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stage | group | info |
---|---|---|
Configure | Configure | To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers |
GitLab Kubernetes Agent (PREMIUM ONLY)
- Introduced in GitLab Premium 13.4.
- It's disabled on GitLab.com. Rolling this feature out to GitLab.com is planned.
CAUTION: Warning: This feature might not be available to you. Check the version history note above for details.
The GitLab Kubernetes Agent is an active in-cluster component for solving GitLab and Kubernetes integration tasks in a secure and cloud-native way. It enables:
- Integrating GitLab with a Kubernetes cluster behind a firewall or NAT (network address translation).
- Pull-based GitOps deployments by leveraging the GitOps Engine.
- Real-time access to API endpoints within a cluster.
Many more features are planned. Please review our roadmap.
Architecture
GitLab Agent GitOps workflow
sequenceDiagram
participant D as Developer
participant A as Application code repository
participant M as Manifest repository
participant K as Kubernetes agent
participant C as Agent configuration repository
K->C: Grab the configuration
D->>+A: Pushing code changes
A->>M: Updating manifest
loop Regularly
K-->>M: Watching changes
M-->>K: Pulling and applying changes
end
Please refer to our full architecture documentation in the Agent project.
Get started with GitOps and the GitLab Agent
There are several components that work in concert for the Agent to accomplish GitOps deployments:
- A properly-configured Kubernetes cluster.
- A configuration repository that contains a
config.yaml
file, which tells the Agent which repositories to synchronize with. - A manifest repository that contains a
manifest.yaml
, which is tracked by the Agent and can be auto-generated. Any changes tomanifest.yaml
are applied to the cluster.
The setup process involves a few steps to enable GitOps deployments:
- Installing the Agent server.
- Defining a configuration directory.
- Creating an Agent record in GitLab.
- Generating and copying a Secret token used to connect to the Agent.
- Installing the Agent into the cluster.
- Creating a
manifest.yaml
.
Install the Agent server
The GitLab Kubernetes Agent can be deployed using Omnibus GitLab or the GitLab chart. If you don't already have GitLab installed, please refer to our installation documentation.
NOTE: Note: GitLab plans to include the Agent on GitLab.com.
When using the Omnibus GitLab package:
- Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:
gitlab_kas['enable'] = true
When installing or upgrading the GitLab Helm chart, consider the following Helm 2 example.
(If you're using Helm 3, you must modify this example.) You must set global.kas.enabled=true
for the Agent to be properly installed and configured:
helm repo update
helm upgrade --force --install gitlab gitlab/gitlab \
--timeout 600 \
--set global.hosts.domain=<YOUR_DOMAIN> \
--set global.hosts.externalIP=<YOUR_IP> \
--set certmanager-issuer.email=<YOUR_EMAIL> \
--set name=gitlab-instance \
--set global.kas.enabled=true
Define a configuration repository
Next, you need a GitLab repository to contain your Agent configuration. The minimal repository layout looks like this:
.gitlab/agents/<agent-name>/config.yaml
The config.yaml
file contents should look like this:
gitops:
manifest_projects:
- id: "path-to/your-awesome-project"
Create an Agent record in GitLab
Next, create an GitLab Rails Agent record so the Agent can associate itself with the configuration repository project. Creating this record also creates a Secret needed to configure the Agent in subsequent steps. You can create an Agent record either:
-
Through the Rails console, by running
rails c
:project = ::Project.find_by_full_path("path-to/your-awesome-project") agent = ::Clusters::Agent.create(name: "<agent-name>", project: project) token = ::Clusters::AgentToken.create(agent: agent) token.token # this will print out the token you need to use on the next step
-
Through GraphQL: (PREMIUM ONLY)
mutation createAgent { createClusterAgent(input: { projectPath: "path-to/your-awesome-project", name: "<agent-name>" }) { clusterAgent { id name } errors } } mutation createToken { clusterAgentTokenCreate(input: { clusterAgentId: <cluster-agent-id-taken-from-the-previous-mutation> }) { secret # This is the value you need to use on the next step token { createdAt id } errors } }
NOTE: Note: GraphQL only displays the token once, after creating it.
If you are new to using the GitLab GraphQL API, refer to the Getting started with the GraphQL API page, or the GraphQL Explorer.
Create the Kubernetes secret
After generating the token, you must apply it to the Kubernetes cluster.
-
If you haven't previous defined or created a namespace, run the following command:
kubectl create namespace <YOUR-DESIRED-NAMESPACE>
-
Run the following command to create your Secret:
kubectl create secret generic -n <YOUR-DESIRED-NAMESPACE> gitlab-agent-token --from-literal=token='YOUR_AGENT_TOKEN'
Install the Agent into the cluster
Next, install the in-cluster component of the Agent. This example file contains the
Kubernetes resources required for the Agent to be installed. You can modify this
example resources.yml
file in the following ways:
- You can replace
gitlab-agent
with<YOUR-DESIRED-NAMESPACE>
. - For the
kas-address
(Kubernetes Agent Server), the agent can use the WebSockets or gRPC protocols to connect to the Agent Server. Depending on your cluster configuration and GitLab architecture, you may need to use one or the other. For thegitlab-kas
Helm chart, an Ingress is created for the Agent Server using the/-/kubernetes-agent
endpoint. This can be used for the WebSockets protocol connection.- Specify the
grpc
scheme (such asgrpc://gitlab-kas:5005
) to use gRPC directly. Encrypted gRPC is not supported yet. Follow the Support TLS for gRPC communication issue for progress updates. - Specify the
ws
scheme (such asws://gitlab-kas-ingress:80/-/kubernetes-agent
) to use an unencrypted WebSockets connection. - Specify the
wss
scheme (such aswss://gitlab-kas-ingress:443/-/kubernetes-agent
) to use an encrypted WebSockets connection. This is the recommended option if installing the Agent into a separate cluster from your Agent Server.
- Specify the
- If you defined your own secret name, replace
gitlab-agent-token
with your secret name.
To apply this file, run the following command:
kubectl apply -n gitlab-agent -f ./resources.yml
To review your configuration, run the following command:
$ kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
NAMESPACE NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
gitlab-agent gitlab-agent-77689f7dcb-5skqk 1/1 Running 0 51s
kube-system coredns-f9fd979d6-n6wcw 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system etcd-minikube 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system kube-apiserver-minikube 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system kube-controller-manager-minikube 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system kube-proxy-j6zdh 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system kube-scheduler-minikube 1/1 Running 0 14m
kube-system storage-provisioner 1/1 Running 0 14m
Example resources.yml
file
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: gitlab-agent
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: gitlab-agent
spec:
serviceAccountName: gitlab-agent
containers:
- name: agent
image: "registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/gitlab-agent/agentk:latest"
args:
- --token-file=/config/token
- --kas-address
- grpc://host.docker.internal:5005 # {"$openapi":"kas-address"}
volumeMounts:
- name: token-volume
mountPath: /config
volumes:
- name: token-volume
secret:
secretName: gitlab-agent-token
strategy:
type: RollingUpdate
rollingUpdate:
maxSurge: 0
maxUnavailable: 1
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent-write
rules:
- resources:
- '*'
apiGroups:
- '*'
verbs:
- create
- update
- delete
- patch
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent-write-binding
roleRef:
name: gitlab-agent-write
kind: ClusterRole
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
subjects:
- name: gitlab-agent
kind: ServiceAccount
namespace: gitlab-agent
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent-read
rules:
- resources:
- '*'
apiGroups:
- '*'
verbs:
- get
- list
- watch
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: gitlab-agent-read-binding
roleRef:
name: gitlab-agent-read
kind: ClusterRole
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
subjects:
- name: gitlab-agent
kind: ServiceAccount
namespace: gitlab-agent
Create a manifest.yaml
In a previous step, you configured a config.yaml
to point to the GitLab projects
the Agent should synchronize. In each of those projects, you must create a manifest.yaml
file for the Agent to monitor. You can auto-generate this manifest.yaml
with a
templating engine or other means.
Each time you commit and push a change to this file, the Agent logs the change:
2020-09-15_14:09:04.87946 gitlab-k8s-agent : time="2020-09-15T10:09:04-04:00" level=info msg="Config: new commit" agent_id=1 commit_id=e6a3651f1faa2e928fe6120e254c122451be4eea
Example manifest.yaml
file
This file creates a simple NGINX deployment.
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: nginx-deployment
namespace: gitlab-agent # Can be any namespace managed by you that the agent has access to.
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: nginx
replicas: 2
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: nginx
spec:
containers:
- name: nginx
image: nginx:1.14.2
ports:
- containerPort: 80
Example projects
This basic GitOps example deploys NGINX: