Backstage on OpenShift

Deploy a Backstage portal instance in an OpenShift cluster. One instance is installed in a dedicated namespace named bs1 by default.

After deployment edit configMap backstage-app-config to dynamically reconfigure the portal; or change it in the deploy/app-config.yaml file here and run deploy.sh to reconfigure. NOTE: delete the current pod so the modified configMap is loaded.

For example, try uncommenting one of the commented URL locations in the initial configMap, then deleting the pod, then refreshing Backstage.

Dependencies

• EDB Postgres - openshift-services/postgres
• Create a Secret named github-token with key GITHUB_TOKEN with value set to a GitHub Token with repo and workflow permissions.
• Create a Secret name argocd-token with key ARGOCD_AUTH_TOKEN set to an admin token for ArgoCD

Build and deploy (first time)

1. Install dependencies
2. Clone this repo and change dir: `git clone https://github.com/joshgav/backstage-on-openshift.git
3. Set env vars in .env file or via export
4. Run REBUILD_IMAGE=1 ./deploy/deploy.sh to build and push the image and deploy the system

• The resolved URL is echoed at the end of deploy.sh (which can be run anytime)

Iterate

• Visit your instance at https://backstage-bs1.${openshift_ingress_domain}, where openshift_ingress_domain is found via oc get ingresses.config.openshift.io cluster -ojson | jq -r .spec.domain

• Reconfigure and deploy with deploy/deploy.sh (it's idempotent)

• Rebuild, reconfigure and deploy with REBUILD_IMAGE=1 deploy/deploy.sh

• Follow logs: kubectl logs --follow deployment/backstage

• Troubleshoot the image: kubectl run -it --image quay.io/${QUAY_USER_NAME}/bs1-backstage:latest --rm bs-test -- bash

Delete

Delete the namespace backstage (kubectl delete namespace backstage) and start over.

Notes

• On the first deployment the Backstage pod is ready before the database cluster so it crashloops a few times and then stabilizes.
• This project uses app-config file in deploy only - not the ones in the root directory.
• If you have OpenTelemetry in your cluster uncomment the base/instrumentation.yaml file to add OpenTelemetry injection to the namespace and the Backstage deployment.
• You must use the latest LTS version of Node.js. Jump to it if you use nvm with nvm use --lts --latest.
• Try importing Janus' templates in the /catalog-import page from https://github.com/janus-idp/software-templates/blob/main/showcase-templates.yaml. They're included in this repo's default app-config.yaml file.
• To get an ArgoCD auth token, run patch-argocd.sh, then login with the admin account using the secret from namespace openshift-gitops, secret name openshift-gitops-cluster. Navigate to the Settings section and request a token valid for 365d.