FluxCD for continuous delivery in Kubernetes - Mini Project: Build & Apply

FluxCD for continuous delivery

📖 Scenario: You are working as a DevOps engineer for a small company. Your team wants to automate the deployment of applications to Kubernetes clusters using GitOps principles. You will use FluxCD, a tool that watches your Git repository and applies changes automatically to your cluster.

🎯 Goal: Set up a basic FluxCD configuration to deploy a simple Kubernetes application from a Git repository. You will create the initial Kubernetes manifest, configure FluxCD to watch the repository, apply the main deployment logic, and finally verify the deployment.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Kubernetes manifest file for a simple Nginx deployment

Add a FluxCD GitRepository resource to point to the Git repo

Create a FluxCD Kustomization resource to apply the deployment

Verify the deployment by checking the FluxCD sync status

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

FluxCD is widely used in real companies to automate Kubernetes deployments by syncing cluster state with Git repositories. This reduces manual errors and speeds up delivery.

💼 Career

Understanding FluxCD and GitOps is valuable for DevOps roles, Kubernetes administrators, and cloud engineers who manage continuous delivery pipelines.

1

Create the initial Kubernetes manifest

Create a file named nginx-deployment.yaml with a Kubernetes Deployment manifest for Nginx. Use apiVersion: apps/v1, kind: Deployment, and set metadata.name to nginx-deployment. The deployment should have 1 replica and use the image nginx:latest. Include a container port 80.

Kubernetes

# Create nginx-deployment.yaml with the required Deployment manifest
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to set metadata.name exactly to nginx-deployment and use nginx:latest as the container image.

2

Add FluxCD GitRepository resource

Create a file named flux-gitrepository.yaml with a FluxCD GitRepository resource. Set apiVersion to source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2 and kind to GitRepository. Name the resource nginx-repo. Set the spec.url to https://github.com/example/nginx-config.git and spec.interval to 1m.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

# Create flux-gitrepository.yaml with GitRepository resource
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Make sure the GitRepository resource has the exact name nginx-repo and the URL matches exactly.

3

Create FluxCD Kustomization resource

Create a file named flux-kustomization.yaml with a FluxCD Kustomization resource. Use apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2 and kind: Kustomization. Name it nginx-kustomization. Set spec.interval to 1m, spec.path to ./, and spec.sourceRef.name to nginx-repo with kind GitRepository. This will apply the manifests from the Git repository.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: GitRepository
metadata:
  name: nginx-repo
spec:
  interval: 1m
  url: https://github.com/example/nginx-config.git

# Create flux-kustomization.yaml with Kustomization resource
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Ensure the Kustomization resource references the nginx-repo GitRepository by name and kind.

4

Verify FluxCD deployment sync status

Run the command flux get kustomizations in your terminal to check the sync status of the nginx-kustomization. This command shows if FluxCD has applied the manifests successfully.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
---
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: GitRepository
metadata:
  name: nginx-repo
spec:
  interval: 1m
  url: https://github.com/example/nginx-config.git
---
apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: nginx-kustomization
spec:
  interval: 1m
  path: ./
  sourceRef:
    kind: GitRepository
    name: nginx-repo

# Run the command below to check FluxCD sync status
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the exact command flux get kustomizations to see the status. Look for nginx-kustomization in the output.