How to configure Jenkins to run on port 80

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 and have run sudo apt-get install jenkins to install Jenkins on this system.

I've seen some tutorials on how to setup a reverse proxy (Apache, Nginx, etc), however this is a VM dedicated for just jenkins and I'd like keep it as lean as possible while having jenkins running on port 80.

I've found the upstart config in /etc/init/jenkins.conf and modified the port to 80 env HTTP_PORT=80

When I start jenkins via service jenkins start, ps reveals that it runs for a few seconds then terminates.

Is this because jenkins is running as the jenkins user on a privileged port? If so, how do I fix this? Any other ideas a welcome.

Here is the upstart config:

description "jenkins: Jenkins Continuous Integration Server"
author "James Page <[email protected]>"

start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE!=lo)
stop on runlevel [!2345]

env USER="jenkins"
env GROUP="jenkins"
env JENKINS_LOG="/var/log/jenkins"
env JENKINS_ROOT="/usr/share/jenkins"
env JENKINS_HOME="/var/lib/jenkins"
env JENKINS_RUN="/var/run/jenkins"
env HTTP_PORT=80
env AJP_PORT=-1
env JAVA_OPTS=""
env JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java"

limit nofile 8192 8192

pre-start script
    test -f $JENKINS_ROOT/jenkins.war || { stop ; exit 0; }
    $JENKINS_ROOT/bin/maintain-plugins.sh 	
    mkdir $JENKINS_RUN > /dev/null 2>&1  || true
    chown -R $USER:$GROUP $JENKINS_RUN || true
end script

script
    JENKINS_ARGS="--webroot=$JENKINS_RUN/war --httpPort=$HTTP_PORT --ajp13Port=$AJP_PORT"
    exec daemon --name=jenkins --inherit --output=$JENKINS_LOG/jenkins.log --user=$USER \
        -- $JAVA_HOME/bin/java $JAVA_OPTS -jar $JENKINS_ROOT/jenkins.war $JENKINS_ARGS \
        --preferredClassLoader=java.net.URLClassLoader
end script

Another solution is to simply use iptables to reroute incoming traffic from 80 to 8080. The rules would look like:

-A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT
-A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

Reformatted as an iptables.rules file:

*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [100:100000]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [95:9000]
-A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

*nat
-A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080
COMMIT

The advantage of a iptable.rules file is the rules can persist after reboots. Just make sure to integrate any other current iptable rules into the same file!

On Redhat/CentOS this file can go in /etc/sysconfig/iptables.

On Debian/Ubuntu systems they can be saved in /etc/iptables/rules.v4 by using the iptables-persistent package. Or the iptable.rules can be called by modifying /etc/network/interfaces or hooking into if-up/if-down scripts. The https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo">Ubuntu Community wiki has a great page explaining these methods.

As is usually the case with networking, there's a lot of different ways to accomplish the same result. Use what works best for you!

1. Go to /etc/default folder --> Open the file "jenkins"
2. Modify the line HTTP_PORT=8080 as HTTP_PORT=80
3. Start jenkins as root by using the command: sudo /etc/init.d/jenkins start
4. Open a browser and browse as localhost:80

that's it

Give a try to 'authbind':

sudo apt-get install authbind
sudo touch /etc/authbind/byport/80
sudo chmod 500 /etc/authbind/byport/80 
sudo chown jenkins /etc/authbind/byport/80

Then modify the script above to have (add authbind before the $JAVA_HOME/bin/java part):

exec daemon --name=jenkins --inherit --output=$JENKINS_LOG/jenkins.log \
--user=$USER -- authbind $JAVA_HOME/bin/java $JAVA_OPTS \
-jar $JENKINS_ROOT/jenkins.war $JENKINS_ARGS \
--preferredClassLoader=java.net.URLClassLoader

For newer Jenkins installations (1.598) on newer Ubuntu installations (14.04) edit /etc/init.d/jenkins and add authbind before $JAVA

$SU -l $JENKINS_USER --shell=/bin/bash -c "$DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS -- authbind $JAVA $JAVA_ARGS -jar $JENKINS_WAR $JENKINS_ARGS" || return 2

As mentioned by Alan (see comment below) if you need IPv6 and your system is lower than Quantal you can instead of using apt-get to install authbind download a higher version. Make sure you have libc6 and libc6-udeb installed. Here is authbind version 2.1.1 from Ubuntu:

• amd64
• i386

Then execute:

sudo dpkg -i authbind_2.1.1_amd64.deb
# or sudo dpkg -i authbind_2.1.1_i386.deb

sudo touch /etc/authbind/byport/80
sudo chmod 500 /etc/authbind/byport/80 
sudo chown jenkins /etc/authbind/byport/80

I'd suggest using apache and mod_proxy. This is what I do, and my vhost config looks kinda like this (I also redirect for SSL but you can omit that):

<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName ci.example.com

ProxyRequests Off
<Proxy *>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
</Proxy>
ProxyPreservehost on
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/

Header edit Location ^http://ci.example.com/ https://ci.example.com/

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/keys/apache.pem
</VirtualHost>

You can achieve this using the following methods.

1. An IP table forwarding rule.
2. Using a reverse proxy like Nginx.
3. Running Jenkins behind a load balancer.

Method 1: Running Jenkins On 80 Using IP Table Forwarding Rule

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

Now, you should save these rules so that it will persist even after an IPtable or a system restart.

For Redhat based systems, run the following.

sudo iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables

For Debian based systems, execute the following command.

sudo sh -c "iptables-save > /etc/iptables.rules"

Now if you access Jenkins on port 80, IP table will automatically forward the requests to 8080.

Method 2: Running Jenkins Behind Nginx Reverse Proxy

Step1: Install Nginx

sudo yum install nginx

Step 2: Open the Nginx configuration file.

sudo vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Step 3: Find the following snippet in the nginx.conf file.

location / {
}

Step 4: Add the following lines between the curly braces.

proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

Step 5: Execute the SELinux command for the Nginx reverse proxy.

sudo setsebool httpd_can_network_connect 1 -P

Step 6: Restart the Nginx server.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Now if you will be able to access Jenkins on port 80.

Method 3: Jenkins Behind A Load Balancer

Adding a load balancer will add extra cost to the Jenkins setup. If you are on a cloud, you can opt for a cloud-specific load balancer which will send all its port 80 traffic to backend Jenkins 8080 port.

Since I used docker. You can use it to run jenkins on port 80, hereafter a snippet of my script:

JENKINS_PORT=80
JENKINS_HOME=/home/jenkins
/usr/bin/docker run -d -p $JENKINS_PORT:8080 -v $JENKINS_HOME jenkins

I had the same problem and I found the best solution to it using iptables.

By default Jenkins runs on ports 8080 or 8443. And HTTP/HTTPS servers run on ports 80 and 443.

But this is these are the special ports and the process using them must be owned by root.

But running Jenkins as root is not the best solution(it should be run as its own user) and so does to run Jenkins with a web server such as Apache, and let it proxy requests to Jenkins

The best solution is to use iptables on Linux to forward traffic.

1. Use this command to list the current iptables configuration:

$ iptables -L -n

target     prot opt source               destination
ACCEPT     tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:8443
ACCEPT     tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:8080
ACCEPT     tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:443
ACCEPT     tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0            tcp dpt:80

2) If you don't see above entries, then you need to run below commands:

sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 8443 -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

3) Now re-run the $ iptables -L -n command and verify that you are seeing 1st step o/p.

4. The final step is to run the below commands to forward port 80 traffic to 8080, and port 443 traffic to 8443(if you are using HTTPS).

   sudo iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

   sudo iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8443

5. Now your URL should stay on port 80

You can find the more details here.

Run these lines of code individually:

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
sudo iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p tcp -d 127.0.0.1 --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

If your system is Debian-based, run:

sudo sh -c "iptables-save > /etc/iptables.rules"

If your system is RedHat-based:

sudo iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables

This process will change your default Jenkins port from 8080 to 80.

the firewalld way to forward port 8080 to 80:

yum install firewalld
systemctl start firewalld
chkconfig firewalld on
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=external --change-interface=eth0
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=external --add-forward-port=port=80:proto=tcp:toport=8080

None of the answers tells how to simply redirect 80 to 8080 with iptables.
Fortunately, dskrvk's comment does !

There's also a Jenkins wiki documenting this

I just had to copy/paste those lines in my terminal to get the redirect working :

sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 8443 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 8080 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080
sudo iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8443

Btw, don't forget to include it to your server's init scripts once tested, or you'll lose the redirect after a reboot. Tested on Debian 8.2 (Jessie)

In Ubuntu 16.04, this wiki explains how to do it.

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Then add the following just before the exit 0

#Requests from outside
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
#Requests from localhost
iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p tcp -d 127.0.0.1 --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

Now reboot or run sudo /etc/rc.local to enable port forwarding

changing /etc/default/jenkins doesn't work on my setup ubunutu 16.-4 Jenkins 2.89.4 and the solution to use iptable routes 80 to 8080 whis the opposite of the required result of running jenkins on 80

Building on other answers in this question: You could use an Nginx side-car container if you're on ECS like I was. A super simple nginx config to the tune of something like

user  nginx;
worker_processes  1;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {

    server {
        listen 80;
        location / {
            proxy_pass http://localhost:8080;
            proxy_redirect off;
            proxy_set_header Host $host;
            proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
            proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        }
    }
}

should be enough to forward all incoming trafic from port 80->8080. You can then bind this container to port 80, and voila - Jenkins now "resides" on port 80.