For example, I run a Pod in a public cloud cluster. The Pod has a main container running the app. The cluster has an environment variable named ABC. Within the main container, I wish to access the environment variable ABC. What is the best way to do so?
Very simple option
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: envar-demo
labels:
purpose: demonstrate-envars
spec:
containers:
- name: envar-demo-container
image: gcr.io/google-samples/node-hello:1.0
env:
- name: DEMO_GREETING
value: "Hello from the environment"
- name: DEMO_FAREWELL
value: "Such a sweet sorrow"
Read more : https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/inject-data-application/define-environment-variable-container/
Option 1
If variables is not much important you can use the configmap to store the and config map will get injected to POD and your app can access the variables from OS.
Read more about configmap : https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/configmap/
Example configmap :
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: special-config
namespace: default
data:
SPECIAL_LEVEL: very
SPECIAL_TYPE: charm
example pod
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
containers:
- name: test-container
image: k8s.gcr.io/busybox
command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "ls /etc/config/" ]
volumeMounts:
- name: config-volume
mountPath: /etc/config
volumes:
- name: config-volume
configMap:
# Provide the name of the ConfigMap containing the files you want
# to add to the container
name: special-config
restartPolicy: Never
You can also inject files with list of variables as per requirement.
Option 2 :
You can also use secret if your variable is important : https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/secret/
Option 3 :
If you want to go with best practices and options you can use the vault with Kubernetes for managing all different microservice variables management.
Vault : https://www.vaultproject.io/
Example : https://github.com/travelaudience/kubernetes-vault-example
it key-value pair management and provides good security options also.
Related
I'll describe what is my target then show what I had done to achieve it... my goal is to:
create a configmap that holds a path for properties file
create a deployment, that has a volume mounting the file from the path configured in configmap
What I had done:
ConfigMap:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: my-configmap
data:
my_properties_file_name: "my.properties"
Deployment:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: my-client-deployment
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: my-client
replicas: 1 # tells deployment to run 2 pods matching the template
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: my-client
spec:
containers:
- name: my-client-container
image: {{ .Values.image.client}}
imagePullPolicy: {{ .Values.pullPolicy.client }}
ports:
- containerPort: 80
env:
- name: MY_PROPERTIES_FILE_NAME
valueFrom:
configMapKeyRef:
name: my-configmap
key: my_properties_file_name
volumeMounts:
- name: config
mountPath: "/etc/config"
readOnly: true
imagePullSecrets:
- name: secret-private-registry
volumes:
# You set volumes at the Pod level, then mount them into containers inside that Pod
- name: config
configMap:
# Provide the name of the ConfigMap you want to mount.
name: my-configmap
# An array of keys from the ConfigMap to create as files
items:
- key: "my_properties_file_name"
path: "my.properties"
The result is having a file namedmy.properties under /etc/config, BUT the content of that file is "my.properties" (as it was indicated as the file name in the configmap), and not the content of properties file as I have it actually in my localdisk.
How can I mount that file, using it's path configured in a configmap?
Put the content of the my.properties file directly inside the ConfigMap:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: my-configmap
data:
my_properties_file_name: |
This is the content of the file.
It supports multiple lines but do take care of the indentation.
Or you can also use a kubectl create configmap command:
kubectl create configmap my-configmap --from-file=my_properties_file_name=./my.properties
In either method, you are actually passing the snapshot of the content of the file on the localdisk to kubernetes to store. Any changes you make to the file on the localdisk won't be reflected unless you re-create the configmap.
The design of kubernetes allows running kubectl command against kubernetes cluster located on the other side of the globe so you can't simply mount a file on your localdisk to be accessible in realtime by the cluster. If you want such mechanism, you can't use a ConfigMap, but instead you would need to setup a shared volume that is mounted by both your local machine and the cluster for example using a NFS server.
I am working on operator-sdk, in the controller, we often need to create a Deployment object, and Deployment resource has a lot of configuration items, such as environment variables or ports definition or others as following. I am wondering what is best way to get these values, I don't want to hard code them, for example, variable_a or variable_b.
Probably, you can put them in the CRD as spec, then pass them to Operator Controller; Or maybe you can put them in the configmap, then pass configmap name to Operator Controller, Operator Controller can access configmap to get them; Or maybe you can put in the template file, then in the Operator Controller, controller has to read that template file.
What is best way or best practice to deal with this situation? Thanks for sharing your ideas or points.
deployment := &appsv1.Deployment{
ObjectMeta: metav1.ObjectMeta{
Name: m.Name,
Namespace: m.Namespace,
Labels: ls,
},
Spec: appsv1.DeploymentSpec{
Replicas: &replicas,
Selector: &metav1.LabelSelector{
MatchLabels: ls,
},
Template: corev1.PodTemplateSpec{
ObjectMeta: metav1.ObjectMeta{
Labels: ls,
},
Spec: corev1.PodSpec{
Containers: []corev1.Container{{
Image: "....",
Name: m.Name,
Ports: []corev1.ContainerPort{{
ContainerPort: port_a,
Name: "tcpport",
}},
Env: []corev1.EnvVar{
{
Name: "aaaa",
Value: variable_a,
},
{
Name: "bbbb",
Value: variable_b,
},
Using enviroment variables
It can be convenient that your app gets your data as environment variables.
Environment variables from ConfigMap
For non-sensitive data, you can store your variables in a ConfigMap and then define container environment variables using the ConfigMap data.
Example from Kubernetes docs:
Create the ConfigMap first. File configmaps.yaml:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: special-config
namespace: default
data:
special.how: very
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: env-config
namespace: default
data:
log_level: INFO
Create the ConfigMap:
kubectl create -f ./configmaps.yaml
Then define the environment variables in the Pod specification, pod-multiple-configmap-env-variable.yaml:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
containers:
- name: test-container
image: k8s.gcr.io/busybox
command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "env" ]
env:
- name: SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY
valueFrom:
configMapKeyRef:
name: special-config
key: special.how
- name: LOG_LEVEL
valueFrom:
configMapKeyRef:
name: env-config
key: log_level
restartPolicy: Never
Create the Pod:
kubectl create -f ./pod-multiple-configmap-env-variable.yaml
Now in your controller you can read these environment variables SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY (which will give you special.how value from special-config ConfigMap) and LOG_LEVEL (which will give you log_level value from env-config ConfigMap):
For example:
specialLevelKey := os.Getenv("SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY")
logLevel := os.Getenv("LOG_LEVEL")
fmt.Println("SPECIAL_LEVEL_KEY:", specialLevelKey)
fmt.Println("LOG_LEVEL:", logLevel)
Environment variables from Secret
If your data is sensitive, you can store it in a Secret and then use the Secret as environment variables.
To create a Secret manually:
You'll first need to encode your strings using base64.
# encode username
$ echo -n 'admin' | base64
YWRtaW4=
# encode password
$ echo -n '1f2d1e2e67df' | base64
MWYyZDFlMmU2N2Rm
Then create a Secret with the above data:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: mysecret
type: Opaque
data:
username: YWRtaW4=
password: MWYyZDFlMmU2N2Rm
Create a Secret with kubectl apply:
$ kubectl apply -f ./secret.yaml
Please notice that there are other ways to create a secret, pick one that works best for you:
Creating a Secret using kubectl
Creating a Secret from a generator
Creating a Secret from files
Creating a Secret from string literals
Now you can use this created Secret for environment variables.
To use a secret in an environment variable in a Pod:
Create a secret or use an existing one. Multiple Pods can reference the same secret.
Modify your Pod definition in each container that you wish to consume the value of a secret key to add an environment variable for each secret key you wish to consume. The environment variable that consumes the secret key should populate the secret's name and key in env[].valueFrom.secretKeyRef.
Modify your image and/or command line so that the program looks for values in the specified environment variables.
Here is a Pod example from Kubernetes docs that shows how to use a Secret for environment variables:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: secret-env-pod
spec:
containers:
- name: mycontainer
image: redis
env:
- name: SECRET_USERNAME
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: mysecret
key: username
- name: SECRET_PASSWORD
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: mysecret
key: password
restartPolicy: Never
Finally, as stated in the docs:
Inside a container that consumes a secret in an environment variables, the secret keys appear as normal environment variables containing the base64 decoded values of the secret data.
Now in your controller you can read these environment variables SECRET_USERNAME (which will give you username value from mysecret Secret) and SECRET_PASSWORD (which will give you password value from mysecret Secret):
For example:
username := os.Getenv("SECRET_USERNAME")
password := os.Getenv("SECRET_PASSWORD")
Using volumes
You can also mount both ConfigMap and Secret as a volume to you pods.
Populate a Volume with data stored in a ConfigMap:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: dapi-test-pod
spec:
containers:
- name: test-container
image: k8s.gcr.io/busybox
command: [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "ls /etc/config/" ]
volumeMounts:
- name: config-volume
mountPath: /etc/config
volumes:
- name: config-volume
configMap:
# Provide the name of the ConfigMap containing the files you want
# to add to the container
name: special-config
restartPolicy: Never
Using Secrets as files from a Pod:
To consume a Secret in a volume in a Pod:
Create a secret or use an existing one. Multiple Pods can reference the same secret.
Modify your Pod definition to add a volume under .spec.volumes[]. Name the volume anything, and have a .spec.volumes[].secret.secretName field equal to the name of the Secret object.
Add a .spec.containers[].volumeMounts[] to each container that needs the secret. Specify .spec.containers[].volumeMounts[].readOnly = true and .spec.containers[].volumeMounts[].mountPath to an unused directory name where you would like the secrets to appear.
Modify your image or command line so that the program looks for files in that directory. Each key in the secret data map becomes the filename under mountPath.
An example of a Pod that mounts a Secret in a volume:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: mypod
spec:
containers:
- name: mypod
image: redis
volumeMounts:
- name: foo
mountPath: "/etc/foo"
readOnly: true
volumes:
- name: foo
secret:
secretName: mysecret
I have a kubernetes deployment with the below spec that gets installed via helm 3.
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: gatekeeper
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
spec:
containers:
- name: gatekeeper
image: my-gatekeeper-image:some-sha
args:
- --listen=0.0.0.0:80
- --client-id=gk-client
- --discovery-url={{ .Values.discoveryUrl }}
I need to pass the discoveryUrl value as a helm value, which is the public IP address of the nginx-ingress pod that I deploy via a different helm chart. I install the above deployment like below:
helm3 install my-nginx-ingress-chart
INGRESS_IP=$(kubectl get svc -lapp=nginx-ingress -o=jsonpath='{.items[].status.loadBalancer.ingress[].ip}')
helm3 install my-gatekeeper-chart --set discovery_url=${INGRESS_IP}
This works fine, however, Now instead of these two helm3 install, I want to have a single helm3 install, where both the nginx-ingress and the gatekeeper deployment should be created.
I understand that in the initContainer of my-gatekeeper-image we can get the nginx-ingress ip address, but I am not able to understand how to set that as an environment variable or pass to the container spec.
There are some stackoverflow questions that mention that we can create a persistent volume or secret to achieve this, but I am not sure, how that would work if we have to delete them. I do not want to create any extra objects and maintain the lifecycle of them.
It is not possible to do this without mounting a persistent volume. But the creation of persistent volume can be backed by just an in-memory store, instead of a block storage device. That way, we do not have to do any extra lifecycle management. The way to achieve that is:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: gatekeeper
data:
gatekeeper.sh: |-
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
INGRESS_IP=$(kubectl get svc -lapp=nginx-ingress -o=jsonpath='{.items[].status.loadBalancer.ingress[].name}')
# Do other validations/cleanup
echo $INGRESS_IP > /opt/gkconf/discovery_url;
exit 0
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: gatekeeper
labels:
app: gatekeeper
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: gatekeeper
template:
metadata:
name: gatekeeper
labels:
app: gatekeeper
spec:
initContainers:
- name: gkinit
command: [ "/opt/gk-init.sh" ]
image: 'bitnami/kubectl:1.12'
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /opt/gkconf
name: gkconf
- mountPath: /opt/gk-init.sh
name: gatekeeper
subPath: gatekeeper.sh
readOnly: false
containers:
- name: gatekeeper
image: my-gatekeeper-image:some-sha
# ENTRYPOINT of above image should read the
# file /opt/gkconf/discovery_url and then launch
# the actual gatekeeper binary
imagePullPolicy: Always
ports:
- containerPort: 80
protocol: TCP
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /opt/gkconf
name: gkconf
volumes:
- name: gkconf
emptyDir:
medium: Memory
- name: gatekeeper
configMap:
name: gatekeeper
defaultMode: 0555
Using init containers is indeed a valid solution but you need to be aware that by doing so you are adding complexity to your deployment.
This is because you would also need to create serviceaccount with permisions to be able to read service objects from inside of init container. Then, when having the IP, you can't just set env variable for gatekeeper container without recreating a pod so you would need to save the IP e.g. to shared file and read it from it when starting gatekeeper.
Alternatively you can reserve ip address if your cloud provided supports this feature and use this static IP when deploying nginx service:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
[...]
type: LoadBalancer
loadBalancerIP: "YOUR.IP.ADDRESS.HERE"
Let me know if you have any questions or if something needs clarification.
I define a Secret:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: mysecret
type: Opaque
stringData:
config.yaml: |-
apiUrl: "https://my.api.com/api/v1"
username: Administrator
password: NewPasswdTest11
And then creating volume mount in Deployment:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: k8s-webapp-test
labels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
spec:
replicas: 2
selector:
matchLabels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: k8s-webapp-test
version: 1.0.4
spec:
nodeSelector:
kubernetes.io/os: windows
volumes:
- name: secret-volume
secret:
secretName: string-data-secret
containers:
- name: k8s-webapp-test
image: dockerstore/k8s-webapp-test:1.0.4
ports:
- containerPort: 80
volumeMounts:
- name: secret-volume
mountPath: "/secrets"
readOnly: false
So, after the deployment, I have 2 pods with volume mounts in C:\secrets (I do use Windows nodes). When I try to edit config.yaml that is located in C:\secrets folder, I get following error:
Access to the path 'c:\secrets\config.yaml' is denied.
Although I marked file as readOnly false I cannot write to it. How can I modify the file?
As you can see here it is not possible by intention:
Secret, configMap, downwardAPI and projected volumes will be mounted as read-only volumes. Applications that attempt to write to these volumes will receive read-only filesystem errors. Previously, applications were allowed to make changes to these volumes, but those changes were reverted at an arbitrary interval by the system. Applications should be re-configured to write derived files to another location
You can look into using an init container which maps the secret and then copies it to the desired location where you might be able to modify it.
As an alternative to the init container you might also use a container lifecycle hook i.e. a PostStart-hook which executes immediately after a container is created.
lifecycle:
postStart:
exec:
command:
- "/bin/sh"
- "-c"
- >
cp -r /secrets ~/secrets;
You can create secrets from within a Pod but it seems you need to utilize the Kubernetes REST API to do so:
https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/kubernetes-api/
I would like to pass in some of the values in kubernetes yaml files during runtime like reading from config/properties file.
what is the best way to do that?
In the below example, I do not want to hardcode the port value, instead read the port number from config file.
Ex:
logstash.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata:
name: test
namespace: test
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
app: test
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: test
spec:
containers:
- name: test
image: logstash
ports:
- containerPort: 33044 (looking to read this port from config file)
env:
- name: INPUT_PORT
value: "5044"
config.yaml
logstash_port: 33044
This sounds like a perfect use case for Helm (www.helm.sh).
Helm Charts helps you define, install, and upgrade Kubernetes applications. You can use a pre-defined chart (like Nginx, etc) or create your own chart.
Charts are structured like:
mychart/
Chart.yaml
values.yaml
charts/
templates/
...
In the templates folder, you can include your ReplicationController files (and any others). In the values.yaml file you can specify any variables you wish to share amongst the templates (like port numbers, file paths, etc).
The values file can be as simple or complex as you require. An example of a values file:
myTestService:
containerPort: 33044
image: "logstash"
You can then reference these values in your template file using:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata:
name: test
namespace: test
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
app: test
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: test
spec:
containers:
- name: test
image: logstash
ports:
- containerPort: {{ .Values.myTestService.containerPort }}
env:
- name: INPUT_PORT
value: "5044"
Once finished you can compile into Helm chart using helm package mychart. To deploy to your Kubernetes cluster you can use helm install mychart-VERSION.tgz. That will then deploy your chart to the cluster. The version number is set within the Chart.yaml file.
You can use Kubernetes ConfigMaps for this. ConfigMaps are introduced to include external configuration files such as property files.
First create a ConfigMap artifact out of your property like follows:
kubectl create configmap my-config --from-file=db.properties
Then in your Deployment yaml you can provide it as a volume binding or environment variables
Volume binding :
apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata:
name: test
labels:
app: test
spec:
containers:
- name: test
image: test
ports:
- containerPort: 33044
volumeMounts:
- name: config-volume
mountPath: /etc/creds <mount path>
volumes:
- name: config-volume
configMap:
name: my-config
Here under mountPath you need to provide the location of your container where your property file should resides. And underconfigMap name you should define the name of your configMap you created.
Environment variables way :
apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata:
name: test
labels:
app: test
spec:
containers:
- name: test
image: test
ports:
- containerPort: 33044
env:
- name: DB_PROPERTIES
valueFrom:
configMapKeyRef:
name: my-config
items:
- key: <propert name>
path: <path/to/property>
Here under the configMapKeyRef section under name you should define your config map name you created. e.g. my-config. Under the items you should define the key(s) of your property file and path to each of the key, Kubernetes will automatically resolve the value of the property internally.
You can find more about ConfigMap here.
https://kubernetes-v1-4.github.io/docs/user-guide/configmap/
There are some parameters you can't change once a pod is created. containerPort is one of them.
You can add a new container to a pod though. And open a new port.
The parameters you CAN change, you can do it either by dynamically creating or modifying the original deployment (say with sed) and running kubectl replace -f FILE command, or through kubectl edit DEPLOYMENT command; which automatically applies the changes.