SKA CHSRC Gitops

This repository contains the GitOps configuration for CHSRC. It is based on ArgoCD and connected to a development Kubernetes cluster. As future development it is planned to implement Kustomize overlays for managing development and production environments in two separate Kubernetes clusters.

The repository will contain the manifests necessary to deploy the CHSRC infrastructure, currently applications are still being added.

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Using this repository

This repository reflects the CHSRC GitOps setup. If you want to replicate a similar setup, feel free to use the manifests herein as a base. It is constantly evolving, so please contact the Chocolate team to get the most recent Kubernetes prerequisites, context, and explanations for how to get the most out of this repo.

Contributing

To contribute to this repository, please clone the repository and create a branch with a name that reflects what you are adding, for example by referring to a JIRA ticket (choc-123-add-ci-pipeline). Then follow the below steps.

Example application

To see an example of a simple application deployed with ArgoCD and fetching secrets using the External Secrets Operator and Vault, please see the http-echo directory.

Adding a new application with a Helm chart

• Add an Application ArgoCD resource for the application you want to add. You can use the http-echo app as an example. The Application manifests are in the applications directory.
• Ensure that you name your Application resource file using the application name for clarity (e.g. vault.yaml).
• Edit the Application resource as needed, for example, set the Helm chart repo and version to the one you wish to use. If you are working on a branch, you should point to the branch.
• Merge the Application manifest to main.
  • TODO: Discuss if there is a better way to do this, to avoid having to edit main before starting to develop.
• You can continue working in your branch and adding manifests as needed (values.yaml for the chart, secrets, certificate...) and see them getting deployed from your branch into the development cluster.
• When you are finished, and the application works as expected, create a merge request to add your work to main.
• When the application directory and manifests are merged to main, update the original Application resource to point to main and delete the branch you were using if you don't need it anymore.

Adding manifests

• These instructions are for adding manifest in case they are not part of a Helm chart (e.g. a Deployment.yaml, service account, a certificate...)
• If you are adding a manifest to an existing directory, simply add the manifest (*.yaml file) in the application directory (e.g. vault/deployment.yaml).
• To add single manifests, if the application doesn't exist yet, you will always need to add an Application ArgoCD resource and a directory where the manifests will be stored. Name the Application yaml file and directory using your application name (e.g. vault.yaml and vault).
• When adding manifests (without a Helm chart) you need an application as follows. Please edit metadata.name, spec.sources.targetRevision ,spec.sources.path and spec.destination.namespace as needed:

apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: application-name-here
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  project: default
  sources:
  - repoURL: https://gitlab.com/ska-telescope/src/ska-chsrc-gitops.git
    targetRevision: main
    ref: argorepo
    path: applications/application-name-here
    directory:
      exclude: 'values.yaml'
  destination:
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
    namespace: namespace-the-resources-go-into
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      prune: true
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
    - CreateNamespace=true

• When you are finished editing, create a merge requests to the main branch. If you want to keep developing on a branch, point to it using targetRevision in the Application manifest. Note that nothing will be deployed from a development branch if you don't have an Application in the main branch that points to your development branch.
• When you have merged to main, you can either keep developing on your branch if you were using one, or clean up the main branch if you are finished. To clean up, remember to edit the targetRevision in the Application in main if you were using a branch and to delete your development branch if you don't need it anymore.

Merging your branch

When you are ready to submit your work, create a merge request for main and assign someone from the Chocolate team to review your contribution.

CI pipeline

At the moment we are using a simple CI pipeline based on kubeconform to lint the manifests we deploy. The pipeline may be further enhanced in the future with additional tools to ensure a good quality and correctness.

FAQ and notes

• Note that nothing will be deployed from a development branch if you don't have an Application in the main branch that points to your development branch. See Contributing for details.

Contact

The code is managed by the Chocolate team 🍫 within SRCNet.