Running the platform¶
This page describes how to deploy the Renku platform on kind. Running GitLab (which is a part of Renku) is quite resource intensive. For this reason we describe a setup which excludes GitLab from the Renku deployment and instead uses a GitLab instance running elsewhere, for example, gitlab.com as the GitLab backend. For the Renku graph features to function properly in this setup, the GitLab instance needs to be able to contact the locally running platform through a webhook. This can be achieved through many services like ngrok or the like. We are going to use localhost.run, a minimalistic method based on ssh tunneling which allows for a somewhat static hostname.
The renku source code is hosted on github: https://github.com/SwissDataScienceCenter/renku.
Prerequisites¶
You will need the following tools installed on your machine:
Clone the repo¶
Get the code by cloning the Renku repository:
$ git clone https://github.com/SwissDataScienceCenter/renku.git
$ cd renku/helm-chart
Install python dependencies¶
We recommend using pipenv
for managing your virtual python environment. Install
all the necessary python dependencies:
$ pipenv install --dev
Start kind¶
Next we start kind. We make it so that ports 8080 and 8443 on the host machine are forward respectively to port 80 and 443 to the cluster. This will allow you to access renku.
$ cat <<EOF | kind create cluster --name kind --config=-
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
- role: control-plane
kubeadmConfigPatches:
- |
kind: InitConfiguration
nodeRegistration:
kubeletExtraArgs:
node-labels: "ingress-ready=true"
extraPortMappings:
- containerPort: 80
hostPort: 8080
protocol: TCP
EOF
Once kind has started, make sure you can access it by running:
$ kubectl get node
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
kind-control-plane Ready control-plane,master 43s v1.21.1
Deploy the NGINX ingress controller¶
We need an ingress controller to expose HTTP and HTTPS routes from outside the cluster to services within the cluster. We use nginx ingress. Deploy the ingress controller and then run the wait command below to make sure it becomes fully available before proceeding further.
$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/main/deploy/static/provider/kind/deploy.yaml
$ kubectl wait --namespace ingress-nginx \
--for=condition=ready pod \
--selector=app.kubernetes.io/component=controller \
--timeout=300s
Build and pull all necessary charts¶
$ helm repo add renku https://swissdatasciencecenter.github.io/helm-charts
$ pipenv run chartpress
$ helm dep update renku
Set up localhost.run¶
We use a service called localhost.run to expose the platform by establishing an ssh tunnel.
$ ssh -R 80:localhost:8080 ssh.localhost.run
This will start the tunnel and display your hostname of the style
http://<some-name>.lhr.domains
. In subsequent steps this domain
will be added to the configuration for Renku.
Note: When you stop and restart the tunnel without waiting
for too long, you should receive the same subdomain that you have
previously had. If this is not the case you will have to reconfigure
the gitlab.com
client application and recreate your Renku deployment
(see next steps).
Note: The second port number in the ssh
command above (i.e. 8080
) should
be the same as the port number you connected on your host machine to the kind cluster.
If you use a different port number in the command when you create your kind cluster then
make sure you use that port number here as well. Using a common port on the host side
like 80
is not recommended because it can cause issues with the routing between
Renku, the host and the kind cluster.
Set up the gitlab client application¶
Browse to GitLab, then click on the user icon and select settings > applications. Register a new client application with the following settings:
Name: renku-local
Scopes: all except
sudo
Redirect URIs (for
<renku-domain>
use the value provided by thelocalhost.run
service, from earlier - this domain usually has a format like<some-name>.lhr.domains
):
https://<renku-domain>/login/redirect/gitlab https://<renku-domain>/api/auth/gitlab/token
Copy the Application Id
and the Secret
that appear at the end of
this procedure.
Configure the values.yaml
file¶
The values.yaml
file will depend on the URL that GitLab is running under.
We have two templates available in the cloned repository in the folder
helm-chart/example-configurations/
.
The flagship gitlab.com
instance is available at the root of the domain.
If you are using gitlab.com
or any other instance where GitLab is
accessible at the root of the domain, use the file
helm-chart/example-configurations/gitlab_dot_com-gitlab-values.yaml
as
a template and copy this file to
helm-chart/example-configurations/external-gitlab-values.yaml
.
If you are using renkulab.io/gitlab or another instance of GitLab
that is accessible under the path /gitlab
, then use
helm-chart/example-configurations/renkulab-gitlab-values.yaml
as
a template and copy this file to
helm-chart/example-configurations/external-gitlab-values.yaml
.
(If the GitLab instance is available under a different path than either
the root or /gitlab
, use the gitlab_dot_com-gitlab-values.yaml
file as a template and adapt the path.)
To complete the template, you should open
helm-chart/example-configurations/external-gitlab-values.yaml
and enter
the required variables
that are indicated by TODO:
. You need to
provide the Application Id
and the
Secret
from the GitLab client application created in the previous step.
Deploy Renku to kind¶
Start the renku platform using helm:
$ kubectl create namespace renku
$ helm upgrade renku --install --namespace renku ./renku \
-f minikube-values.yaml -f example-configurations/external-gitlab-values.yaml \
--timeout 3600s
Executing this command for the first time can easily take a long time depending on your internet connection speed (even 30+ minutes) as all the necessary docker images need to be pulled. Do not interrupt the upgrade command.
If you want to verify that things are moving on, open a new terminal any type
kubectl -n renku get pod
. The renku-keycloak-* pod is the slowest. If the
Ready column reports 0/1 and Restarts is not higher than 1, all is going
as expected.
This would be a good moment to grab yourself a coffee…
Once the above command has returned you should be able to access the platform using
your browser under http://<some-name>.lhr.domains
.
Manage Keycloak¶
Keycloak is an identity
management solution which is deployed as a part of Renku. You can access
the admin interface at http://<some-name>.lhr.domains/auth
. The
admin username is “admin” and the admin password can be looked up in
the corresponding kubernetes secret:
$ kubectl get secrets -n renku keycloak-password-secret -o json | \
jq -r '.data["keycloak-password"]' | base64 --decode
Configure gitlab.com as the identity provider (optional)¶
It is possible to configure gitlab.com
or another external GitLab deployment as an identity provider
for your local Renku deployment. This has the benefit of having
only one source for user information and making the login process
for the platform more convenient.
While logged into the Keycloak admin interface, go to Identity Providers
and choose “GitLab” from the “Add Provider…” drop-down menu. Add the
Application Id
and Secret
from the Renku-local
application created earlier. Save the identity provider and logout
from the Keycloak admin panel.
Configure GitLab CI¶
For each created project you will have to modify the .gitlab-ci.yaml
in the repository for the image build to work. In the image_build
job
remove the
image-build
tagadd the following entry:
services:
- docker:dind