2.3. Starting Up Jenkins
There are several ways to run Jenkins on your machine. One of the easiest ways to run Jenkins for the
first time is to use Java Web Start. Java Web Start is a technology that lets you start up a Java application
on your local machine via a URL on a web page—it comes bundled with the Java JRE. In our case,
this will start a Jenkins server running on your machine, and let you experiment with it as if it were
installed locally. All you need for this to work is a recent (Java 6 or later) version of the Java Runtime
Environment (JRE), which we installed in the previous section.
For convenience, there is a link to the Jenkins Java Web Start instance on the book resources page^10.
Here you will find a large orange Launch button in the Book Resources section (see Figure 2.4, “Running
Jenkins using Java Web Start from the book’s website”). You can also find this link on the Meet Jenkins
page on the Jenkins website^11 , where, if you scroll down far enough, you should find a Test Drive section
with an identical Launch button.
Figure 2.4. Running Jenkins using Java Web Start from the book’s website
(^10) http://www.wakaleo.com/books/jenkins-the-definitive-guide
(^11) http://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Meet+Jenkins