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Deploying your own application to StarlingX is as easy as in any other Kubernetes deployment out there. In this blog post I will show you the process with a simple demo app.<!- more ->
It's important to understand that an application can be deployed in many ways on the Kubernetes cluster(s) that StarlingX manages :
- with plain Kubernetes methods;
- with Helm;
- with Flux; and finally
- as a StarlingX Application, which benefits from tight integration with the StarlingX system.
In this article I will focus on Helm, which is the most popular package manager for Kubernetes. Future blog posts will address other deployment types and their characteristics.
I will use a virtual All-In-One Simplex (AIO-SX) setup of StarlingX. If you want to follow along, you can install your own by following the related StarlingX install guide.
Anyone who already packages their application with Helm will be able to deploy it on StarlingX without additional hassle.
The Demo App
I will use a simple demo app for this blog post, which simulates tasks, like antivirus scanning and threat monitoring. If you would like to learn more about the app and use it to follow the below deployment steps, please check out the documentation and source in the app's GitHub repo.
Deploying the Demo App
Via a Helm Package file
You can simply use the packaged Helm chart from your own source code, and use the Helm CLI to install the package.
Package the Helm chart
The following commands will checkout the demo app, cd into the downloaded source code and finally use helm to generate a Helm chart file.
git clone https://github.com/brunomuniz-encora/poc-starlingx-messages.git
cd poc-starlingx-messages
helm package helm-chart/
The poc-starlingx-<version>.tgz file can be found on the root folder of the downloaded repo:
...
Successfully packaged chart and saved it to: .../poc-starlingx-messages/poc-starlingx-1.5.2.tgzInstall the Helm package directly on StarlingX
Once the package is made available on a StarlingX instance, the below command will deploy the application to the StarlingX-managed Kubernetes cluster:
helm install poc-starlingx-messages-node poc-starlingx-1.5.2.tgzThis is the expected output:
NAME: poc-starlingx-messages
LAST DEPLOYED: <date> <time>
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
[sysadmin@controller-0 ~(keystone_admin)]$ This is the stage when you can log into your application and configure it, in order to have it fully functional. The demo app I use does not require any additional setup and is currently up and running. You can verify this by using the kubectl get all command, which should provide the output below:
sysadmin@controller-0:~$ kubectl get all
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/poc-starlingx-85d766894b-dmw4v 1/1 Running 0 40s
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/poc-starlingx NodePort 10.97.156.62 <none> 8100:31234/TCP 40s
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/poc-starlingx 1/1 1 1 40s
NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/poc-starlingx-85d766894b 1 1 1 40sYou can also use helm list and other Helm commands to check the status of the deployment:
sysadmin@controller-0:~$ helm list
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
poc-starlingx-messages default 1 <date> <time> deployed poc-starlingx-1.5.2 1.5.2
[sysadmin@controller-0 ~(keystone_admin)]$Modify the app configuration via Helm
Of course, applications might (and should) be configurable through the environment where they are running on. The demo app is no different and exposes several configuration options via Helm values.
The demo application has multiple components which are deployed as multiple instances that are configured differently. One of these components is called central, which I will deploy now by creating a user-supplied values file that will override a few default values:
cat <<EOF > central-overrides.yml
env:
# Set application to act as a `central`
- name: MODE
value: central
kube:
# Set the NodePort to be configured within the Kubernetes Service resource
port: 32767
# Set a different name for the Kubernetes resources (helper to allow multiple instances run in the same cluster)
name: poc-starlingx-central
EOFNow I will use the central-overrides.yml file, that I just created, to deploy a new version of the application with the command:
helm install -f central-overrides.yml poc-starlingx-messages-central poc-starlingx-1.5.2.tgzThis is the expected output:
NAME: poc-starlingx-messages-central
LAST DEPLOYED: <date> <time>
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: NoneAgain, the app is readily available in the Kubernetes cluster:
sysadmin@controller-0:~$ kubectl get all
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/poc-starlingx-85d766894b-dmw4v 1/1 Running 0 3h51m
pod/poc-starlingx-central-5588f46ccb-2s8g2 1/1 Running 0 38s
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/poc-starlingx NodePort 10.97.156.62 <none> 8100:31234/TCP 3h51m
service/poc-starlingx-central NodePort 10.103.215.65 <none> 8100:32767/TCP 38s
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/poc-starlingx 1/1 1 1 3h51m
deployment.apps/poc-starlingx-central 1/1 1 1 38s
NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/poc-starlingx-85d766894b 1 1 1 3h51m
replicaset.apps/poc-starlingx-central-5588f46ccb 1 1 1 38s
[sysadmin@controller-0 ~(keystone_admin)]$ helm list
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
poc-starlingx-messages default 1 2023-10-02 19:54:09.609324422 +0000 UTC deployed poc-starlingx-1.5.2 1.5.2
poc-starlingx-messages-central default 1 2023-10-02 23:45:23.724816272 +0000 UTC deployed poc-starlingx-1.5.2 1.5.2
Via a Helm repository
Of course, you can make it even easier to deploy an application by using a Helm charts repository. To demonstrate this, I will deploy a different app, the Kubernetes dashboard application, which is distributed under a public chart repository. You can add this application to StarlingX by following the steps below :
helm repo add kubernetes-dashboard https://kubernetes.github.io/dashboard/And then use it to install the Kubernetes Dashboard:
cat <<EOF >dashboard-values.yaml
service:
type: NodePort
nodePort: 32000
rbac:
create: true
clusterAdminRole: true
serviceAccount:
create: true
name: kubernetes-dashboard
EOF
helm install kubernetes-dashboard \
kubernetes-dashboard/kubernetes-dashboard \
-f dashboard-values.yaml \
--version 6.0.8These instructions are based on the Kubernetes Dashboard official installation guide. The automated virtual installation installs and sets up the Kubernetes Dashboard for you. The procedure is also covered on the bare metal installation guides.
Conclusion
In less than 5 minutes you learned how easy it is to deploy your existing Helm-packaged application to StarlingX. No surprises there!
This is what the StarlingX cluster looks like after everything that I covered: on this blog post:
sysadmin@controller-0:~$ kubectl get all
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/kubernetes-dashboard-d4df5796b-km2jh 1/1 Running 0 6h43m
pod/poc-starlingx-7775bb7864-sf544 1/1 Running 0 46m
pod/poc-starlingx-central-5588f46ccb-2s8g2 1/1 Running 0 100m
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 7h16m
service/kubernetes-dashboard NodePort 10.111.41.251 <none> 443:32000/TCP 6h43m
service/poc-starlingx NodePort 10.97.156.62 <none> 8100:31234/TCP 5h32m
service/poc-starlingx-central NodePort 10.103.215.65 <none> 8100:32767/TCP 100m
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/kubernetes-dashboard 1/1 1 1 6h43m
deployment.apps/poc-starlingx 1/1 1 1 5h32m
deployment.apps/poc-starlingx-central 1/1 1 1 100m
NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/kubernetes-dashboard-d4df5796b 1 1 1 6h43m
replicaset.apps/poc-starlingx-7775bb7864 1 1 1 46m
replicaset.apps/poc-starlingx-central-5588f46ccb 1 1 1 100mWe will talk about Flux and StarlingX Apps in the next installments of this series.
About StarlingX
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