Continuous Delivery with OpenShift Pipelines

20 MINUTE EXERCISE

In this lab you will learn about deployment pipelines and you will create a pipeline to automate build and deployment of the Inventory service.

Continuous Delivery

So far you have been deploying each service manually to OpenShift. Although it’s convenient for local development, it’s an error-prone way of delivering software if extended to test and production environments.

Continuous Delivery (CD) refers to a set of practices with the intention of automating various aspects of delivery software. One of these practices is called Delivery Pipeline which is an automated process to define the steps a change in code or configuration has to go through in order to reach upper environments and eventually to production.

OpenShift simplifies building CI/CD Pipelines by integrating TektonCD into the platform and enables defining truly complex workflows directly from within OpenShift.

Create a custom Task

You have learnt and understood how to create a simple Pipeline. Now, let’s create a task to deploy the OpenShift Configuration from Argo CD and add it the existing pipeline.

A Task consists of a collection of Steps that are executed sequentially with a pod.

Each Step is executed in a separate container within the same pod. They can also have inputs and outputs in order to interact with other tasks in the pipeline.

In the OpenShift Web Console, from the Developer view, click on 'Search' → 'Task' → 'T Task' → 'Create Task'.

Then update the content as follows:

apiVersion: tekton.dev/v1beta1
kind: Task
metadata:
  name: argocd-task-sync-and-wait
  namespace: cn-project%USER_ID%
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/version: "0.1"
  annotations:
    tekton.dev/pipelines.minVersion: "0.12.1"
    tekton.dev/tags: deploy
    tekton.dev/displayName: "argocd"
spec:
  description: >-
    This task syncs (deploys) an Argo CD application and waits for it to be healthy.
    To do so, it requires the address of the Argo CD server and some form of
    authentication either a username/password or an authentication token.
  params:
    - name: application-name
      description: name of the application to sync
  stepTemplate:
    envFrom:
      - configMapRef:
          name: argocd-env-configmap  # used for server address
      - secretRef:
          name: argocd-env-secret  # used for authentication (username/password or auth token)
  steps:
    - name: login-sync-and-wait
      image: argoproj/argocd:v1.7.6
      script: |
        if [ -z $ARGOCD_AUTH_TOKEN ]; then
          yes | argocd login $ARGOCD_SERVER --username=$ARGOCD_USERNAME --password=$ARGOCD_PASSWORD --plaintext;
        fi
        argocd app sync $(params.application-name)%USER_ID%
        argocd app wait $(params.application-name)%USER_ID% --health

Then click on 'create'. Your Argo CD Task is now created.

Now let’s define the Argo CD server endpoint as well as the credentials so that the Task you just created has access to the server.

In the OpenShift Web Console, from the Developer view, click on 'Config Maps' then click on the 'Create Config Map' button.

Then replace the content with the following input:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: argocd-env-configmap
  namespace: cn-project%USER_ID%
data:
  ARGOCD_SERVER: argocd-server.argocd.svc

Click on the 'Create' button.

Then click on 'Secrets' → 'Create' → 'Key/Value Secret'.

Enter the following configuration:

Table 1. ArgoCD Task Secret
Parameter	Value
Secret Name *	argocd-env-secret

Key	Value
ARGOCD_USERNAME	user%USER_ID%
ARGOCD_PASSWORD	%OPENSHIFT_PASSWORD%

Key

Value

ARGOCD_USERNAME

user%USER_ID%

ARGOCD_PASSWORD

%OPENSHIFT_PASSWORD%

Click on the 'Create' button

Expand your Pipeline

Now let’s expand your Inventory Pipeline to cover the Continuous Deployment.

In the OpenShift Web Console, from the Developer view, click on 'Pipelines' → 'PL inventory-pipeline' → 'Actions' → 'Edit Pipeline'

then, complete your pipeline with the following two Red Hat tasks and their configurations:

Table 2. ArgoCD Task Configuration
Section	Parameter	Value
Name	argocd-task-sync-and-wait
Parameters	application-name *	inventory

Table 3. OpenShift Client Task Configuration
Section	Parameter	Value
Name	openshift-client
Parameters	SCRIPT	oc rollout status deployment/inventory-coolstore

Run the Full Pipeline

In the OpenShift Web Console, from the Developer view, click on 'Pipelines' → 'PL inventory-pipeline' → 'Actions' → 'Start last run'

Start last run will run your pipeline with the previous parameters i.e with the previous PVC created for the shared workspace

Congratulations!! You have deployed your first application using OpenShift Pipeline!!

Once finished, from the Topology view, select the 'cn-project%USER_ID%'.

OpenShift - Inventory Deployed by Tekton

Now, you can see that the Inventory Service has been deployed by OpenShift Pipeline and it is up and running.

In the Argo CD, Select the 'Application menu' then click on the 'inventory%USER_ID%' application:

Argo CD has synchronized all the Inventory OpenShift manifests stored into your Inventory Repository with your 'cn-project%USER_ID%' project on OpenShift.

Deploy the whole application with Tekton

Previously, for the Inventory Service, you have learned how to create, configure and run an OpenShift pipeline. Now, let’s deploy the rest of the application.

For doing so, click on 'Terminal' → 'Run Task…' → 'Pipeline - Deploy Coolstore'

Once executed, in the OpenShift Web Console, from the Developer view,

Click on 'Pipelines' → 'PL - coolstore-java-pipeline' → 'Pipeline Runs'

You should see 1 pipeline running for the other Java service (Catalog).

Click on 'Pipelines' → 'PL - coolstore-dotnet-pipeline' → 'Pipeline Runs'

You should see 1 pipeline running for the the .NET service (Gateway).

Click on 'Pipelines' → 'PL - coolstore-nodejs-pipeline' → 'Pipeline Runs'

You should see 1 pipeline running for the NodeJs service (Web).

Click on 'Topology' from the Developer view of the OpenShift Web Console and validate that the CoolStore application is deployed, up and running in the cn-project%USER_ID% project.

OpenShift - Coolstore Deployed by Tekton

Finally, in Argo CD, all Applications are now 'Synced'.

Well done! You are ready for the next lab.