This repo configures a single Kubernetes (k3s) cluster with Ansible and uses the GitOps tool Flux to manage its state.

• Automated, reproducible, customizable setup through Ansible templates and playbooks
• Opinionated implementation of Flux with strong community support
• Encrypted secrets thanks to SOPS and Age
• Web application firewall thanks to Cloudflare Tunnels
• SSL certificates thanks to Cloudflare and cert-manager
• HA control plane capability thanks to kube-vip
• Next-gen networking thanks to Cilium
• A Renovate-ready repository with pull request diffs provided by flux-local
• Integrated GitHub Actions

... and more!

• a domain managed on Cloudflare.
• a DNS server that supports split DNS (e.g. Pi-Hole) deployed somewhere outside your cluster ON your home network.

1. Install the most recent version of task

   📍 See the task installation docs for other platforms

   # Brew
   brew install go-task

2. Install the most recent version of direnv, see the direnv installation docs for other supported platforms.

   📍 After installing direnv be sure to hook it into your shell and after that is done run direnv allow while in your repos' directory.

   # Brew
   brew install direnv

3. Install the most recent version of pipx

   📍 See the pipx installation docs for other platforms

   # Brew
   brew install pipx
   pipx ensurepath
   pipx completions

4. Setup a install Ansible with pipx by running the following task command.

   📍 This commands requires Python 3.10+ to be installed

   # Platform agnostic
   task bootstrap:deps

5. Install the required tools: age, flux, cloudflared, kubectl, sops

   📍 Not using brew? Make sure to look up how to install the latest version of each of these CLI tools yourself.

   # Brew
   task brew:deps

📍 Both bootstrap/vars/config.yaml and bootstrap/vars/addons.yaml files contain necessary information that is vital to the bootstrap process.

1. Generate the bootstrap/vars/config.yaml and bootstrap/vars/addons.yaml configuration files.

   task bootstrap:init

2. Setup Age private / public key

   📍 Using SOPS with Age allows us to encrypt secrets and use them in Ansible and Flux.

   2a. Create a Age private / public key (this file is gitignored)

   age-keygen -o age.key

   2b. Fill out the appropriate vars in bootstrap/vars/config.yaml

3. Create Cloudflare API Token

   📍 To use cert-manager with the Cloudflare DNS challenge you will need to create a API Token.

   3a. Head over to Cloudflare and create a API Token by going here.

   3b. Under the API Tokens section click the blue Create Token button.

   3c. Click the blue Use template button for the Edit zone DNS template.

   3d. Name your token something like home-kubernetes

   3e. Under Permissions, click + Add More and add each permission below:

   Zone - DNS - Edit
   Account - Cloudflare Tunnel - Read
   

   3f. Limit the permissions to a specific account and zone resources.

   3g. Fill out the appropriate vars in bootstrap/vars/config.yaml

4. Create Cloudflare Tunnel

   📍 To expose services to the internet you will need to create a Cloudflare Tunnel.

   4a. Authenticate cloudflared to your domain

   cloudflared tunnel login

   4b. Create the tunnel

   cloudflared tunnel create k8s

   4c. In the ~/.cloudflared directory there will be a json file with details you need. Ignore the cert.pem file.

   4d. Fill out the appropriate vars in bootstrap/vars/config.yaml

5. Complete filling out the rest of the bootstrap/vars/config.yaml configuration file.

   5a. Ensure bootstrap_acme_production_enabled is set to false.

   5b. [Optional] Update bootstrap/vars/addons.yaml and enable applications you would like included.

6. Once done run the following command which will verify and generate all the files needed to continue.

   task bootstrap:render

   📍 The configure task will create a ./ansible directory and the following directories under ./kubernetes.

   📁 kubernetes      # Kubernetes cluster defined as code
   ├─📁 bootstrap     # Flux installation (not tracked by Flux)
   ├─📁 flux          # Main Flux configuration of repository
   └─📁 apps          # Apps deployed into the cluster grouped by namespace

📍 Here we will be running an Ansible playbook to prepare your nodes for running a Kubernetes cluster.

1. Ensure you are able to SSH into your nodes from your workstation using a private SSH key without a passphrase (for example using a SSH agent). This lets Ansible interact with your nodes.

2. Verify Ansible can view your config

   task ansible:list

3. Verify Ansible can ping your nodes

   task ansible:ping

4. Run the Ansible prepare playbook (nodes will reboot when done)

   task ansible:prepare

📍 Here we will be running a Ansible Playbook to install k3s with this Ansible galaxy role. If you run into problems, you can run task ansible:nuke to destroy the k3s cluster and start over from this point.

1. Verify Ansible can view your config

   task ansible:list

2. Verify Ansible can ping your nodes

   task ansible:ping

3. Install k3s with Ansible

   task ansible:install

4. Verify the nodes are online

   📍 If this command fails you likely haven't configured direnv as mentioned previously in the guide.

   kubectl get nodes -o wide
   # NAME           STATUS   ROLES                       AGE     VERSION
   # k8s-0          Ready    control-plane,etcd,master   1h      v1.27.3+k3s1
   # k8s-1          Ready    worker                      1h      v1.27.3+k3s1

5. The kubeconfig for interacting with your cluster should have been created in the root of your repository.

📍 Here we will be installing flux after some quick bootstrap steps.

1. Verify Flux can be installed

   flux check --pre
   # ► checking prerequisites
   # ✔ kubectl 1.27.3 >=1.18.0-0
   # ✔ Kubernetes 1.27.3+k3s1 >=1.16.0-0
   # ✔ prerequisites checks passed

2. Push you changes to git

   📍 Verify all the *.sops.yaml and *.sops.yaml files under the ./ansible, and ./kubernetes directories are encrypted with SOPS

   git add -A
   git commit -m "Initial commit :rocket:"
   git push

3. Install Flux and sync the cluster to the Git repository

   task cluster:install
   # namespace/flux-system configured
   # customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/alerts.notification.toolkit.fluxcd.io created
   # ...

4. Verify Flux components are running in the cluster

   kubectl -n flux-system get pods -o wide
   # NAME                                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   # helm-controller-5bbd94c75-89sb4            1/1     Running   0          1h
   # kustomize-controller-7b67b6b77d-nqc67      1/1     Running   0          1h
   # notification-controller-7c46575844-k4bvr   1/1     Running   0          1h
   # source-controller-7d6875bcb4-zqw9f         1/1     Running   0          1h

1. Output all the common resources in your cluster.

   📍 Feel free to use the provided cluster tasks for validation of cluster resources or continue to get familiar with the kubectl and flux CLI tools.

   task k8s:resources

2. ⚠️ It might take cert-manager awhile to generate certificates, this is normal so be patient.

The external-dns application created in the networking namespace will handle creating public DNS records. By default, echo-server and the flux-webhook are the only subdomains reachable from the public internet. In order to make additional applications public you must set set the correct ingress class name and ingress annotations like in the HelmRelease for echo-server.

k8s_gateway will provide DNS resolution to external Kubernetes resources (i.e. points of entry to the cluster) from any device that uses your home DNS server. For this to work, your home DNS server must be configured to forward DNS queries for ${bootstrap_cloudflare_domain} to ${bootstrap_k8s_gateway_addr} instead of the upstream DNS server(s) it normally uses. This is a form of split DNS (aka split-horizon DNS / conditional forwarding).

If you're having trouble with DNS be sure to check out these two GitHub discussions: Internal DNS and Pod DNS resolution broken.

... Nothing working? That is expected, this is DNS after all!

By default this template will deploy a wildcard certificate using the Let's Encrypt staging environment, which prevents you from getting rate-limited by the Let's Encrypt production servers if your cluster doesn't deploy properly (for example due to a misconfiguration). Once you are sure you will keep the cluster up for more than a few hours be sure to switch to the production servers as outlined in config.yaml.

📍 You will need a production certificate to reach internet-exposed applications through cloudflared.

By default Flux will periodically check your git repository for changes. In order to have Flux reconcile on git push you must configure Github to send push events.

1. Obtain the webhook path

   📍 Hook id and path should look like /hook/12ebd1e363c641dc3c2e430ecf3cee2b3c7a5ac9e1234506f6f5f3ce1230e123

   kubectl -n flux-system get receiver github-receiver -o jsonpath='{.status.webhookPath}'

2. Piece together the full URL with the webhook path appended

   https://flux-webhook.${bootstrap_cloudflare_domain}/hook/12ebd1e363c641dc3c2e430ecf3cee2b3c7a5ac9e1234506f6f5f3ce1230e123
   

3. Navigate to the settings of your repository on Github, under "Settings/Webhooks" press the "Add webhook" button. Fill in the webhook url and your bootstrap_flux_github_webhook_token secret and save.

Renovate is a tool that automates dependency management. It is designed to scan your repository around the clock and open PRs for out-of-date dependencies it finds. Common dependencies it can discover are Helm charts, container images, GitHub Actions, Ansible roles... even Flux itself! Merging a PR will cause Flux to apply the update to your cluster.

To enable Renovate, click the 'Configure' button over at their Github app page and select your repository. Renovate creates a "Dependency Dashboard" as an issue in your repository, giving an overview of the status of all updates. The dashboard has interactive checkboxes that let you do things like advance scheduling or reattempt update PRs you closed without merging.

The base Renovate configuration in your repository can be viewed at .github/renovate.json5. By default it is scheduled to be active with PRs every weekend, but you can change the schedule to anything you want, or remove it if you want Renovate to open PRs right away.

Below is a general guide on trying to debug an issue with an resource or application. For example, if a workload/resource is not showing up or a pod has started but in a CrashLoopBackOff or Pending state.

1. Start by checking all Flux Kustomizations & Git Repository & OCI Repository and verify they are healthy.

   flux get sources oci -A
   flux get sources git -A
   flux get ks -A

2. Then check all the Flux Helm Releases and verify they are healthy.

   flux get hr -A

3. Then check the if the pod is present.

   kubectl -n <namespace> get pods -o wide

4. Then check the logs of the pod if its there.

   kubectl -n <namespace> logs <pod-name> -f
   # or
   stern -n <namespace> <fuzzy-name>

5. If a resource exists try to describe it to see what problems it might have.

   kubectl -n <namespace> describe <resource> <name>

6. Check the namespace events

   kubectl -n <namespace> get events --sort-by='.metadata.creationTimestamp'

Resolving problems that you have could take some tweaking of your YAML manifests in order to get things working, other times it could be a external factor like permissions on NFS. If you are unable to figure out your problem see the help section below.

Use git cherry-pick to keep up-to-date

git remote add upstream https://github.com/onedr0p/flux-cluster-template.git
git fetch --all
# for individual commits
git cherry-pick <commitid>
# brute force
git merge upstream/main --allow-unrelated-histories
# remove upstream after
git remote rm upstream

Authenticating Flux to your git repository has a couple benefits like using a private git repository and/or using the Flux Image Automation Controllers.

By default this template only works on a public Github repository, it is advised to keep your repository public.

The benefits of a public repository include:

• Debugging or asking for help, you can provide a link to a resource you are having issues with.
• Adding a topic to your repository of k8s-at-home to be included in the k8s-at-home-search. This search helps people discover different configurations of Helm charts across others Flux based repositories.

This would not be possible without onedr0p and the k8s-at-home team