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Cluster bootstrap

The bootstrap process installs Flux components on a cluster and creates the relevant files within the repository for managing clusters object using GitOps with Flux.

Before bootstrapping a cluster, Flux allows us to run pre-bootstrap checks to verify that everything is set up correctly. Run the following command for Flux CLI to perform the checks:

~$flux check --pre
> checking prerequisites
...
> prerequisites checks passed


Now we can bootstrap Flux on our EKS cluster using a Gitea repository:


~$export GITEA_SSH_HOSTNAME=$(kubectl get svc -n gitea gitea-ssh -o jsonpath="{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[*].hostname}")
~$flux bootstrap git \
   --url=ssh://git@${GITEA_SSH_HOSTNAME}:2222/workshop-user/flux.git \
   --branch=main \
   --private-key-file=${HOME}/.ssh/gitops_ssh.pem \
   --network-policy=false --silent


Let's break down the command above:


    

  • First we tell Flux which Git repository to use to store its state
    • 

  • After that, we're passing the Git branch that we want this instance of Flux to use, since some patterns involve multiple branches in the same Git repository
    • 

  • We provide authentication credentials, and instruct Flux to use these to authenticate to Git instead of using SSH
    • 

  • Finally we provide some configuration to simplify the setup specifically for this workshop
    • 



caution
The above approach to install Flux is NOT suitable for production and the official documentation should be followed in its place for that situation.


Now, let's verify that the bootstrap process completed successfully by running the following command:


~$flux get kustomization
NAME           REVISION            SUSPENDED    READY   MESSAGE
flux-system    main@sha1:6e6ae1d   False        True    Applied revision: main@sha1:6e6ae1d


That shows that Flux created the basic kustomization, and that it's in sync with the cluster.