Getting Started with Blue Ocean
Table of Contents
This section will show how to start using Blue Ocean. It will include instructions for installing and configuring the Blue Ocean plugin, and how to get switch into and out of the Blue Ocean UI.
Installing
Blue Ocean can be installed in an existing Jenkins environment or be run with Docker.
In an Existing Jenkins Environment
To start using the Blue Ocean plugin in an existing Jenkins environment, it must be running Jenkins 2.7.x or later.:
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Login to your Jenkins server
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Click Manage Jenkins in the sidebar then Manage Plugins
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Choose the Available tab and use the search bar to find Blue Ocean
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Click the checkbox in the Install column
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Click either Install without restart or Download now and install after restart
For in-depth description on how to install and manage plugins, refer to the Managing Plugins section.
The majority of Blue Ocean requires no additional configuration after installation. Existing Pipelines and Jobs will continue to work as usual. However, the first time a Pipeline is created or added, Blue Ocean will ask for permissions to access your repositories (either Git or GitHub) in order to create pipelines based on those repositories.
With Docker
Read more about this in the Docker section of the Installing Jenkins page.
Starting Blue Ocean
Once a Jenkins environment has Blue Ocean installed, users can start using Blue
Ocean by clicking the Open Blue Ocean in the navigation bar of the
Jenkins web UI. Alternatively, users can navigate directly to Blue Ocean at the
/blue URL for their Jenkins environment, for example
http://JENKINS_URL/blue.
If Pipelines are already present on the current Jenkins instance, this will bring up the Blue Ocean Dashboard.
If this is a new Jenkins instance, Blue Ocean will display a box offering to "Create a new pipeline."
Navigation bar
Blue Ocean uses a common Navigation bar at the top of most Blue Ocean views. It includes five buttons:
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Jenkins - Navigate to the Dashboard (reload if already viewing it)
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Pipelines - Navigate to the Dashboard (do nothing if already viewing it)
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Administration - Manage this Jenkins instance (using the Classic UI)
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Switch to "Classic" UI - Switch to the "Classic" Jenkins UI
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Logout - Logout the current user, return to the Jenkins login page
Views that use the standard navigation bar will add another bar below it with options specific to that view. Some views replace the common navigation bar with one specifically suited to that view.
Switching to the "Classic" UI
Blue Ocean may not support some legacy or administrative functions which are necessary to some users. For those wishing to exit the Blue Ocean user experience, an "exit" icon is located at the top of most pages in Blue Ocean. Clicking the exit icon will navigate to the most relevant page in "classic" which parallels the current page in Blue Ocean.
Some links in Blue Ocean, like Administration, will also navigate to the classic web UI when there is no Blue Ocean equivalent. In these cases, Blue Ocean will automatically take the user into the classic web UI as necessary.
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