Part 2: Deploy an Application

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

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

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

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

4. 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/my-cluster/podinfo-kustomization.yaml

5. Commit and push the podinfo-kustomization to the 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. If we navigate back to the dashboard you should see the podinfo application appear.

Click on podinfo and you will see details about the deployment, including that there are 2 pods available.

info

Podinfo will come with the HorizontalPodAutoscaler, which uses the metrics-server. For the purposes of this tutorial, we don't need the metrics-server, but it will mean that the HorizontalPodAutoscaler will report as Not ready in your Dashboard.

To remove this warning, install the metrics-server (if you are using a kind cluster you may need to do more to get this working), but you can ingore the warning if you prefer.

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/my-cluster/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 and you will now 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.

Complete!

Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

You've now completed the getting started guide. We would welcome any and all feedback on your experience.