Creating first admin user in Jenkins - Try It Yourself

Creating first admin user

📖 Scenario: You have just installed Jenkins, a popular automation server. To start using Jenkins securely, you need to create the first admin user. This user will have full control over Jenkins and can manage other users and settings.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create the first admin user in Jenkins by editing the configuration file and verifying the user creation.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create the initial Jenkins security configuration file with no users

Add a configuration entry for the first admin user with username and password

Apply the configuration to Jenkins by restarting or reloading

Verify the admin user creation by checking the Jenkins users directory

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Creating the first admin user is a critical step after installing Jenkins to secure the server and manage access.

💼 Career

Understanding Jenkins user management is essential for DevOps engineers and system administrators to maintain secure CI/CD pipelines.

1

Create initial Jenkins security configuration file

Create a file named config.xml with the root element hudson.security.HudsonPrivateSecurityRealm_-Details and no users inside it.

Jenkins

  


# Your code here

Need a hint?

This XML file defines Jenkins security realm details. Start with an empty root element.

2

Add first admin user configuration

Inside the config.xml, add a user element with id set to admin and a passwordHash element with the value {SHA}5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8 (which is the SHA-1 hash for password 'password').

Jenkins

  
  # Your code here

Need a hint?

The passwordHash uses SHA-1 hash format. Use the exact hash string given.

3

Apply configuration by restarting Jenkins

Write the shell command sudo systemctl restart jenkins to restart Jenkins and apply the new user configuration.

Jenkins

  
    admin
    {SHA}5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8
  


# Write the command to restart Jenkins below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use systemctl restart jenkins with sudo to restart the Jenkins service.

4

Verify admin user creation

Write the shell command ls /var/lib/jenkins/users/admin to check if the admin user directory exists.

Jenkins

  
    admin
    {SHA}5baa61e4c9b93f3f0682250b6cf8331b7ee68fd8
  

sudo systemctl restart jenkins

# Write the command to verify admin user directory below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

If the directory exists, the command will list the 'admin' folder, confirming the user creation.