Deploy an app to GKE using Cloud Deploy

Deploy an app to GKE using Cloud Deploy

This page shows you how to use Cloud Deploy to deliver a sample application image named nginx to a sequence of two Google Kubernetes Engine clusters.

In this quickstart, you'll do the following:

1. Create the two clusters.

2. Create a Skaffold configuration and a Kubernetes manifest to specify the (pre-built) container image to deploy.

3. Define your Cloud Deploy delivery pipeline and deployment targets, which point to the two clusters.

4. Instantiate your delivery pipeline by creating a release, which automatically deploys to the first target.

5. Promote the release to the second target.

6. View both rollouts in Google Cloud console.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. Enable the Cloud Deploy, Cloud Build, GKE, and Cloud Storage APIs.

   Enable the APIs

5. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

6. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

   gcloud init

   Note: You can run the gcloud CLI in the Google Cloud console without installing the Google Cloud CLI. To run the gcloud CLI in the Google Cloud console, use Cloud Shell.

7. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

8. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

9. Enable the Cloud Deploy, Cloud Build, GKE, and Cloud Storage APIs.

   Enable the APIs

10. Install the Google Cloud CLI.

11. To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

    gcloud init

    Note: You can run the gcloud CLI in the Google Cloud console without installing the Google Cloud CLI. To run the gcloud CLI in the Google Cloud console, use Cloud Shell.
12. Make sure the default Compute Engine service account has sufficient permissions.

    The service account might already have the necessary permissions. These steps are included for projects that disable automatic role grants for default service accounts.

1. Add the clouddeploy.jobRunner role:

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
       --member=serviceAccount:$(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID \
       --format="value(projectNumber)")[e-mail] \
       --role="roles/clouddeploy.jobRunner"
   

2. Add the Kubernetes developer permissions:

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
       --member=serviceAccount:$(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID \
       --format="value(projectNumber)")[e-mail] \
       --role="roles/container.developer"
   

   If you have trouble adding either of these roles, contact your project administrator.

3. Add the iam.serviceAccountUser role, which includes the actAspermission to deploy to the runtime:

   gcloud iam service-accounts add-iam-policy-binding $(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID \
       --format="value(projectNumber)")[e-mail] \
       --member=serviceAccount:$(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID \
       --format="value(projectNumber)")[e-mail] \
       --role="roles/iam.serviceAccountUser" \
       --project=PROJECT_ID
   

Create your Google Kubernetes Engine clusters

Create two clusters: qsdev and qsprod, with default settings. The clusters' Kubernetes API endpoints must be network-reachable from the public internet. GKE clusters are externally accessible by default.

gcloud container clusters create-auto quickstart-cluster-qsdev --project=PROJECT_ID --region=us-central1 && gcloud container clusters create-auto quickstart-cluster-qsprod --project=PROJECT_ID --region=us-central1

Prepare your Skaffold configuration and Kubernetes manifest

Cloud Deploy uses Skaffold to provide the details for what to deploy and how to deploy it properly for your separate targets.

In this quickstart, you create a skaffold.yaml file, which identifies the Kubernetes manifest to be used to deploy the sample app.

1. Open a terminal window.

2. Create a new directory, named deploy-gke-quickstart and navigate into it.

   mkdir deploy-gke-quickstart
   cd deploy-gke-quickstart
   

3. Create a file named skaffold.yaml with the following contents:

   apiVersion: skaffold/v4beta7
   kind: Config
   manifests:
     rawYaml:
     - k8s-*
   deploy:
     kubectl: {}
   

   This file is a minimal Skaffold config, identifying your manifest. For this quickstart, you create the file. But you can also have Cloud Deploy create one for you, for simple, non-production applications.

   See the skaffold.yaml reference for more information about this file.

4. Create a file named k8s-pod.yaml, with the following contents:

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Pod
   metadata:
     name: getting-started
   spec:
     containers:
     - name: nginx
       image: my-app-image
   

   This file is a basic Kubernetes manifest, which is applied to the cluster to deploy the application. The container image to deploy is set here as a placeholder, my-app-image, which is replaced with the specific image when you create the release.

Note: If you want to use different manifests per target, read this article about managing manifests to find out more about using Skaffold profiles.

Create your delivery pipeline and targets

You can define your pipeline and targets in one file or in separate files. In this quickstart, you create a single file.

1. In the deploy-gke-quickstart directory, create a new file: clouddeploy.yaml, with the following contents:

   apiVersion: deploy.cloud.google.com/v1
   kind: DeliveryPipeline
   metadata:
     name: my-gke-demo-app-1
   description: main application pipeline
   serialPipeline:
     stages:
     - targetId: qsdev
       profiles: []
     - targetId: qsprod
       profiles: []
   ---
   
   apiVersion: deploy.cloud.google.com/v1
   kind: Target
   metadata:
     name: qsdev
   description: development cluster
   gke:
     cluster: projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/us-central1/clusters/quickstart-cluster-qsdev
   ---
   
   apiVersion: deploy.cloud.google.com/v1
   kind: Target
   metadata:
     name: qsprod
   description: production cluster
   gke:
     cluster: projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/us-central1/clusters/quickstart-cluster-qsprod
   

2. Register your pipeline and targets with the Cloud Deploy service:

   gcloud deploy apply --file=clouddeploy.yaml --region=us-central1 --project=PROJECT_ID
   

   You now have a pipeline, with targets, ready to deploy your application to your first target.

3. Confirm your pipeline and targets:

   In the Google Cloud console, navigate to the Cloud Deploy Delivery pipelines page to view of list of your available delivery pipelines.

   Open the Delivery pipelines page

   The delivery pipeline you just created is shown, and the two targets are listed in the Targets column.

   

Create a release

A release is the central Cloud Deploy resource representing the changes being deployed. The delivery pipeline defines the lifecycle of that release. See Cloud Deploy service architecture for details about that lifecycle.

Run the following command from the deploy-gke-quickstart directory to create a release resource that represents the container image to deploy:

gcloud deploy releases create test-release-001 \
  --project=PROJECT_ID \
  --region=us-central1 \
  --delivery-pipeline=my-gke-demo-app-1 \
  --images=my-app-image=gcr.io/google-containers/nginx@sha256:f49a843c290594dcf4d193535d1f4ba8af7d56cea2cf79d1e9554f077f1e7aaa

Notice the --images= flag, which you use to replace the placeholder (my-app-image) in the manifest with the specific, SHA-qualified image. Google recommends that you templatize your manifests this way, and that you use SHA-qualified image names at release creation.

As with all releases (unless they include --disable-initial-rollout), Cloud Deploy automatically creates a rollout resource too. The application is automatically deployed into the first target in the progression.

Promote the release

Note: after you create the release, you might need wait a few minutes before you continue with this step.

1. From the Delivery pipelines page, click the my-gke-demo-app-1 pipeline.

   Open the Delivery pipelines page

   The Delivery pipeline details page shows a graphical representation of your delivery pipeline's progress. In this case, it shows that the release was deployed to the qsdev target.

   

2. On the first target in the delivery pipeline visualization, click Promote.

   The Promote release dialog is shown. It shows the details of the target you're promoting to.

3. Click Promote.

   The release is now queued for deployment into qsprod. When deployment is complete, the delivery pipeline visualization shows it as deployed:

   

View the results in Google Cloud console

1. In the Google Cloud console, navigate to the Cloud Deploy Delivery pipelines page to view your my-gke-demo-app-1 delivery pipeline.

   Open the Delivery pipelines page

2. Click the name of your delivery pipeline "my-gke-demo-app-1".

   The pipeline visualization shows the app's progress through the pipeline.

   

   And your release is listed on the Releases tab under Delivery pipeline details.

3. Click the release name, test-release-001.

   Your rollouts appear under Rollouts. You can click a rollout to view its details, including the deployment log.

   

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

1. Delete the qsdev cluster:

   gcloud container clusters delete quickstart-cluster-qsdev --region=us-central1 --project=PROJECT_ID
   

2. Delete the qsprod cluster:

   gcloud container clusters delete quickstart-cluster-qsprod --region=us-central1 --project=PROJECT_ID
   

3. Delete the delivery pipeline, targets, release and rollouts:

   gcloud deploy delete --file=clouddeploy.yaml --force --region=us-central1 --project=PROJECT_ID
   

4. Delete the Cloud Storage buckets that Cloud Deploy created.

   One ends with _clouddeploy, and the other is [region].deploy-artifacts.[project].appspot.com.

   Open the Cloud Storage browser page

That's it, you completed this quickstart!

What's next

• Learn more about Cloud Deploy.

• Learn the basics of deploying applications.

• Try out the Cloud Deploy walkthrough.

• Learn how to manage your manifests.

• Learn how to combine Google Cloud CI/CD tools to develop and deliver software effectively to GKE.