There are also installers available for the principal operating systems available on the Jenkins website^12.
Or, if you are an experienced Java user versed in the ways of WAR files, you may prefer to simply
download the latest version of Jenkins and run it from the command line. Jenkins comes in the form of
an executable WAR file—you can download the most recent version from the Jenkins website home
page^13. For convenience, there is also a link to the latest version of Jenkins in the Resources section
of this book’s website^14.
Once downloaded, you can start Jenkins from the command line as shown here:
$ java -jar jenkins.warWhether you have started Jenkins using Java Web Start or from the command line, Jenkins should now
be running on your local machine. By default, Jenkins will be running on port 8080, so you can access
Jenkins in your web browser on http://localhost:8080.
Alternatively, if you are familiar with Java application servers such as Tomcat, you can simply deploy
the Jenkins WAR file to your application server—with Tomcat, for example, you could simply place the
jenkins.war file in Tomcat’s webapps directory. If you are running Jenkins on an application server,
the URL that you use to access Jenkins will be slightly different. On a default Tomcat installation, for
example, you can access Jenkins in your web browser on http://localhost:8080/jenkins.
When you open Jenkins in your browser, you should see a screen like the one shown in Figure 2.7, “The
Jenkins start page”. You are now ready to take your first steps with Jenkins!
Figure 2.7. The Jenkins start page
(^12) http://jenkins-ci.org
(^13) http://http://jenkins-ci.org
(^14) http://www.wakaleo.com/books/jenkins-the-definitive-guide