Kubernetes Helm Installation Of Ocelot.Social

November 23, 2024About 6 min

Deploying ocelot.social with Helm for Kubernetes is very straight forward. All you have to do is to change certain parameters, like domain names and API keys, then you just install our provided Helm chart to your cluster.

Kubernetes Cloud Hosting

There are various ways to set up your own or a managed Kubernetes cluster. We will extend the following lists over time.
Please contact us if you are interested in options not listed below.

Managed Kubernetes:

DigitalOcean

Configuration

You can customize the network server with your configuration by duplicate the values.template.yaml to a new values.yaml file and change it to your need. All included variables will be available as environment variables in your deployed kubernetes pods.

Besides the values.template.yaml file we provide a nginx.values.template.yaml and dns.values.template.yaml for a similar procedure. The new nginx.values.yaml is the configuration for the ingress-nginx Helm chart, while the dns.values.yaml file is for automatically updating the dns values on DigitalOcean and therefore optional.

Installation

Due to the many limitations of Helm you still have to do several manual steps. Those occur before you run the actual ocelot.social Helm chart. Obviously it is expected of you to have helm and kubectl installed. For the cert-manager you may need cmctl, see below. For DigitalOcean you may also need doctl.

Install:

Cert Manager (https)

Please refer to cert-manager.io docs for more details.

ATTENTION: Be with the Terminal in your repository in the folder of this README.

We have three ways to install the cert-manager, purely via kubectl, via cmctl, or with helm.

We recommend using helm because then we do not mix the installation methods. Please have a look here:

Installing with Helm

Our Helm installation is optimized for cert-manager version v1.13.1 and kubectl version "v1.28.2.

Please search here for cert-manager versions that are compatible with your kubectl version on the cluster and on the client: cert-manager Supported Releases.

ATTENTION: When uninstalling cert-manager, be sure to use the same method as for installation! Otherwise, we could end up in a broken state, see Uninstall.

Ingress-Nginx

1. Add Helm repository for `ingress-nginx` and update

$ helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
$ helm repo update

2. Install ingress-nginx

# in configuration/<deployment-name>

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
helm install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx -f ../../src/kubernetes/nginx.values.yaml

# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
helm install \
  ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx -f ../../src/kubernetes/nginx.values.yaml \
  --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig.yaml

DigitalOcean Firewall

This is only necessary if you run DigitalOcean without load balancer (see here for more info) .

1. Authenticate towards DO with your local `doctl`

You will need a DO token for that.

# without doctl context
$ doctl auth init
# with doctl new context to be filled in
$ doctl auth init --context <new-context-name>

You will need an API token, which you can generate in the control panel at https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens .

2. Generate DO firewall

Get the CLUSTER_UUID value from the dashboard or from the ID column via doctl kubernetes cluster list:

# need to apply access token by `doctl auth init` before
$ doctl kubernetes cluster list

Fill in the CLUSTER_UUID and your-domain. The latter with hyphens - instead of dots .:

# without doctl context
$ doctl compute firewall create \
--inbound-rules="protocol:tcp,ports:80,address:0.0.0.0/0,address:::/0 protocol:tcp,ports:443,address:0.0.0.0/0,address:::/0" \
--tag-names=k8s:<CLUSTER_UUID> \
--name=<your-domain>-http-https
# with doctl context to be filled in
$ doctl compute firewall create \
--inbound-rules="protocol:tcp,ports:80,address:0.0.0.0/0,address:::/0 protocol:tcp,ports:443,address:0.0.0.0/0,address:::/0" \
--tag-names=k8s:<CLUSTER_UUID> \
--name=<your-domain>-http-https --context <context-name>

To get informations about your success use this command. (Fill in the ID you got at creation.):

# without doctl context
$ doctl compute firewall get <ID>
# with doctl context to be filled in
$ doctl compute firewall get <ID> --context <context-name>

DNS

ATTENTION: This seems not to work at all so we leave it away at the moment

TODO: I thought this is necessary if we use the DigitalOcean DNS management service? See Manage DNS With DigitalOcean

This chart is only necessary (recommended is more precise) if you run DigitalOcean without load balancer. You need to generate an access token with read + write for the dns.values.yaml at https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens and fill it in.

1. Add Helm repository for `binami` and update

$ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
$ helm repo update

2. Install DNS

# !!! untested for now for new deployment structure !!!

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
$ helm install dns bitnami/external-dns -f dns.values.yaml
# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
$ helm --kubeconfig=/../kubeconfig.yaml install dns bitnami/external-dns -f dns.values.yaml

Attention: Before installing your own ocelot.social network, you need to create a DockerHub (account and) organization, put its name in the package.json file, and push your deployment and rebranding code to GitHub so that GitHub Actions can push your Docker images to DockerHub. This is because Kubernetes will pull these images to create PODs from them.

All commands for ocelot need to be executed in the kubernetes folder. Therefore cd deployment/kubernetes/ is expected to be run before every command. Furthermore the given commands will install ocelot into the default namespace. This can be modified to by attaching --namespace not.default.

Install

Only run once for the first time of installation:

# in configuration/<deployment-name>

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
helm install ocelot \
  --values ./kubernetes/values.yaml \
  --set appVersion="latest" \
  ../../src/kubernetes/ \
  --timeout 10m

# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
helm install ocelot \
  --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig.yaml \
  --values ./kubernetes/values.yaml \
  --set appVersion="latest" \
  ../../src/kubernetes/ \
  --timeout 10m

Upgrade & Update

Run for all upgrades and updates:

# !!! untested for now for new deployment structure !!!

# in configuration/<deployment-name>

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
helm upgrade ocelot \
  --values ./kubernetes/values.yaml \
  --set appVersion="latest" \
  ../../src/kubernetes/ \
  --timeout 10m

# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
helm upgrade ocelot \
  --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig.yaml \
  --values ./kubernetes/values.yaml \
  --set appVersion="latest" \
  ../../src/kubernetes/ \
  --timeout 10m

Rollback

Run for a rollback, in case something went wrong:

# !!! untested for now for new deployment structure !!!

# in configuration/<deployment-name>

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
helm rollback ocelot --timeout 10m

# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
helm rollback ocelot \
  --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig.yaml \
  --timeout 10m

Uninstall

Be aware that if you uninstall ocelot the formerly bound volumes become unbound. Those volumes contain all data from uploads and database. You have to manually free their reference in order to bind them again when reinstalling. Once unbound from their former container references they should automatically be rebound (considering the sizes did not change)

# !!! untested for now for new deployment structure !!!

# in configuration/<deployment-name>

# kubeconfig.yaml set globaly
helm uninstall ocelot --timeout 10m

# or kubeconfig.yaml in your repo, then adjust
helm uninstall ocelot \
  --kubeconfig ./kubeconfig.yaml \
  --timeout 10m

# !!! be aware of the correct kube context !!!
$ kubectl config get-contexts

# deploy version '$BUILD_VERSION'
# !!! 'latest' is not recommended on production !!!

# for easyness set env
$ export BUILD_VERSION=1.0.8-48-ocelot.social1.0.8-184 # example
# check this with
$ echo $BUILD_VERSION
1.0.8-48-ocelot.social1.0.8-184

# deploy actual version '$BUILD_VERSION' to Kubernetes cluster
$ kubectl -n default set image deployment/ocelot-webapp container-ocelot-webapp=ocelotsocialnetwork/webapp:$BUILD_VERSION
$ kubectl -n default rollout restart deployment/ocelot-webapp
$ kubectl -n default set image deployment/ocelot-backend container-ocelot-backend=ocelotsocialnetwork/backend:$BUILD_VERSION
$ kubectl -n default rollout restart deployment/ocelot-backend
$ kubectl -n default set image deployment/ocelot-maintenance container-ocelot-maintenance=ocelotsocialnetwork/maintenance:$BUILD_VERSION
$ kubectl -n default rollout restart deployment/ocelot-maintenance
$ kubectl -n default set image deployment/ocelot-neo4j container-ocelot-neo4j=ocelotsocialnetwork/neo4j-community:$BUILD_VERSION
$ kubectl -n default rollout restart deployment/ocelot-neo4j
# verify deployment and wait for the pods of each deployment to get ready for cleaning and seeding of the database
$ kubectl -n default rollout status deployment/ocelot-webapp --timeout=240s
$ kubectl -n default rollout status deployment/ocelot-maintenance --timeout=240s
$ kubectl -n default rollout status deployment/ocelot-backend --timeout=240s
$ kubectl -n default rollout status deployment/ocelot-neo4j --timeout=240s

Staging – Clean And Seed Neo4j Database

ATTENTION: Cleaning and seeding of our Neo4j database is only possible in production if env PRODUCTION_DB_CLEAN_ALLOW=true is set in our deployment.

# !!! be aware of the correct kube context !!!
$ kubectl config get-contexts

# for staging: reset and seed Neo4j database via backend
$ kubectl -n default exec -it $(kubectl -n default get pods | grep ocelot-backend | awk '{ print $1 }') -- /bin/sh -c "node --experimental-repl-await build/src/db/clean.js && node --experimental-repl-await build/src/db/seed.js"

# or alternatively

# for production: set Neo4j database indexes, constrains, and initial admin account plus run migrate up via backend
$ kubectl -n default exec -it $(kubectl -n default get pods | grep ocelot-backend | awk '{ print $1 }') -- /bin/sh -c "yarn prod:migrate init && yarn prod:migrate up"