Argo CD supports several different ways in which kubernetes manifests can be defined:
- ksonnet applications
- kustomize applications
- helm charts
- Directory of YAML/json/jsonnet manifests
- Any custom config management tool configured as a config management plugin
Some additional considerations should be made when deploying apps of a particular type:
Ksonnet has a first class concept of an "environment." To create an application from a ksonnet
app directory, an environment must be specified. For example, the following command creates the
"guestbook-default" app, which points to the default
environment:
argocd app create guestbook-default --repo https://github.com/argoproj/argocd-example-apps.git --path guestbook --env default
Ksonnet parameters all belong to a component. For example, the following are the parameters
available in the guestbook app, all of which belong to the guestbook-ui
component:
$ ks param list
COMPONENT PARAM VALUE
========= ===== =====
guestbook-ui containerPort 80
guestbook-ui image "gcr.io/heptio-images/ks-guestbook-demo:0.1"
guestbook-ui name "guestbook-ui"
guestbook-ui replicas 1
guestbook-ui servicePort 80
guestbook-ui type "LoadBalancer"
When overriding ksonnet parameters in Argo CD, the component name should also be specified in the
argocd app set
command, in the form of -p COMPONENT=PARAM=VALUE
. For example:
argocd app set guestbook-default -p guestbook-ui=image=gcr.io/heptio-images/ks-guestbook-demo:0.1
Helm has the ability to use a different, or even multiple "values.yaml" files to derive its
parameters from. Alternate or multiple values file(s), can be specified using the --values
flag. The flag can be repeated to support multiple values files:
argocd app set helm-guestbook --values values-production.yaml
Helm has the ability to set parameter values, which override any values in
a values.yaml
. For example, service.type
is a common parameter which is exposed in a Helm chart:
helm template . --set service.type=LoadBalancer
Similarly Argo CD can override values in the values.yaml
parameters using argo app set
command,
in the form of -p PARAM=VALUE
. For example:
argocd app set helm-guestbook -p service.type=LoadBalancer
Helm hooks are equivalent in concept to Argo CD resource hooks. In helm, a hook
is any normal kubernetes resource annotated with the helm.sh/hook
annotation. When Argo CD deploys
helm application which contains helm hooks, all helm hook resources are currently ignored during
the kubectl apply
of the manifests. There is an
open issue to map Helm hooks to Argo CD's concept
of Pre/Post/Sync hooks.
Helm templating has the ability to generate random data during chart rendering via the
randAlphaNum
function. Many helm charts from the charts repository
make use of this feature. For example, the following is the secret for the
redis helm chart:
data:
{{- if .Values.password }}
redis-password: {{ .Values.password | b64enc | quote }}
{{- else }}
redis-password: {{ randAlphaNum 10 | b64enc | quote }}
{{- end }}
The Argo CD application controller periodically compares git state against the live state, running
the helm template <CHART>
command to generate the helm manifests. Because the random value is
regenerated every time the comparison is made, any application which makes use of the randAlphaNum
function will always be in an OutOfSync
state. This can be mitigated by explicitly setting a
value, in the values.yaml such that the value is stable between each comparison. For example:
argocd app set redis -p password=abc123
Argo CD allows integrating more config management tools using config management plugins. Following changes are required to configure new plugin:
- Make sure required binaries are available in
argocd-repo-server
pod. The binaries can be added via volume mounts or using custom image (see custom_tools). - Register a new plugin in
argocd-cm
ConfigMap:
data:
configManagementPlugins: |
- name: pluginName
init: # Optional command to initialize application source directory
command: ["sample command"]
args: ["sample args"]
generate: # Command to generate manifests YAML
command: ["sample command"]
args: ["sample args"]
The generate
command must print a valid YAML stream to stdout. Both init
and generate
commands are executed inside the application source directory.
Commands have access to system environment variables and following additional variables:
ARGOCD_APP_NAME
- name of application; ARGOCD_APP_NAMESPACE
- destination application namespace
- Create an application and specify required config management plugin name.
argocd app create <appName> --config-management-plugin <pluginName>
More config management plugin examples are available in argocd-example-apps.