins
          image: jenkins/jenkins:lts
          ports:
            - name: httpport
              containerPort: 8080
            - name: jnlpport
              containerPort: 50000
          volumeMounts:
            - name: jenkins-data
              mountPath: /var/jenkins_home
      volumes:
        - name: jenkins-data
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            claimName: jenkins-pv-claim

Configure the Kubernetes plugin inside Jenkins pointing to https://kubernetes.default.svc.cluster.local to spawn dynamic Maven and Python build pods on demand.