3.9. Running Jenkins Behind an Apache Server

If you are running Jenkins in a Unix environment, you may want to hide it behind an Apache HTTP server in order to harmonize the server URLs and simplify maintenance and access. This way, users can access the Jenkins server using a URL like http://myserver.myorg.com/jenkins rather than http://myserver.myorg.com:8081.

One way to do this is to use the Apache mod_proxy and mod_proxy_ajp modules. These modules let you use implement proxying on your Apache server using the AJP13 (Apache JServer Protocol version 1.3). Using this module, Apache will transfer requests to particular URL patterns on your Apache server (running on port 80) directly to the Jenkins server running on a different port. So when a user opens a URL like http://www.myorg.com/jenkins, Apache will transparently forward traffic to your Jenkins server running on http://buildserver.myorg.com:8081/jenkins.Technically, this is known as “Reverse Proxying,” as the client has no knowledge that the server is doing any proxying, or where the proxied server is located. So you can safely tuck your Jenkins server away behind a firewall, while still providing broader access to your Jenkins instance via the public-facing URL.