install

Flux install

This tool is intended for non-gitops deployments of Flux. Instead of bootstrapping Flux for a Git repository, we install Flux and Minio directly on a cluster, then using the Minio client we can upload Kubernetes manifests generated with CUE. Flux will be using a Minio bucket to reconcile the cluster state.

Define clusters and addons

In the clusters.cue you define the Kubernetes clusters that are subject to install:

local: cluster.#Install & {
	name: "kind"
	kubeconfig: context: "kind-\(name)"
	flux: {
		namespace:  "flux-system"
		components: cluster.Components.All
	}
	addons: [
		#MetricsServer & {
			spec: chart: version: "v3.x"
		},
		#Minio & {
			spec: chart: version: "v3.x"
		},
	]
}

In the addons.cue you define the cluster addons that are managed by Flux:

#CertManager: release.#Release & {
	spec: {
		name:            "cert-manager"
		namespace:       "flux-system"
		targetNamespace: "cert-manager"
		repository: {
			url: "https://charts.jetstack.io"
		}
		chart: {
			name: "cert-manager"
		}
		values: {
			installCRDs: true
		}
	}
}

When you add an addon to a cluster, you have to specify the Helm chart version. To allow Flux to automatically upgrade the addon when a new chart is released, the version can be a semver range:

local: cluster.#Install & {
	...
	addons: [
		#CertManager & {
			spec: chart: version: "v1.8.x" //<- upgrade to the latest patch version
		},
	]
}

To list all the defined clusters, run the ls command:

$ cue ls ./tools/install/
CLUSTER  CONTEXT                                      ADDONS
kind     kind-kind                                    3
eks      [email protected]@test.eu-central-1.eksctl.io   4
gke      gke_demo_europe-west4-a_test                 3

Setup Flux and Minio on Kubernetes Kind

Create a local cluster

Create a local cluster with Kubernetes Kind:

kind create cluster

Install Flux

To install Flux and Minio on your local cluster, run the install command:

$ cue -t cluster=kind install ./tools/install/
► installing components in flux-system namespace
✔ install finished
► waiting for 2 addon(s) to become ready
helmrelease.helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/metrics-server condition met
helmrelease.helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/minio condition met

To upgrade Flux or change any of the addons, rerun cue install.

At install time, Flux is configured to reconcile the cluster with the content of the flux bucket hosted by Minio.

flux get source bucket flux-system
flux get kustomization flux-system

Connect to Minio

Install the Minio client CLI with brew install minio-mc. The start port forwarding to the Minio instance and create an alias for it:

kubectl -n flux-system port-forward svc/minio 9000:9000  &
mc alias set minio http://localhost:9000 flux toolkit.fluxcd.io --api S3v4

You can generate Kubernetes YAMLs with the CUE generators, then you can sync the local out dir to the cluster with:

mc mirror --watch ./out/ minio/flux

Flux monitors the bucket and reconciles the changes on the cluster.