Deploy and Host Jenkins on Railway

Jenkins is an open-source automation server for continuous integration and delivery. You define jobs or pipelines (as a Jenkinsfile or in the web UI) that check out code, build it, run tests, and deploy it. Hundreds of plugins connect it to Git hosts, build tools, chat, and cloud services.

About Hosting Jenkins

This template runs the official jenkins/jenkins LTS image (2.580.2, JDK 21), pinned by digest, as one service with a volume at /var/jenkins_home for jobs, build history, plugins, and credentials. On the first start it installs the plugins the setup wizard suggests, plus Configuration as Code, so the wizard is skipped. The admin account comes from a generated password, sign-up is off, and anonymous users see nothing. Jenkins runs as the jenkins user, not root. Builds run on the built-in node with two executors. Railway handles HTTPS on the public domain.

Common Use Cases

Build and test every push and pull request from GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket with a Jenkinsfile
Run scheduled jobs: nightly builds, backups, reports, or scripts on a cron
Deploy apps from a pipeline by calling CLIs or APIs (Railway, cloud providers, SSH to servers)

Dependencies for Jenkins Hosting

A Railway volume for JENKINS_HOME at /var/jenkins_home (included)
Internet access on the first start to download the plugins from the Jenkins update center

Deployment Dependencies

Implementation Details

Log in: open your Railway domain and sign in as admin with the password in the service's Variables tab (JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWORD). The first start takes about a minute while the plugins download.

What the start command does on every start: it applies JENKINS_ADMIN_USER (default admin) and JENKINS_ADMIN_PASSWORD to Jenkins' own user database, keeps sign-up off, and sets the Jenkins URL to your Railway domain. To change the admin password, change the variable and redeploy. A password changed in the UI is reset at the next start. Other users you create in the UI are kept. The rule "logged-in users can do anything" is only set while no access control exists, so a change you make later (for example to matrix-based security) is kept. If Jenkins ever starts without a login configured, it stops instead of running open.

What kinds of jobs work: builds run inside the Jenkins container on the built-in node, as the jenkins user, with JDK 21, Git, and a POSIX shell. That covers shell steps, Git checkouts, Java builds with the Gradle or Maven wrapper (./gradlew, ./mvnw), and tools Jenkins can download for you under Manage Jenkins → Tools (Maven, Gradle, Ant). Railway has no Docker daemon, so docker build, agent { docker … }, and Docker-in-Docker don't work, and there is no root for apt-get. For those, connect your own agent machine as an inbound agent in WebSocket mode, which works over the public HTTPS domain (the TCP agent port 50000 isn't exposed).

Plugins: update them from Manage Jenkins → Plugins as usual. They live on the volume, so updates survive redeploys.

Why Deploy Jenkins on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.

By deploying Jenkins on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.