argocd-demo-install

Bootstrapping

• Create a dir to work in

$ mkdir -p charts/argo-cd

• Make the Chart in charts/argo-cd/Chart.yaml

• Override the chart values with charts/argo-cd/values.yaml

• Make the Chart lock and the tgz necessary for the bootstrap installation

$ helm repo add argo-cd https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
$ helm dep update charts/argo-cd/

• Exclude that from repo

$ echo "charts/**/charts" >> .gitignore

• Create a namespace for argocd

$ kubectl create ns myargo

• Bootstrap: First installation manual

$ helm install argo-cd charts/argo-cd/ -n argocd

• Port-forward to access the web ui This is just for demos. In a real env, hook it to an ALB, give it SSL/TLS termination, and set DNS for it

$ kubectl port-forward svc/argo-cd-argocd-server 8080:443 -n argocd

• Username is admin. Get password:

$ kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d

Have ArgoCD manage itself

• Now we prepare the root-app

$ mkdir -p charts/root-app/templates
$ touch charts/root-app/values.yaml

• We make the chart: charts/root-app/Chart.yaml

• We make the app manifest for our root app in charts/root-app/templates/root-app.yaml

• The first time we manually apply the manifest. Later it will be automatic

$ helm template charts/root-app/ | kubectl apply -f -

• In the Web ui we verify that the root-app was created

• We make a manifest for argocd so that it can manage itself: charts/root-app/templates/argo-cd.yaml

• In the web ui we verify that argocd now appears as an app

Use ArgoCD

• Now we can add all the apps we want to charts/root-app/templates/

• The apps in the screenshot above are from: https://github.com/k-candidate/hello-k8s and https://github.com/k-candidate/hello-prod

TO DO:

• Project templates to group apps depending on teams, repos, destinations (cluster/ns), object restriction, roles (rbac).
• Use a policy engine like OPA Gatekeeper (does not allow resource mutation) or Kyverno (does allow for mutation, but still incubating)
• Add KEDA for Autoscaling.
• Add KEDA HTTP Add-on.
• Add Prometheus.
• Add Grafana.
• Add OpenCost.
• Migrate to a cluster instead of Minikube as I already hit the ceiling (of default minikube) after adding KEDA, and Prometheus.
• Use HA for argocd. Requires 3 nodes.