Page Comparison

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The first goal is to build our image. In the case of the Natours repository, we don’t need any additional compile steps. All we need to do is run docker build with the appropriate commands

Creating

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The first thing we need to do is create a Registry Account in FlexDeploy. This account contains the necessary information for pushing our image. Navigate to Topology->Integrations->Containers and click the Plus button.

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Be sure to select the Provider as DockerRegistry and populate the information as necessary. In the above account it is configured to push to the joelwenzel account on dockerhub.com

Setting up the Project

Next, create a new Project in FlexDeploy. Give it a name that closely resembles your Git repository name and select Container as the Classification.

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After creating the Project, click on the Container Configuration tab. It is here where we specify the image tag information and build behavior.

Add the following configuration:

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We will come back to image scanning, but for now lets continue on.

Creating the Build Workflow

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the Build Workflow

The build workflow is only going to need two steps: clone the source code and build the image. The buildProjectImage step is going to use the configuration directly in the project. As such, the default configuration is is fine for both steps, simply drag and drop.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ns0:WorkFlow xmlns:ns1="http://flexagon.com/flexdeploy/workflow/common" xmlns:ns0="http://flexagon.com/flexdeploy/workflow">
   <ns1:Name>BuildProjectImage</ns1:Name>
   <ns1:Description></ns1:Description>
   <ns0:Steps>
      <ns0:Step>
         <ns1:Name>cloneProjectSources</ns1:Name>
         <ns1:StepId>1</ns1:StepId>
         <ns0:InvokePlugin>
            <ns0:PluginName>FlexagonGITPlugin</ns0:PluginName>
            <ns0:PluginOperation>cloneProjectSources</ns0:PluginOperation>
            <ns0:consumesArtifacts>false</ns0:consumesArtifacts>
            <ns0:producesArtifacts>false</ns0:producesArtifacts>
            <ns0:EndpointSelection>
               <ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>All</ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>
            </ns0:EndpointSelection>
            <ns0:PluginInputs/>
            <ns0:UserInputs/>
            <ns0:PluginOutputs/>
            <ns0:UserOutputs/>
         </ns0:InvokePlugin>
      </ns0:Step>
      <ns0:Step>
         <ns1:Name>buildProjectImage</ns1:Name>
         <ns1:StepId>2</ns1:StepId>
         <ns0:InvokePlugin>
            <ns0:PluginName>FlexagonDockerPlugin</ns0:PluginName>
            <ns0:PluginOperation>buildProjectImage</ns0:PluginOperation>
            <ns0:consumesArtifacts>false</ns0:consumesArtifacts>
            <ns0:producesArtifacts>false</ns0:producesArtifacts>
            <ns0:EndpointSelection>
               <ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>All</ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>
            </ns0:EndpointSelection>
            <ns0:EndpointExecutionChoice>Any</ns0:EndpointExecutionChoice>
            <ns0:PluginInputs>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDDKR_INP_DOCKER_FILE</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDDKR_INP_IMAGE_NAME</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDDKR_INP_PUSH_IMAGE</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>Boolean</ns1:Type>
                  <ns0:Text>false</ns0:Text>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
            </ns0:PluginInputs>
            <ns0:UserInputs/>
            <ns0:PluginOutputs>
               <ns0:OutputValue>
                  <ns0:NameInCallee>FDDKR_OUT_IMAGE_ID</ns0:NameInCallee>
               </ns0:OutputValue>
            </ns0:PluginOutputs>
            <ns0:UserOutputs/>
         </ns0:InvokePlugin>
      </ns0:Step>
   </ns0:Steps>
</ns0:WorkFlow>

Creating a Registry Account

If we are going to be pushing our image anywhere, we will need a Registry Account in FlexDeploy. Navigate to Topology->Integrations->Containers and click the Plus button.

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Be sure to select the Provider as DockerRegistry and populate the information as necessary. In the above account it is configured to push to the joelwenzel account on dockerhub.com

Creating Additional Build Topology

LastlyWhile still on the Topology screen, we need to can create the topology remaining items for the build process.

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Setting up the Project

Lastly, create a new Project in FlexDeploy. Give it a name that closely resembles your Git repository name and select Container as the Classification.

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After creating the Project, click on the

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Container Configuration tab

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. It is here where we specify the image tag information and build behavior.

Add the following configuration:

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Naturally your image name and account could be different compared to what’s shown above. With this configuration, FlexDeploy will build an image with an incrementing Project Versionevery time we run a build. In addition to tagging the image with the ProjectVersion it will tag with latest and push the image to the Docker Hub registry that was set up earlier.

We will come back to image scanning, but for now lets finally build the image.

Run a build

Now the Project is ready to start creating images. Click the Build button on the Project Activity screen and if everything goes well we should have a new version of the natours image.

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Notice that both version 1.0.1 and the latest tag were both pushed to the registry.

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Deploying the Containerized App

A reminder that before deployment, you should have kubectl and helm installed on the local FlexDeploy server and have a valid context configured. Similar to the build process, we will first configure the project.

Creating the Deploy Workflow

The only step our deploy workflow needs to do is run Helm, which we will do through the deploy operation on the FlexDeployHelmPlugin. The only input specified is the K8s Context which should be the kubectl context as it shows when running

kubectl config current-context

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ns0:WorkFlow xmlns:ns1="http://flexagon.com/flexdeploy/workflow/common" xmlns:ns0="http://flexagon.com/flexdeploy/workflow">
   <ns1:Name>DeployHelm</ns1:Name>
   <ns1:Description></ns1:Description>
   <ns0:Steps>
      <ns0:Step>
         <ns1:Name>deploy</ns1:Name>
         <ns1:StepId>1</ns1:StepId>
         <ns0:InvokePlugin>
            <ns0:PluginName>FlexagonHelmPlugin</ns0:PluginName>
            <ns0:PluginOperation>deploy</ns0:PluginOperation>
            <ns0:consumesArtifacts>true</ns0:consumesArtifacts>
            <ns0:producesArtifacts>false</ns0:producesArtifacts>
            <ns0:EndpointSelection>
               <ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>All</ns0:EndpointSelectionChoice>
            </ns0:EndpointSelection>
            <ns0:EndpointExecutionChoice>Any</ns0:EndpointExecutionChoice>
            <ns0:PluginInputs>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_CHART_NAME</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_K8S_CONTEXT</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
                  <ns0:Text>oci-demo-cluster</ns0:Text>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_RELEASE_NAME</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_VALUES_FILE</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_REPO_NAME</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_CONFIG_FILE</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_BUILD_DEPENDENCIES</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>Boolean</ns1:Type>
                  <ns0:Text>false</ns0:Text>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
               <ns0:PluginInput>
                  <ns0:Name>FDHLM_INP_OPTIONS</ns0:Name>
                  <ns0:ValueType>Text</ns0:ValueType>
                  <ns0:Encrypted>false</ns0:Encrypted>
                  <ns1:Type>String</ns1:Type>
               </ns0:PluginInput>
            </ns0:PluginInputs>
            <ns0:UserInputs/>
            <ns0:PluginOutputs/>
            <ns0:UserOutputs/>
         </ns0:InvokePlugin>
      </ns0:Step>
   </ns0:Steps>
</ns0:WorkFlow>

Creating the Deploy Topology

More of the same as what we did on the Build side of things.

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Finalizing the Project

Almost there, the final piece of the puzzle is to update the Helm configuration on the project.

• Release Name - "natours-"+FD_ENVIRONMENT_CODE.toLowerCase()

• Chart Path - https://github.com/joel-wenzel/charts/raw/develop/generic-0.1.0.tgz

  • This chart will create a single pod deployment with a load balancer service.

• Helm Parameters

  • These will likely change depending on your chart and docker image.

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Deploying the Helm Release

Head back to the Project Activity Screen and click the deploy button. If everything goes well there will be a new successful deployment of the Helm Release.

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You may notice a few things that stand out compared to other FlexDeploy Projects, namely the Deployment link and Status. Both of these are shown for Container Projects only and offer some insight into the actual application that was deployed and some basic monitoring.

Bonus: Image Scanning

If you have made it this far you have seen the bread and butter of Kubernetes deployments in FlexDeploy. If you want to take things to the next level this section will incorporate Image scanning via Anchore in our build process.

FlexDeploy supports native Anchore inline image scanning. What this means for you is that no additional installations or setup is needed apart from updating the Project configuration.

Updating the Project Image Scanning Configuration

Navigate back to the Project’s Kubernetes Container Configuration tab on the Project. Under the Image Scanning section, change the Scan Image drop down to Before Push and set the Fail When script to

STATUS == “fail”.

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We have just told FlexDeploy to run an Anchore scan prior to pushing our image and if the scan Status is “fail” then the build will fail. Save the changes and run another build. If you are using the natours repository, the build will now fail due to the scan results.

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