gitops-template

Use this repository as a template to get started with ArgoCD & Glasskube in minutes instead of hours.

Getting Started

At this very early stage, for simplicity your GitHub repository must be public during the bootstrap step. Afterward you can change the visibility of your repository and configure your preferred authentication method in ArgoCD. Additionally, one simple manual change from you will be necessary, as described below. These shortcomings will be resolved in a future version.

Prerequisites

Access to an empty Kubernetes cluster

The easiest would be creating a new Minikube cluster with:

minikube start -p gitops

Glasskube should not yet be bootstrapped in that cluster

Install the Glasskube CLI

Make sure to have at least Glasskube version 0.16.0 installed locally. If you don't, you can simply run:

brew install glasskube/tap/glasskube

Installation

1. Use this repository as your GitOps template

Create a public GitHub repository based on this starter template. You can move it and/or make it private afterward.

2. Replace the placeholder repoURL in your GitOps repository

Replace the default value of repoURL to your repository url.

• Line 12 in: bootstrap/glasskube-application.yaml
• Lines 11, 16 and 26 in: bootstrap/glasskube/applicationset.yaml

3. Bootstrap ArgoCD and Glasskube for your Kubernetes cluster

Make sure you are connected to the right cluster and execute:

glasskube bootstrap git --url <your-repo>

Result

As a result, your cluster will be powered with GitOps capabilities by ArgoCD, as well as package management features by Glasskube. Argo manages itself, the Glasskube installation, as well as Glasskube packages – all of which you can now manage GitOps-style with this repo.

Run glasskube serve to open the Glasskube UI and either open the ArgoCD UI there, or with the command glasskube open argo-cd – but of course you can also use the Argo CLI. Follow the ArgoCD docs to get and reset the password to log in.

Note that it might take a couple of minutes for ArgoCD to start up, and for the initial GitOps sync to happen.

In this template, for demonstration purposes we also install the cloudnative-pg and kube-prometheus-stack clusterpackage as well as a bookmarking application (shiori), which is making use of cloudnative-pg.

Optional: Temporary: Making your repo private

When the installation has succeeded you are free to make your source repository private. However, make sure to configure the repository correctly in ArgoCD via UI or CLI, such that Argo can still access this repo.

Managing your cluster

Both CLI and UI offer features to manage your cluster according to GitOps best practices: CLI commands include --dry-run and -o yaml flags. The UI, when installed with the above glasskube bootstrap git command, will also output the yaml objects which you can copy to use in your git repo, instead of applying your changes directly.

Installing packages

To install a ClusterPackage, e.g. cert-manager, use the install command like this:

glasskube install cert-manager --dry-run -o yaml --yes > cert-manager.yaml

Instead of directly installing the ClusterPackage, this command writes the ClusterPackage custom resource to the cert-manager.yaml file, which can now be put into a new directory packages/cert-manager/ in the git repository. Once pushed to the repo, ArgoCD will pick up the changes after at most 5 minutes, create the ArgoCD Application wrapping the Glasskube ClusterPackage. After that, the Glasskube operator will pick up the ClusterPackage and finally install it in the cluster.

Similarly, when using the Glasskube UI, one can generate the ClusterPackage resource by using the "Show YAML" button on the page of the ClusterPackage.

Updating packages

There are two options handling package version updates:

• Using the glasskube update --dry-run -o yaml command, or the corresponding button on the Glasskube UI.
• Integrating renovate into the cluster.

The first option follows the same approach as the previously shown package installation, and will be omitted here. The downside of doing it that way, is that someone has to manually execute the command, even though checking for updates and preparing the updates to the git repository as an automatable task. Renovate is a tool allowing for exactly that kind of task, as explained in the following.

Proof of Concept: Integrating with Renovate

Renovate Glasskube Support is still work in progress (see renovatebot/renovate#29322), but we will show a proof of concept with the already available datasource/versioning part.

Therefore, install the Renovate GitHub App and enable it for your GitOps repo.

The renovate configuration of this starter repo (renovate.json) contains a regexManager, looking for all appearances of

packageInfo:
  name: <depName>
  version: <currentValue>

in all the repo's yaml files. depName and currentValue will be used by renovate to extract the current version of this (Cluster-)Package.

The regex-based approach has some limitations (see below) which will be resolved with the custom Glasskube Renovate manager. However, we can show that on a general level, Glasskube packages can be updated successfully with this: As soon as one of the installed Glasskube packages uses an outdated version, renovate will open a Pull Request to update to the latest version, which you only need to approve and merge.

One issue with this regex-based approach is, that name and version have to appear in that order, even though schematically it would also be correct the other way around.

Another limitation of the current renovate integration is, that it works only with packages of the public Glasskube package repo.

Last but not least, without a dedicated glasskube manager inside renovate, renovate will not be aware of dependencies. That means, it will simply always try to update to the latest version, instead of checking whether an update to that version is actually allowed in the used cluster. As a consequence, this could lead to somebody installing a version that is not allowed because of dependency restrictions, however, the package operator will not actually install it. The package status would be set to "Failed" with an error message indicating the dependency conflict, but the previously installed version of the package would not be touched/destroyed. In such a case, you would have to manually intervene and roll back to the previously used package version.

Uninstalling packages

To uninstall a package or a ClusterPackage, simply remove the custom resource from the git repository.

Updating Glasskube

When a new Glasskube version is available, the manifests have to be updated. Run

glasskube bootstrap --dry-run -o yaml --force > bootstrap/glasskube/glasskube.yaml

to update the Glasskube manifests in your git repo. After reviewing and merging those changes the update will be picked up by ArgoCD. The --force flag is necessary for the command to continue manifest validation, even though failures occur.

Working with Apps

This template also contains a demo application: a bookmark manager called shiori. Its manifests are defined in apps/shiori, which is a pattern you can follow for your own custom applications.

In a minikube environment, two manual steps are required to access the application (for more information consult the minikube docs):

• Run minikube addons enable ingress -p gitops.
• Run minikube ip -p gitops and add the line <your-IP> my-shiori.example to your /etc/hosts file.

After that you will be able to access the application via http://my-shiori.example in your browser. The default login credentials are shiori / gopher – for more information check the shiori docs.

In general, you can use the apps directory to deploy such custom applications into your cluster. Any subdirectory will be picked up by ArgoCD and grouped as an Application.

Monitoring with kube-prometheus-stack

This template also installs the kube-prometheus-stack clusterpackage, which is an easy way to get started with monitoring your cluster. You can open Grafana with glasskube open kube-prometheus-stack. It does not come preconfigured in this example, but you can easily add a nice postgres dashboard and observe the metrics of the database while you are working with the bookmarking application.

Setting up a postgres dashboard

We are going to make use of the cloudnativepg dashboard. Import it by opening the dashboard-import page, pasting https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/20417-cloudnativepg/ into the first textfield, and pressing "Load". Use the "Prometheus" data source on the following screen and finish the import process.

Of course monitoring your experimental minikube cluster is a bit of an overkill, but this is simply to demonstrate how these kind of cluster administration tasks can be integrated into this gitops stack.

Repository Structure

Initially, this repository will come with

• a bootstrap directory containing the initial/parent Argo Application, and the necessary Glasskube manifests
• a packages directory containing the argo-cd cluster package.
• an apps directory containing your applications.
• the renovate configuration in renovate.json.

Glasskube custom resources will only be picked up by Argo when being put inside the packages directory. Please do not delete/uninstall the argo-cd package, as this will also remove everything else!

Note that the parent application used to bootstrap (bootstrap/glasskube-application.yaml) will not be synced after the initial setup. If you want to change something about it, you will have to change the application via argo directly.

Upcoming Features

Private Repo Support

We are aware that GitOps repositories should not be public, but for simplicity we omitted this feature in the first version of the new GitOps-bootstrap command. Supporting private repos with authentication of course has high priority for the upcoming releases. We will also replace the repoURL automatically, such that you don't need to this step manually when setting up the repo.

Improved Renovate Integration

As described above, the renovate integration currently is regex-based, and it does not consider dependencies yet. However, we don't see these shortcomings as a blocker and recommend to try out the renovate integration in the Glasskube/Argo Gitops setup.

Improved Dependency Resolution

Installing packages with dependencies is not 100% GitOps-compatible yet, as the dependencies will be created by the operator. Consider this: To install a ClusterPackage <P> that has a dependency on D, one would do glasskube install <P> --dry-run -o yaml, which would output the ClusterPackage custom resource for <P>. However, the dependency D will only be resolved at reconciliation time by the package operator, and will therefore not be represented in the git repository at all. A temporary workaround would be to have a closer look at the output of the install command, which also shows the dependencies which will be installed and in which version. One could then manually add the required packages custom resources to the git repo as well. However, this will be tackled in a future version to make the user experience better, see glasskube/glasskube#430.

Summary

With this template repository and guide we show how Glasskube can easily be set up in a ArgoCD powered Gitops environment, and how efficient package management is possible with this stack. Additionally we install a web application to show how custom applications can make use of the Gitops setup and Glasskube packages.

This is a first concept with some minor shortcomings, but we will continue to improve GitOps support.

Feedback

We love feedback! Whether you are just starting out or you are a seasoned professional, we'd like to hear your thoughts, inputs and questions regarding this starter template and corresponding guide here, in the glasskube/glasskube repo or on our Discord. Thanks!