Argo CD

How to install and use the CloudTruth Argo CD Plugin

This walkthrough shows you how to use CloudTruth parameters and secrets in Argo CD directly from our Argo CD plugin.

GitHub - cloudtruth/argocd-cloudtruth-plugin: An ArgoCD plugin that allows one to replace cloudtruth parameter references with their values in the yaml files delivered to kubernetesGitHub

Prerequisites

• You are familiar with Argo CD.

• You have created one or more CloudTruth Parameters.

• You have created a CloudTruth API Access token.

CloudTruth Argo CD plugin

The CloudTruth plugin solves how to handle secrets management with Argo CD. When the plugin is installed in your application it will replace any references following the format <parameter> in your GitOps yaml files.

Installing the plugin

You can run an automated installer that will install the plugin in your Argo CD installation.

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cloudtruth/argocd-cloudtruth-plugin/main/install/setup.sh | sh

Provide the installer with the following CloudTruth parameters:

Parameter	Value
CLOUDTRUTH_API_KEY	Provides access to your CloudTruth org
CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT	Specifies a targeted Environment
CLOUDTRUTH_PROJECT	Specifies a targeted project
CLOUDTRUTH_TAG	Specifies a targeted tag

The installer will perform the following to configure the plugin in your Argo CD installation:

1. Create a K8s secret with the provided parameters in the Argo namespace.

2. Patch the argocd-repo-server to add the sidecar container and attach the secret

3. Restart the Argo CD repo server to pick up the changes.

For a full parameters list visit our Argo plugin repo.

Using the plugin for secrets and parameters

Now that the plugin is installed, you can reference CloudTruth config in your app config files. The plugin is enabled for your argocd application in a gitops fashion by creating the file .argocd-cloudtruth-plugin in the root of your Application's repo, or in a subdirectory if you qualify that repo with a path. The file can be empty or contain a yaml dictionary to override the plugin's configuration for that repo.

UI app install

The new plugin sidecar mechanism prevents one from using the UI or CLI to enable a plugin if the gitops style enablement is in place. If the gitops style is not for you, you can still force enablement by manually defining the Application manifest.

You can still override any installation parameter values for your specific app with parameters

Argo CLI app installation

With the new sidecar plugin scheme, the Argo CLI does not allow you to create apps with the plugin enabled, however, you can create an app and the plugin will automatically be enabled for it if the repo contains the trigger file .argocd-cloudtruth-plugin The following are a few examples of using the CloudTruth plugin with the Argo CLI.

App creation

Create an application:

argocd app create YOUR_APP --repo https://github.com/YOUR_REPO --path cloudtruth-plugin --dest-server YOUR_K8S_SERVER --dest-namespace default

Create an application and specify a specific project:

argocd app create YOUR_APP --repo https://github.com/YOUR_REPO --path cloudtruth-plugin --dest-server YOUR_K8S_SERVER --dest-namespace default --plugin-env CLOUDTRUTH_PROJECT=YOUR_CLOUDTRUTH_PROJECT

Create an application and specify a specific project and environment:

argocd app create YOUR_APP --repo https://github.com/YOUR_REPO --path cloudtruth-plugin --dest-server YOUR_K8S_SERVER --dest-namespace default --plugin-env CLOUDTRUTH_PROJECT=YOUR_CLOUDTRUTH_PROJECT  --plugin-env CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT=YOUR_CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT

App updates

Add the plugin to existing apps by adding the trigger file .argocd-cloudtruth-pluginto your Application's repo:

To update a plugin parameter value to existing app:

argocd app set YOUR_APP --plugin-env CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT=YOUR_CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT

Argo CD plugin demo

Here is an example use case with the Argo CD plugin that populates a ConfigMap with values pulled from CloudTruth while deploying an application in a GitOps workflow.

We will deploy a flask application from our demo Git repo.

The ConfigMap substitutes data values from CloudTruth using the default substitution format <YOUR_PARAM_NAME>.

kind: ConfigMap 
apiVersion: v1 
metadata:
  name: flask-map
data:
   FLASK_APP: "<FLASK_APP>"
   FLASK_ENV: "<FLASK_ENV>"
   FLASK_MESSAGE: "<FLASK_MESSAGE>"
   FLASK_RUN_HOST: "<FLASK_RUN_HOST>"
   FLASK_RUN_PORT: "<FLASK_RUN_PORT>"
   IMAGE: "<IMAGE>"

You can use the CloudTruth CLI that sets up a project to deploy this example.

cloudtruth projects set flask
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_APP -v "flaskdemo.py"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_DEBUG -v "True"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_ENV -v "development"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_MESSAGE -v "Configuration Management for default"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_RUN_HOST -v "0.0.0.0"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  FLASK_RUN_PORT -v "3000"
cloudtruth --project flask parameters set  IMAGE -v CloudTruth.jpg

Deploy the app with the following Argo CLI command:

argocd app create flask --repo https://github.com/cloudtruth/blog-examples --path argo-flask/cloudtruth-plugin --dest-server https://kubernetes.default.svc --dest-namespace default --plugin-env CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT=production

The argocd app create is broken down into the following commands. The --plugin-env commands specify the CloudTruth environment to get values from. The project name for the plugin is read from the .argocd-cloudtruth-plugin file in the repo.

Command	Value
--repo	https://github.com/cloudtruth/blog-examples
--path	argo-flask/cloudtruth-plugin
--dest-server	https://kubernetes.default.svc
--dest-namespace	default
--plugin-env	CLOUDTRUTH_ENVIRONMENT=production

Verify the ConfigMap has values from the configured CloudTruth project with the manifests command:

argocd app manifests flask

---
apiVersion: v1
data:
  FLASK_APP: flaskdemo.py
  FLASK_ENV: development
  FLASK_MESSAGE: Configuration Management for default
  FLASK_RUN_HOST: 0.0.0.0
  FLASK_RUN_PORT: "3000"
  IMAGE: CloudTruth.jpg
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: flask
  name: flask-map
  namespace: default

Deploy by synching the app:

argocd app sync flask

You can also deploy and verify the app health in the Argo UI.