Building Generic Jenkins Webhooks Simplified 101

Continuous Integration is a DevOps Software Development practice in which the developers merge their code changes into a central repository on a regular basis, after which Automated Builds and Tests are run. Jenkins is an Open-Source Continuous Integration (CI) tool that is extensively used by developers to automate the testing and deployment of their applications. A Webhook is a mechanism to automatically trigger the build of a Jenkins project in response to a commit pushed to a Git repository.

In this article, you will gain information about Jenkins Webhook Integration. You will also gain a holistic understanding of Jenkins, Webhooks, and the steps involved in setting up Jenkins Webhook Integration using Bitbucket. Read along to find out in-depth information about Jenkins Webhook Integration.

Introduction to Webhooks

A Webhook, also known as a web callback or HTTP push API, is a method for an application to deliver real-time information to other applications. It is sometimes referred to as “Reverse APIs,” although in reality, it allows users to skip a step involved in the API concept. Most APIs involve a request followed by a response. Whereas, no request is required for a webhook; it just delivers data to the applications when it is available. Webhooks become considerably more efficient as a result, for both provider and consumer.

Pre-requisites

• Basic knowledge of Webhooks.
• An active Git repository. It can either be GitLab, GitHub, or Bitbucket.
• Understanding of basic CI/CD pipelines.
• Readily available Jenkins Server.

Setting Up Jenkins Webhooks Integration

The steps followed to set up Jenkins Webhooks Integration are as follows:

• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Configure the Plugins in Jenkins
• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Authenticate Jenkins
• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Create a Jenkins Job
• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Configure Bitbucket Webhook
• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Set up the Authentication
• Jenkins Webhooks Integration: Test the Flow

Step 1: Configure the Plugins in Jenkins

Jenkins has more than 320 plugins in its plugin database. Installing the right plugin can ease the process of CI/CD. The following plugins are to be installed from the plugin database.

• Generic Webhook Trigger Plugin
• Pipeline Plugin

Step 2: Authenticate Jenkins

• Create users in Jenkins to Authenticate the Pipeline and Triggers.

Step 3: Create a Jenkins Job

• On the Jenkins home page, create a new Job by clicking “a new item“, selecting pipeline, and providing a name for the pipeline.

• In the “build trigger” section, select the “Generic Webhook Trigger” option.

• Copy the URL syntax and update the Jenkins URL and Token in the following format:

https://<your jenkins server url>/generic-webhook-trigger/invoke?token=<your token>

Step 4: Configure Bitbucket Webhook

In this section, the above-created token needs to be added to the BitBucket to enable Jenkins Webhook. And the steps are as follows:

• Log in to your BitBucket account.
• Open the Bitbucket repository for which you want to set up the Trigger.
• Open the Repository setting and Click on “Add Webhook“.

• In the Webhooks window, provide the Name to the Webhook and paste the URL generated in the format same as in step 3.

• Select the required Triggers and click on the “Save” button.

Step 5: Set up the Authentication

Now that the Webhook is set up in Bitbucket, you can set up the Authentication between Jenkins and Bitbucket.

• To create a token in Jenkins, navigate to the “Token Credential” area from the Generic Webhook you created for that Job.
• Click on the “Add” option, and select the location to store the credential.
• Add the token to both Secret and ID and click “OK” to add credential.
• Now, go back to Bitbucket and test the Webhook. A 200 response is what expected to be displayed on the screen.

Step 6: Test the Flow

• Once the above steps are completed, push the code to BitBucket.
• As soon as the code is pushed to Bitbucket, the Bitbucket will execute the URL to Jenkins and launch the Jenkins job.
• Verify the Job created on Jenkins server; if there are no errors, you can see the Build created on Jenkins.

Conclusion

In this article, you have learned about Jenkins Webhook Integration from Bitbucket. This article also provided information on Jenkins, Webhooks, and steps involved in implementing Jenkins Webhook Integration.

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