Category Archives: DevOps

Upgrading Ingress Rules And Adding TLS Certificates With Jenkins X

Without TLS certificates the applications we install are accessible through a plain HTTP protocol. As I'm sure you're aware, that is not acceptable. All public-facing applications should be available through HTTPS only, and that means that we need TLS certificates. We could generate them ourselves for each of the applications, but that would be too much work. Instead, we'll try to figure out how to create and manage the certificates automatically. Fortunately, Jenkins X already solved that and quite a few other Ingress-related challenges. We just need to learn how to tell jx what exactly we need.

Continue reading →

Implementing ChatOps With Jenkins X

Leave a reply

Jenkins X main logic is based on applying GitOps principles. Every change must be recorded in Git, and only Git is allowed to initiate events that result in changes in our clusters. That logic is the cornerstone of Jenkins X, and it served us well so far. However, there are actions we might need to perform that do not result in changes to the source code or configurations. Hence the emergence of ChatOps.
Continue reading →

Going Serverless With Jenkins X: Exploring Prow, Jenkins X Pipeline Operator, And Tekton

Leave a reply

The serverless flavor of Jenkins X or, as some call it, Jenkins X Next Generation, is an attempt to redefine how we do continuous delivery and GitOps inside Kubernetes clusters. It does that by combining quite a few tools into a single easy-to-use bundle. As a result, most people will not have a need to understand intricacies of how the pieces work independently, nor how they are all integrated. Instead, many will merely push a change to Git and let the system do the rest. But, there are always those who would like to know what's happening behind the hood. To satisfy those craving for insight, we'll explore the processes and the components involved in the serverless Jenkins X platform. Understanding the flow of an event initiated by a Git webhook will give us insight into how the solution works and help us later on when we go deeper into each of the new components.
Continue reading →

Working With Pull Requests And Preview Environments

2 Replies

Pull Requests (or whatever their equivalents are called in your favorite Git distribution) are a norm. Most of us adopted them as the primary way of reviewing and accepting changes that will ultimately be deployed to production. They work hand-in-hand with feature branches.
Continue reading →

Creating Custom Jenkins X Build Packs

Leave a reply

I stand by my claim that "you do not need to understand Kubernetes to use Jenkins X." To be more precise, those who do not want to know Kubernetes and its ecosystem in detail can benefit from Jenkins X ability to simplify the processes around software development lifecycle. That's the promise or, at least, one of the driving ideas behind the project. Nevertheless, for that goal to reach as wide of an audience as possible, we need a variety of build packs. The more we have, the more use cases can be covered with a single jx import or jx quickstart command. The problem is that there is an infinite number of types of applications and combinations we might have. Not all can be covered with community-based packs. No matter how much effort the community puts into creating build packs, they will always be a fraction of what we might need. That's where you come in.
Continue reading →

Is Your Cluster Ready For Jenkins X?

Leave a reply

If you're reading this, the chances are that you do not want to use jx cluster create to create a new cluster that will host Jenkins X. That is OK, or even welcome. That likely means that you are already experienced with Kubernetes and that you already have applications running in Kubernetes. That's a sign of maturity and your desire to add Jenkins X to the mix of whichever applications you are already running there. After all, it would be silly to create a new cluster for each set of applications.

However, using an existing Kubernetes cluster is risky. Many people think that they are so smart that they will assemble their Kubernetes cluster from scratch. "We're so awesome that we don't need tools like Rancher to create a cluster for us." "We'll do it with kubeadm." Then, after a lot of sweat, we announce that the cluster is operational, only to discover that there is no StorageClass or that networking does not work. So, if you assembled your own cluster and you want to use Jenkins X inside it, you need to ask yourself whether that cluster is set up correctly. Does it have everything we need? Does it comply with standards, or did you tweak it to meet your corporate restrictions? Did you choose to remove StorageClass because all your applications are stateless? Were you forced by your security department to restrict communication between Namespaces? Is the Kubernetes version too old? We can answer those and many other questions by running compliance tests.
Continue reading →

What Is Jenkins X?

Leave a reply

To understand intricacies and inner workings of Jenkins X, we need to understand Kubernetes. But, you do not need to understand Kubernetes to use Jenkins X. That is one of the main contributions of the project. Jenkins X allows us to harness the power of Kubernetes without spending eternity learning the ever-growing list of the things it does. Jenkins X helps us by simplifying complex processes into concepts that can be adopted quickly and without spending months in trying to figure out "the right way to do stuff." It helps by removing and simplifying some of the problems caused by the overall complexity of Kubernetes and its ecosystem. If you are indeed a Kubernetes ninja, you will appreciate all the effort put into Jenkins X. If you're not, you will be able to jump right in and harness the power of Kubernetes without ripping your hair out of frustration caused by Kubernetes complexity.
Continue reading →

“The DevOps 2.6 Toolkit: Jenkins X” is born

Leave a reply

When I finished the last book (The DevOps 2.5 Toolkit: Monitoring, Logging, and Auto-Scaling Kubernetes), I wanted to take a break from writing for a month or two. I thought that would clear my mind and help me decide which subject to tackle next. Those days were horrible. I could not make up my mind. So many cool and useful tech is emerging and being adopted. I was never as undecided as those weeks. Which should be my next step?

I could explore serverless. That's definitely useful, and it might be considered the next big thing. Or I could dive into Istio. It is probably the biggest and the most important project sitting on top of Kubernetes. Or I could tackle some smaller subjects. Kaniko is the missing link in continuous delivery. Building containers might be the only thing we still do on the host level, and Kaniko allows us to move that process inside containers. How about security scanning? It is one of the things that are mandatory in most organizations, and yet I did not include it in "The DevOps 2.4 Toolkit: Continuous Deployment To Kubernetes". Then there is skaffold, prow, KNative, and quite a few other tools that are becoming stable and very useful.
Continue reading →

“The DevOps 2.5 Toolkit: Monitoring, Logging, and Auto-Scaling Kubernetes” is available!

Leave a reply

The DevOps 2.5 Toolkit: Monitoring, Logging, and Auto-Scaling Kubernetes is finally finished!!!

What do we do in Kubernetes after we master deployments and automate all the processes? We dive into monitoring, logging, auto-scaling, and other topics aimed at making our cluster resilient, self-sufficient, and self-adaptive.
Continue reading →

What Should We Expect From Centralized Logging?

4 Replies

There are quite a few candidates for your need for centralized logging. Which one should you choose? Will it be Papertrail, Elasticsearch-Fluentd-Kibana stack (EFK), AWS CloudWatch, GCP Stackdriver, Azure Log Analytics, or something else?

When possible and practical, I prefer a centralized logging solution provided as a service, instead of running it inside my clusters. Many things are easier when others are making sure that everything works. If we use Helm to install EFK, it might seem like an easy setup. However, maintenance is far from trivial. Elasticsearch requires a lot of resources. For smaller clusters, compute required to run Elasticsearch alone is likely higher than the price of Papertrail or similar solutions. If I can get a service managed by others for the same price as running the alternative inside my own cluster, service wins most of the time. But, there are a few exceptions.
Continue reading →