Bootstraping without the cli

[tuxpeople]

Hi

I'm not able to find the guide on how to deploy Fluxv2 into my cluster without the flux bootstrap git command. I just need the yamls, not the cli.

Thanks!

[stefanprodan]

Form the install docs:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/releases/latest/download/install.yaml

[jonaskello]

Nice, I was also looking for this but for usage with gitlab. Basically I wanted to trade the automatic way of bootstrap and the requirement to create an access token against having more control but doing more manual steps. I ended up with this which I think is what bootstrap does for gitlab? If it is correct, perhaps this procedure could be documented somewhere too?

1. Create new repo in gitlab, clone it and make it the current dir.

2. Create dir for flux files: mkdir -p flux/flux-system

3. Create manifest for flux components:

flux install --export > flux/flux-system/gotk-components.yaml

4. Create secret manifest for the SSH deploy key (you may not want to commit this file to git):

  flux create secret git flux-system \
    --url=ssh://git@gitlab.example.com/theorg/therepo \
    --export > flux/flux-system/gotk-secret.yaml

5. Create manifest for syncing flux manifests using flux itself:

flux create source git flux-system \
 --url=ssh://git@gitlab.example.com/theorg/therepo \
 --branch=master \
 --secret-ref flux-system \
 --export > flux/flux-system/gotk-sync.yaml \
&& \
flux create kustomization flux-system \
 --source=GitRepository/flux-system \
 --path="./flux" \
 --prune=true \
 --interval=10m \
 --validation=client \
 --export >> flux/flux-system/gotk-sync.yaml

6. Add the contents of the identity.pub field in the flux/flux-system/gotk-secret.yaml file as a deploy key in gitlab.

7. Commit and push git add . && git commit -m "Initial commit" && git push.

8. Apply the files in the following order to create CRDs before they are used:

kubectl apply -f flux/flux-system/gotk-components.yaml
kubectl apply -f flux/flux-system/gotk-secret.yaml
kubectl apply -f flux/flux-system/gotk-sync.yaml

9. Done!

[stefanprodan]

@jonaskello you don't need to do any of this manually on GitLab, use flux bootstrap git --private-key-file=./your-deploy-private-key, no token required, just the SSH deploy key locally.

[jonaskello]

I did not know that :-). But in that case, how does bootstrap add the deploy key public part to gitlab? Or that would be a manual step in this case? In my experience if I use bootstrap with gitlab and access token it both creates the keypair and adds the public part to gitlab.

[jonaskello]

Also if you do it this way and the local deploy-key (--private-key-file) only has read-access, then flux bootstrap will not push the changes to the repo? (I think it does push changes when run with access token IIRC).

In general my concern about flux bootstrap is that it feels (to me) a bit unpredictable what will happen when I run it. I'm happy to trade the automation for more manual work so that I can have insight into what happens and learn how things are setup. I only manage a few clusters but I can definitely see how automation like flux bootstrap would be useful when you have a lot of clusters to manage. IMHO both ways should be documented and supported.

@tuxpeople What was your reason/scenario for wanting to do the bootstrapping manually?

[egorksv]

Same here. Trialling flux as a way to offload helm charts management from terraform as it gets cumbersome past 10-15 charts, the whole thing spins off a single terraform run (AWS VPC / EKS / k8s extensions / charts), there's no we will allow "now stop the world and run some 3rd party CLI before proceeding"