setup.md

title	menu_order
Setup Weave Flux Manually	20

Connecting fluxctl to the daemon

You need to tell fluxctl where to find the Flux API. If you're using minikube, say, you can get the IP address of the host, and the port, with

$ flux_host=$(minikube ip)
$ flux_port=$(kubectl get svc flux --template '{{ index .spec.ports 0 "nodePort" }}')
$ export FLUX_URL=http://$flux_host:$flux_port/api/flux

Exporting FLUX_URL is enough for fluxctl to know how to contact the daemon. You could alternatively supply the --url argument each time.

Customising the daemon configuration

Connect flux to a repository

First, you need to connect flux to the repository with Kubernetes manifests. This is achieved by settings the --git-url and --git-branch arguments in the flux-deployment.yaml manifest.

Add an SSH deploy key to the repository

Flux connects to the repository using an SSH key. You have two options:

1. Allow flux to generate a key for you.

If you don't specify a key to use, Flux will create one for you. Obtain the public key through fluxctl:

$ fluxctl identity
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAAAgQDCN2ECqUFMR413CURbLBcG41fLY75SfVZCd3LCsJBClVlEcMk4lwXxA3X4jowpv2v4Jw2qqiWKJepBf2UweBLmbWYicHc6yboj5o297//+ov0qGt/uRuexMN7WUx6c93VFGV7Pjd60Yilb6GSF8B39iEVq7GQUC1OZRgQnKZWLSQ==
0c:de:7d:47:52:cf:87:61:52:db:e3:b8:d8:1a:b5:ac
+---[RSA 1024]----+
|            ..=  |
|             + B |
|      .     . +.=|
|     . + .   oo o|
|      . S . .o.. |
|           .=.o  |
|           o =   |
|            +    |
|           E     |
+------[MD5]------+

Alternatively, you can see the public key in the flux log.

The public key will need to be given to the service hosting the Git repository. For example, in GitHub you would create an SSH deploy key in the repository, supplying that public key.

The flux logs should show that it has now connected to the repository and synchronised the cluster.

When using Kubernetes, this key is stored as a Kubernetes secret. You can restart flux and it will continue to use the same key.

2. Specify a key to use

Create a Kubernetes Secret from a private key:

kubectl create secret generic flux-git-deploy --from-file /path/to/identity

Now add the secret to the flux-deployment.yaml manifest:

    ...
    spec:
      volumes:
      - name: git-key
        secret:
          secretName: flux-git-deploy

And add a volume mount for the container:

    ...
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: fluxd
        volumeMounts:
        - name: git-key
          mountPath: /etc/fluxd/ssh

You can customise the paths and names of the chosen key with the arguments (examples with defaults): --k8s-secret-name=flux-git-deploy, --k8s-secret-volume-mount-path=/etc/fluxd/ssh and --k8s-secret-data-key=identity

Using an SSH key allows you to maintain control of the repository. You can revoke permission for flux to access the repository at any time by removing the deploy key.