Step 3: Deploy an Application

Now that you have a feel for how to navigate the dashboard, let's deploy a new application. In this section we will use podinfo as our sample web application.

Deploying podinfo

1. Clone or navigate back to your Git repository where you have bootstrapped Flux. For example:

   git clone https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/fleet-infra
   cd fleet-infra

2. Create a GitRepository Source for podinfo. This will allow you to use different authentication methods for different repositories.

   flux create source git podinfo \
     --url=https://github.com/stefanprodan/podinfo \
     --branch=master \
     --interval=30s \
     --export > ./clusters/management/podinfo-source.yaml

More information about GitRepository is available here.

If you get stuck here, try the ls command to list your files and directories. If that doesn’t work, try ls -l ./clusters.

1. Commit and push the podinfo-source to your fleet-infra repository

   git add -A && git commit -m "Add podinfo source"
   git push

2. Create a kustomization to build and apply the podinfo manifest

   flux create kustomization podinfo \
     --target-namespace=flux-system \
     --source=podinfo \
     --path="./kustomize" \
     --prune=true \
     --interval=5m \
     --export > ./clusters/management/podinfo-kustomization.yaml

3. Commit and push the podinfo-kustomization to your fleet-infra repository

   git add -A && git commit -m "Add podinfo kustomization"
   git push

View the Application in Weave GitOps

Flux will detect the updated fleet-infra and add podinfo. Navigate back to the dashboard to make sure that the podinfo application appears.

Click on podinfo to find details about the deployment. There should be two pods available.

info

Podinfo comes with a HorizontalPodAutoscaler, which uses the metrics-server. We don't use the metrics-server in this tutorial, but note that it's the reason why HorizontalPodAutoscaler will report as Not ready in your dashboard. We recommend ignoring the warning.

Customize podinfo

To customize a deployment from a repository you don’t control, you can use Flux in-line patches. The following example shows how to use in-line patches to change the podinfo deployment.

1. Add the patches section as shown below to the field spec of your podinfo-kustomization.yaml file so it looks like this:

   Expand to see Kustomization patches

   ./clusters/management/podinfo-kustomization.yaml

   ---
   apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta2
   kind: Kustomization
   metadata:
     name: podinfo
     namespace: flux-system
   spec:
     interval: 60m0s
     path: ./kustomize
     prune: true
     sourceRef:
       kind: GitRepository
       name: podinfo
     targetNamespace: flux-system
     patches:
       - patch: |-
           apiVersion: autoscaling/v2beta2
           kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
           metadata:
             name: podinfo
           spec:
             minReplicas: 3
         target:
           name: podinfo
           kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler

2. Commit and push the podinfo-kustomization.yaml changes:

   git add -A && git commit -m "Increase podinfo minimum replicas"
   git push

3. Navigate back to the dashboard. You should see a newly created pod:

   

Suspend updates

Suspending updates to a kustomization allows you to directly edit objects applied from a kustomization, without your changes being reverted by the state in Git.

To suspend updates for a kustomization, from the details page, click on the suspend button at the top, and you should see it be suspended:

This shows in the applications view with a yellow warning status indicating it is now suspended

To resume updates, go back to the details page, click the resume button, and after a few seconds reconsolidation will continue.

Delete Podinfo

To delete Podinfo in the GitOps way, run this command from the root of your working directory:

  rm ./clusters/management/podinfo-kustomization.yaml
  rm ./clusters/management/podinfo-source.yaml
  git add -A && git commit -m "Remove podinfo kustomization and source"
  git push

Complete!

Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

You've now completed the getting started guide. We welcome any and all feedback, so please let us know how we could have made your experience better.