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Initialize a Kubernetes cluster

This guide shows how to initialize a Kubernetes cluster to work with Lizz.

Requirements​

To initialize a cluster, you first need to have the following:

  • a Kubernetes cluster,
  • the flux and kubectl CLIs installed

Export your credentials​

Export your GitHub personal access token and username:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=<your-token>
export GITHUB_USER=<your-username>

Create the fleet repository​

The following command creates the fleet repository with the correct structure and content for Lizz and Flux:

lizz init github \
  --owner=$GITHUB_USER \
  --destination=fleet \
  --origin-url=https://github.com/openlizz/fleet \
  --personal

You should see the following output:

Initialize the cluster repository...
 ✓ Clone the cluster repository
 ✓ Create a new configuration for the cluster
 ✓ Create new repository
 ✓ Commit and push to the cluster repository

Install Flux in your cluster​

For information about Flux and the bootstrap options, see the Flux documentation.

Run the bootstrap command:

flux bootstrap github \
  --owner=$GITHUB_USER \
  --repository=fleet \
  --branch=main \
  --path=cluster \
  --personal

The output is similar to:

► connecting to github.com
► cloning branch "main" from Git repository
✔ cloned repository
► generating component manifests
✔ generated component manifests
✔ committed sync manifests to "main"
► pushing component manifests
► installing components in "flux-system" namespace
✔ installed components
✔ reconciled components
► determining if source secret "flux-system/flux-system" exists
► generating source secret
✔ public key: xxx
✔ configured deploy key "flux-system-main-flux-system-./cluster"
► applying source secret "flux-system/flux-system"
✔ reconciled source secret
► generating sync manifests
✔ generated sync manifests
✔ committed sync manifests to "main"
► pushing sync manifests
► applying sync manifests
✔ reconciled sync configuration
◎ waiting for Kustomization "flux-system/flux-system" to be reconciled
✔ Kustomization reconciled successfully
► confirming components are healthy
✔ helm-controller: deployment ready
✔ kustomize-controller: deployment ready
✔ notification-controller: deployment ready
✔ source-controller: deployment ready
✔ all components are healthy

The bootstrap command above does following:

  • Adds Flux component manifests to the repository
  • Deploys Flux Components to your Kubernetes Cluster
  • Configures Flux components to track the path /cluster/ in the repository

Configure Kubernetes secrets management​

In order to store secrets safely in public or private Git repositories, Lizz uses Mozilla’s SOPS.

Run the following command to configure secret management:

lizz secret-management github --owner=$GITHUB_USER --fleet=fleet

The output is similar to:

Configure secret management...
 ✓ Clone the cluster repository
 ✓ Open and read the cluster configuration file
 ✓ Configure the secret management
 ✓ Commit and push to the cluster repository
Run `kubectl apply -f secret.yaml` to apply the secret to the cluster

This command generates the secret.yaml file which contains the age private key used to decrypt secrets. You need to store the private key in your Kubernetes cluster by running:

kubectl apply -f secret.yaml

Keep safe the private key or the secret.yaml file as this is the only way to decrypt the secrets stored in the Git repositories. You will need this key in case of a disaster to restore your cluster.

Next​

Your cluster is now initialized to work with Lizz 🥳

You can add an application to it.