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Version: 0.27.0

Install Weave GitOps EnterpriseEnterprise

info

To purchase an entitlement to Weave GitOps Enterprise, please contact sales@weave.works.

Follow the instructions on this page to:

tip

There is no need to install the open source version of Weave GitOps before installing Weave GitOps Enterprise.

Example: Set up a Management Cluster with CAPA and EKS

To get you started, we'll cover EKS as our management cluster with the CAPA provider. Please note again that Weave GitOps Enterprise supports clusters without Cluster API, as well as any combination of management cluster and CAPI provider.

Prep Step: Create a Repository

Create a new private GitHub repository and give it a name. We'll call our repo fleet-infra.

Set up a Git client for your private repo. For GitHub, see their docs on setting your username and setting your email address.

Cluster API provides declarative APIs, controllers, and tooling to manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters, across a large number of infrastructure providers. The CAPI custom resource definitions are platform-independent as each provider implementation handles the creation of virtual machines, VPCs, networks, and other required infrastructure parts, enabling consistent and repeatable cluster deployments.

The following example and steps reflect Flux’s architecture and operations. Go here for more detailed documentation about Flux.

1. CAPA Setup

Cluster API requires kubectl access to an existing Kubernetes cluster. For this example, configure kubectl to use the management cluster:

export KUBECONFIG=/path/to/kubeconfig

After having configured kubectl, deploy the CAPA components by following the steps provided by Cluster API documentation.

2. Prepare IAM for Installation

Cluster API needs special permissions in AWS. Use the clusterawsadm command below to roll out a CloudStack and install the permissions into your AWS account. Although the CloudStack is bound to a region, the resulting permissions are globally scoped. You can use any AWS Region that you have access to.

The clusterawsadm command takes an AWSIAMConfiguration file. Cluster API docs provide the command for you; run this.

Run the clusterawsadm command to create an IAM group:

clusterawsadm bootstrap iam create-cloudformation-stack --config eks-config.yaml --region $REGION

Create an IAM User, which will be used as a kind of service account, and assign the newly created group to this user. The group name will be something like: cluster-api-provider-aws-s-AWSIAMGroupBootstrapper-XXXX.

Create a secret for the newly created IAM user.

3. Create the Cluster

In testing, we used the following values: $INSTANCESIZE : t3.large $NUMOFNODES : 2 $MINNODES : 2 $MAXNODES : 6

eksctl create cluster -n "$CLUSTERNAME" -r "$REGION" --nodegroup-name workers -t $INSTANCESIZE --nodes $NUMOFNODES --nodes-min $MINNODES --nodes-max $MAXNODES --ssh-access --alb-ingress-access

4. Add the Cluster to kubeconfig

Once you've created your cluster, add it to your kubeconfig:

aws eks --region "$REGION" update-kubeconfig --name "$CLUSTERNAME"

5. Install Flux Onto Your Cluster with the flux bootstrap Command

The flux bootstrap command enables you to deploy Flux on a cluster the GitOps way. Go here for more information about the flux bootstrap command.

flux bootstrap github \
--owner=<github username> \
--repository=fleet-infra \
--branch=main \
--path=./clusters/management \
--personal \
--components-extra image-reflector-controller,image-automation-controller

Your private GitHub repo should have a clusters/management folder that includes the manifests Flux needs to operate, and that also generates a key value pair for Flux to access the repo.

  • owner: The username (or organization) of the Git repository
  • repository: Git repository name
  • branch: Git branch (default "main")
  • path: Path relative to the repository root; when specified, the cluster sync will be scoped to this path
  • personal: If set, the owner is assumed to be a repo user
  • components-extra: Additional controllers to install

At this point your Flux management cluster should be running. Take a look at the repository you created earlier.

6. Install CAPA

You do not need to install a CAPI provider to provision Kubernetes clusters using Weave GitOps Enterprise—you can also provision with Terraform. But for this example with CAPA, you must.

Download a specific version of clusterctl from the releases page. We've tested the example templates provided in this guide with clusterctl version 1.1.3.

Next, run this command:

export EXP_EKS=true
export EXP_MACHINE_POOL=true
export CAPA_EKS_IAM=true
export EXP_CLUSTER_RESOURCE_SET=true

clusterctl init --infrastructure aws

Please note that, while the next few steps apply to our example, they are also relevant whether you're using another CAPI provider or none at all.

Apply the Entitlements Secret

Contact sales@weave.works for a valid entitlements secret. Then apply it to the cluster:

kubectl apply -f entitlements.yaml

Configure Access for Writing to Git from the Weave GitOps Enterprise UI

Here we provide guidance for GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket Server, and Azure DevOps.

GitHub requires no additional configuration for OAuth git access

Configure Helm Chart and Commit

We deploy WGE via a Helm chart. We'll save and adapt the below template before committing it in Git to a Flux-reconciled path.

Clone the newly created repo locally. We're gonna add some things!

git clone git@<provider>:<username>/fleet-infra
cd fleet-infra

Download the helm-release to clusters/management/weave-gitops-enterprise.yaml.

Expand to see file contents
clusters/management/weave-gitops-enterprise.yaml
apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
kind: HelmRepository
metadata:
name: weave-gitops-enterprise-charts
namespace: flux-system
spec:
interval: 60m
secretRef:
name: weave-gitops-enterprise-credentials
url: https://charts.dev.wkp.weave.works/releases/charts-v3
---
apiVersion: helm.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v2beta1
kind: HelmRelease
metadata:
name: weave-gitops-enterprise
namespace: flux-system
spec:
chart:
spec:
interval: 65m
chart: mccp
sourceRef:
kind: HelmRepository
name: weave-gitops-enterprise-charts
namespace: flux-system
version: 0.x.x
install:
crds: CreateReplace
upgrade:
crds: CreateReplace
interval: 50m
values:
# -- Configure TLS settings if needed
# tls:
# -- Can be disabled if TLS is handled by a user-provided ingress controller
# enabled: true
# -- optionally specify a TLS secret
# secretName: null
config:
capi:
repositoryURL: https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/fleet-infra
# -- Can be changed depending on your git repo structure
# repositoryPath: ./clusters/management/clusters
# repositoryClustersPath: ./cluster
git:
type: github
# -- Change if using on-prem github/gitlab
# hostname: https://github.com

Once you have copied the above file, open and adjust the following configuration options:

values.config.capi.repositoryURL

Ensure this has been set to your repository URL.

values.config.capi.repositoryPath

By default, WGE will create new clusters in the clusters/management/clusters path. You can configure it with values.config.capi.repositoryPath. You might what to change it to clusters/my-cluster/cluster if you configured Flux to reconcile ./clusters/my-cluster instead.

values.config.capi.repositoryClustersPath

The other important path to configure is where you'll store applications and workloads run on the new cluster. By default this is ./clusters. When a new cluster is specified, any selected profiles will be written to ./clusters/{.namespace}/{.clusterName}/profiles.yaml. When the new cluster is bootstrapped, Flux will sync the ./clusters/{.namespace}/{.clusterName} path.

(Optional) Install policy agent

Policy agent comes packaged with the WGE chart. To install it, set the following values:

  • values.policy-agent.enabled: set to true to install the agent with WGE
  • values.policy-agent.config.accountId: organization name, used as identifier
  • values.policy-agent.config.clusterId: unique identifier for the cluster

Commit and push all the files

git add clusters/management/weave-gitops-enterprise.yaml
git commit -m "Deploy Weave GitOps Enterprise"
git push

Flux will reconcile the helm-release and WGE will be deployed into the cluster. You can check the flux-system namespace to verify all pods are running.

Configure Your Password

To login to the WGE UI, generate a bcrypt hash for your chosen password and store it as a secret in the Kubernetes cluster. There are several different ways to generate a bcrypt hash. Here, we'll use gitops get bcrypt-hash from our CLI.

PASSWORD="<Make up and insert a brand-new password here>"
echo -n $PASSWORD | gitops get bcrypt-hash | kubectl create secret generic cluster-user-auth -n flux-system --from-literal=username=wego-admin --from-file=password=/dev/stdin

A validation to know it’s working:

kubectl get secret -n flux-system cluster-user-auth

Install the Weave GitOps Enterprise CLI Tool

To do this, you can use either brew or curl.

brew install weaveworks/tap/gitops-ee

Next Steps

Here are a couple of options for you to take your next steps with WGE. Explore one option or all of them, in no particular order.

  • Cluster Management: We'll show you how to join WGE to a cluster and install an application on that cluster without using Cluster API. But if you prefer using Cluster API, our docs cover that too.
  • Install the Terraform Controller to reconcile your Terraform resources in a GitOps way. With Flux and the TF Controller, WGE makes it easy to add Terraform templates to your clusters and continuously reconcile any changes made to the Terraform source manifest.
  • Install Policy agent, which comes packaged with the WGE chart.