GitOps Local Test environment

This repository contains some examples to setup a local Kubernetes GitOps test environment.

Important
Do not use anything you find in the repository in production. This is purely a testing playground!
Important

Prerequisites

The following software is required to test out the scenarios:

• minikube (Create and manage the local test clusters)
• helm (Install argocd to the test cluster)
• kubectl (Applying changes to the test cluster as well as some management tasks)
• go-task (Running the predefined tasks, similar to GNU make)

Gettings started

• Create a test cluster with task cluster:create
• Bind the ArgoCD UI and Gitea to your machine with task argo:forward and task scm:forward
• Initialise either ArgoCD (task argo:init) or FluxCD (task flux:init) to apply the example suite to the cluster
• Start experimenting 🎉

Credentials

Service	Username	Password
ArgoCD	admin	Printed after creation of cluster, can also be retrieved with task argo:password later
Gitea Admin	gitops	gitops123
Gitea ArgoCD	argocd	argocd
Gitea FluxCD	flux2	flux2

CLI

If you install ArgoCD and/or FluxCD special CLI pods will be created providing the respective tools in an environment with all the required privileges to manage the GitOps operator.

ArgoCD

For ArgoCD we can appropriate the deployment itself to get a shell.
This pod was authenticated on installation automatically to ArgoCD so we do not need to install the ArgoCD CLI on our local machine.

# Check tool version
kubectl exec -n argocd deploy/argocd-server -- argocd version
# Start an interactive shell
kubectl exec -n argocd -it deploy/argocd-server -- sh

FluxCD

For FluxCD we can use the special flux-cli pod to get a shell.
This pod has a ServiceAccount with the ClusterAdmin role attached to it, so we can use the flux CLI to bootstrap and manage FluxCD without installing the flux CLI on our local machine.

# Check tool version
kubectl exec -n flux-system pods/flux-cli -- flux version
# Start an interactive shell
kubectl exec -n flux-system -it pods/flux-cli -- sh

Integrated SCM

This playground includes Gitea so you can create local repositories and connect them to your GitOps operator and to change the default example applications created and deployed to the cluster.

You may forward the SCM to your local system using task scm:forward and access it under http://localhost:8081.

You may login using the user gitops and the password gitops as the admin user has access to all repositories.

SSH

If you want to be able to use SSH with your git client and the integrated Gitea you need to do a few things:

• Upload your SSH public key to the Gitea instance via the UI
• Bind the Gitea SSH port to a port on your machine with kubectl port-forward --context gitops-test -n gitea service/gitea-ssh 2222:ssh
• Use the bound port for your clone / push commands

Example repositories

ArgoCD

argocd/argocd

This repository contains the default ArgoCD bootstrap files. This is used to install ArgoCD to the cluster. To bootstrap the argocd chart is installed using helm and projects/argocd.yaml and applications/bootstrap.yaml files are applied imperatively. This will then bootstrap everything else.

Be aware that the argocd chart itself will from then on be managed by ArgoCD itself, so updates will be applied automatically.

Directories

• applications - Contains all the default gitops enabled applications
• argocd - Contains an ArgoCD wrapper chart to install the operator
• projects - Contains all the ArgoCD projects to be created

argocd/cluster-addons

This repository contains a more normal GitOps layout which installs all the cluster addons (ingress controller, cert manager, other operators, ...) and could be owned by a platform team.

Directories

• apps - Contains all the applications for the cluster addons (manifests, charts, value files, ...)
• argocd - Contains all the required ArgoCD manifests (mainly the Application resources)
• misc - Contains miscellaneous manifests which don't belong to any application (eg. shared ConfigMaps, NetworkPolicies, ...)

argocd/team-a and argocd/team-b

Those repositories contain a more normal GitOps layout and represents different teams deploying end-user applications.

Directories

• apps - Contains all the applications of the team (manifests, charts, value files, ...)
• argocd - Contains all the required ArgoCD manifests (mainly the Application resources)
• misc - Contains miscellaneous manifests which don't belong to any application (eg. shared ConfigMaps, NetworkPolicies, ...)

FluxCD

flux2/flux2

This repository is used to bootstrap FluxCD and cluster addons to the cluster. It would be managed by a platform team.

The bootstrap happens with the flux bootstrap command.

Directories

• clusters - contains the basic configuration for the clusters
  • */flux-system - contains the fluxcd installation itself, it will be updated by the flux bootstrap command
• infrastructure - contains the infrastructure components like the ingress controller, cert manager, ...
• tenants - contains the configuration for specific tenants (eg. rbac, namespaces, configuration for team repositories, ...)

flux2/team-a and flux2/team-b

Those repositories contain a more normal GitOps layout and represents different teams deploying end-user applications.

Directories

• base - contains basic kustomization files for the deployments and releases
• production - contains kustomization files to patch the base for production
• staging - contains kustomization files to patch the base for staging

go-task Targets

cluster:create

Create a new test cluster

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test
cpus	4
disk_size	20000mb
enable_argo	true
enable_flux	true
kubernetes_version	1.29.2

cluster:delete

Delete a given test cluster

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test

cluster:status

Show the current status of the test cluster

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test

argo:init

Configure ArgoCD with the sample repositories from Gitea to apply the desired state to the cluster.
Warning Do not apply at the same time as FluxCD - this could cause things to break.

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test

argo:forward

Forward the ArgoCD API Server in a given test cluster to a local port

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test
port	8080

argo:password

Print the initial ArgoCD admin password in a given test cluster

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test

flux:init

Configure FluxCD with the sample repositories from Gitea to apply the desired state to the cluster.
Warning Do not apply at the same time as ArgoCD - this could cause things to break.

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test

scm:forward

Forward Gitea HTTP service in a given test cluster to a local port

Parameter	Default
cluster_name	gitops-test
port	8081