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Others (KinD etc)

System setup

This guide will show how to use Kratix on two Kubernetes clusters. Install the prerequisites listed below if they aren't already on your system. If you are using pre-existing clusters or want to use a different tool to provision your clusters, skip requirements 1 and 2.

  1. kind CLI / Kubernetes-in-Docker (KinD): Used to create and manage local Kubernetes clusters in Docker. See the quick start guide to install.
  2. docker CLI / Docker: Used to orchestrate containers. kind (above) requires that you have Docker installed and configured. See Get Docker to install.
  3. kubectl / Kubernetes command-line tool: The CLI for Kubernetes — allows you to run commands against Kubernetes clusters. See the install guide.
tip

To get setup locally quickly with KinD clusters you can use the ./scripts/quick-start.sh from the root of the Kratix repository. This provisions an in-cluster MinIO to use as the backing State Store. Alternatively you can provide the --git flag to create it with an in-cluster Gitea instance instead.

Set up platform cluster

If you are not using a pre-existing cluster, create your platform cluster locally using KinD:

kind create cluster --image kindest/node:v1.27.3 --name platform
# set PLATFORM to point to the platform cluster context
export PLATFORM="kind-platform"

Install cert-manager

Kratix requires a set of certificates in order to deploy its internal Validating and Mutating Kubernetes webhooks. By default Kratix is configured to use cert-manager to generate the certificates, therefore we need to install cert-manager. If you already have it installed, skip to the next section.

Don't want to use cert-manager? Manually provide the required certificates

Cert-manager is used to generate a CA, and a key/cert pair which is configured for the following DNS names:

  • kratix-platform-webhook-service.kratix-platform-system.svc.cluster.local
  • kratix-platform-webhook-service.kratix-platform-system.svc

To manually provide the required certificates, you need to create the webhook-server-cert secret in the kratix-platform-system namespace with the following keys:

apiVersion: v1
data:
ca.crt: # Base64 CA certificate
tls.crt: # Base64 encoded Server certificate
tls.key: # Base64 encoded Server private key
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: webhook-server-cert
namespace: kratix-platform-system
type: kubernetes.io/tls

As part of installing Kratix we create a few resources that require the CA certificate. You will have to manually add the CA certificate to the resources mentioned below, and manually remove the cert-manager Certificate and Issuer resources. The following resources need to be updated to contain the Base64 encoded CA certificate:

  • MutatingWebhookConfiguration/kratix-platform-mutating-webhook-configuration

    apiVersion: admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1
    kind: MutatingWebhookConfiguration
    metadata:
    name: kratix-platform-mutating-webhook-configuration
    webhooks:
    - admissionReviewVersions:
    - v1
    clientConfig:
    caBundle: .... # there might be multiple admissionReviewVersions, ensure you update all of them
  • ValidatingWebhookConfiguration/kratix-platform-validating-webhook-configuration

    apiVersion: admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1
    kind: ValidatingWebhookConfiguration
    metadata:
    name: kratix-platform-validating-webhook-configuration
    webhooks:
    - admissionReviewVersions:
    - v1
    clientConfig:
    caBundle: .... # there might be multiple admissionReviewVersions, ensure you update all of them
  • CustomResourceDefinition/promises.platform.kratix.io

    apiVersion: apiextensions.k8s.io/v1
    kind: CustomResourceDefinition
    metadata:
    name: promises.platform.kratix.io
    spec:
    conversion:
    strategy: Webhook
    webhook:
    clientConfig:
    caBundle: ....

Lastly, you need to remove the following cert-manager Issuer and Certificate from Kratix release manifest:

---
...
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Certificate
metadata:
name: kratix-platform-serving-cert
namespace: kratix-platform-system
spec:
...
---
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: Issuer
metadata:
name: kratix-platform-selfsigned-issuer
namespace: kratix-platform-system
spec:
...

To install it, run:

kubectl --context $PLATFORM apply --filename https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.15.0/cert-manager.yaml

Make sure that cert-manager is ready before installing Kratix:

$ kubectl --context $PLATFORM get pods --namespace cert-manager
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
cert-manager-7476c8fcf4-r8cnd 1/1 Running 0 19s
cert-manager-cainjector-bdd866bd4-7d8zp 1/1 Running 0 19s
cert-manager-webhook-5655dcfb4b-54r49 1/1 Running 0 19s

Install Kratix

Install Kratix on the Platform Cluster.

kubectl apply --context $PLATFORM --filename https://github.com/syntasso/kratix/releases/latest/download/kratix.yaml

You can also install and configure Kratix with Helm. For more information, see the Helm Chart documentation.

Make sure that kratix is ready before proceeding:

$ kubectl --context $PLATFORM get pods --namespace kratix-platform-system
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
kratix-platform-controller-manager-78d57569b-bn4t4 2/2 Running 0 25s

Set up State Store

Kratix uses GitOps to provision resources on the worker clusters. You can configure Kratix with multiple GitOps repositories by creating State Stores. Kratix supports Bucket State Store and Git State Store.

Using a Git State Store is recommended for production environments as it provides better security and version control. However, for development and testing purposes, you can also use the Bucket State Store.

If your are using local KinD clusters you can install MinIO or Gitea as an in-cluster State Store

# Install MinIO and register it as a BucketStateStore
kubectl apply --context $PLATFORM --filename https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syntasso/kratix/main/config/samples/minio-install.yaml
kubectl apply --context $PLATFORM --filename https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syntasso/kratix/main/config/samples/platform_v1alpha1_bucketstatestore.yaml

Set up a worker cluster

Create worker cluster

If you are not using a pre-existing cluster, create your platform cluster locally using KinD:

kind create cluster --image kindest/node:v1.27.3 --name worker

# set WORKER to point to the worker cluster context
export WORKER="kind-worker"

If you are using your own pre-existing cluster, set the WORKER environment variable to the name of the kubectl context used to communicate to it.

Install Flux

Follow the Flux installation guide to install Flux, or if you are just using this cluster for testing you can use the following manifest (NOT to be used for production). Other GitOps tools are available, such as ArgoCD.

kubectl apply --context $WORKER --filename https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syntasso/kratix/main/hack/destination/gitops-tk-install.yaml

Make sure that flux is ready before proceeding:

$ kubectl --context $WORKER get pods --namespace flux-system
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
helm-controller-5f7457c9dd-s5qzt 1/1 Running 0 18s
kustomize-controller-5f58d55f76-hwm5w 1/1 Running 0 19s
notification-controller-685bdc466d-5xmk8 1/1 Running 0 16s
source-controller-86b8b57796-t6xgg 1/1 Running 0 20s

Configure Flux

Now that Flux is installed, we need to configure it to pull down from the Kratix State Store. Follow the steps below that match the State Store you created previously:

# Configure Flux to pull down from MinIO
kubectl apply --context $WORKER --filename https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syntasso/kratix/main/hack/destination/gitops-tk-resources.yaml

Register cluster as a Destination with Kratix

The final step is to tell Kratix that the cluster is ready to receive workloads. Follow the steps below that match the State Store you created previously:

# Configure Flux to pull down from MinIO
kubectl apply --context $PLATFORM --filename https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syntasso/kratix/main/config/samples/platform_v1alpha1_worker.yaml

Flux will eventually reconcile the cluster's state, making the worker cluster ready to receive workloads. You can verify its readiness by observing the kratix-worker-system namespace appearing in the worker cluster:

$ kubectl --context $WORKER get namespaces
NAME STATUS AGE
...
kratix-worker-system Active 1m
...

🎉 Congratulations! Kratix is now installed! Jump to Installing and using a Promise to spin up your first as-a-service offering.