Build, publish, and deploy using Tekton and ArgoCD

This repository contains a simple application that uses ArgoCD to deploy its Tekton pipeline to Docker Desktop. It uses Tekton to build an image and publish it to the Container Registry after a developer commits changes to the application. And it executes an ArgoCD sync to deploy the application.

Run Sample Application and Test Locally with Docker

The sample application is created following this tutorial simulating how a new user might learn to containerize a Node Application.

1. To run the application locally, Install Docker Desktop.

2. We can run the application locally if we have node installed

cd awesome-application/
npm install
node server.js

3. Since we have the code, docker build with a tag

docker build -t <your username>/demo .

4. Run the application in a container.

docker run -p 49162:8082 -d <your username>/demo

5. Check that the container is running.

docker ps

6. Test the Application

curl -i localhost:49162

Pre-requisites

To complete this tutorial, we need:

• Docker Desktop with Kubernetes
• ArgoCD
• Tekton Pipelines
• Tekton Triggers
• Tekton Dashboard

Install ArgoCD

Install ArgoCD

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Download ArgoCD CLI

brew install argocd

Change the argocd-server service type to LoadBalancer:

kubectl patch svc argocd-server -n argocd -p '{"spec": {"type": "LoadBalancer"}}'

Kubectl port-forwarding can also be used to connect to the API server without exposing the service.

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8090:443

The API server can then be accessed using the http://localhost:8090

Login Using the CLI, using the username admin and the password from below:

kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d

Change the password using the command:

argocd login localhost:8090
argocd account update-password

Register a cluster docker-desktop to deploy apps to

argocd cluster add docker-desktop

Install Tekton Pipelines

kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/pipeline/latest/release.yaml

Install Tekton Triggers

kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/triggers/latest/release.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/triggers/latest/interceptors.yaml

Install Tekton Dashboard

kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/tekton-dashboard-release.yaml

The Dashboard can be accessed through its ClusterIP Service by running kubectl proxy. Assuming tekton-pipelines is the installed namespace for the Dashboard, run the following command:

kubectl proxy

Browse http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/tekton-pipelines/services/tekton-dashboard:http/proxy/ to access your Dashboard.

Create Namespace

kubectl create namespace demo

Install the Argo CD Tekton Task into the argocd namespace

After Tekton builds the application and pushes the container image into the Image Repository, Tekton needs to trigger a new Deployment. There is a special task that allows Tekton to trigger a ArgoCD sync. We have to install the Argo CD Tekton Task for that.

kubectl apply -n demo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tektoncd/catalog/main/task/argocd-task-sync-and-wait/0.1/argocd-task-sync-and-wait.yaml

Update ArgoCD secret

There is a file called argocdsecret.template which contains

• argocd-env-configmap: ConfigMap with ARGOCD_SERVER used for server address
• argocd-env-secret: Secret with ARGOCD_USER and ARGOCD_PASSWORD used for authentication

Create a copy of that file as yaml.

cd pipeline/
cp argocdsecret.template  argocdsecret.yaml

In the newly created file, replace the value for ARGOCD_SERVER (localhost:8090) with the ArgoCD server, ARGOCD_USERNAME with the username and ARGOCD_PASSWORD with the Base 64 encoded password.

Update ServiceAccount secret

There is a file called serviceaccount.template which contains

• dockerhub-user-pass: Secret with ${DOCKER_USERNAME} and ${DOCKER_PASSWORD} used for authentication
• demo-app-builder: ServiceAccount using the secret dockerhub-user-pass

Create a copy of that file as yaml.

cd pipeline/
cp serviceaccount.template  serviceaccount.yaml

In the newly created file, replace the value for DOCKER_USERNAME and DOCKER_PASSWORD with your docker credentials.

What's inside Pipeline?

• pipeline-resources.yaml: Pipeline Resources are configured for the pipeline. We will create two resources (git and image), which will need the name of the git repository, and the name of the Container Image using the Docker Hub. Note, the resources here allow us to run a Pipeline from the Tekton Dashboard or CLI. It hard codes default values. They will be overridden by Trigger Template when builds are done via a git push.

• pipeline.yaml: Our Pipeline for building, publishing, and deploying our application. There are two Tasks. We make use of the shared tasks rather than creating our own. Tasks:

  • the build-and-publish-image uses Kaniko to build an image.
  • the argocd-sync-deployment uses the ArgoCD task we installed earlier.

• triggertemplate.yaml: Now that the pipeline is setup, there are several resources created in this file. This file creates the needed resources for triggering builds from an external source, in our case a Git webhook. We can learn more about Tekton Triggers here. We have created the following.

  • A TriggerTemplate is used to create a template of the same pipeline resources, but dynamically generated to not hard code image name or source. It also creates a PipelineRun Template that will be created when a build is triggered.

  • A TriggerBinding that binds the incoming event data to the template (this will populate things like git repo name, revision, etc)

  • An EventListener that will create a pod application bringing together a binding and a template.

Create and configure ArgoCD App for Tekton Pipeline

We can use ArgoCD to deploy the Tekton build for the application.

argocd app create demo-app-build --repo https://github.com/pritidesai/awesome-application --path pipeline --dest-name docker-desktop --dest-namespace demo

Once you run sync, your pipeline should be deployed, and your screen in ArgoCD should look like below.

argocd app sync demo-app-build

kubectl get eventlistener -n demo
NAME       ADDRESS                                           AVAILABLE   REASON                     READY   REASON
demo-el   http://el-demo-el.demo.svc.cluster.local:8080   True        MinimumReplicasAvailable

kubectl port-forward  svc/el-demo-el -n demo 8080

What's inside Deployment?

• deployment.yaml - This represents our Kubernetes Deployment.

• service.yaml: This expose the sample application to the cluster.

Create ArgoCD App for Web App Resources

Just like we used ArgoCD to deploy the tekton pipeline, we will create another ArgoCD app that corresponds to the deployment.

argocd app create demo-app-deploy --repo https://github.com/pritidesai/awesome-application --path deployment --dest-name docker-desktop --dest-namespace demo