EKS Cluster: Part 15.20 – Argo Rollouts, Controller

Series of blog posts show progress of updating/adding to EKS Cluster, this post covers adding Argo Rollouts.

Argo Rollouts:

• Then build progressive delivery
  • Install Argo Rollouts through Argo CD.
  • Convert the Gateway demo Deployment into a Rollout.
  • Demonstrate blue/green deployment.
  • Add canary releases.
  • Connect Rollouts to Gateway API.
  • Add Prometheus analysis.
  • Deploy an intentionally unhealthy version.
  • Demonstrate automated rollback.

terraform plan

Phase 1: Install the Argo Rollouts controller through Argo CD.

Context & Layout Reasoning:

• We will install the Argo Rollouts controller through Argo CD. Think of the controller as the engine & the Helm repo installs the package for that particular engine.
• Below is the dependency order
  • Install CRDs
  • Start the controller
  • Deploy a rollout
  • Controller immediately recognize & manages it

K8s Rollout vs K8s

• K8s rollout is NOT handled by k8s cuz k8s does NOT know how to handle
  • Canary steps
  • Blue/green switching
  • Pauses and manual promotion
  • Analysis runs
  • Automated rollback
  • Stable versus canary ReplicaSets

Other Options:

• We could use the main repo argo-rollouts/install.yaml…
• However for my architecture layout already it makes sense to use argoproj/argo-helm cuz it configurable Helm packaging used to install Argo Rollouts.
  • Git-managed values.yaml
  • Controller resource requests and limits
  • Dashboard enable/disable settings
  • CRD installation settings
  • Replica configuration
  • Security-context configuration
  • RBAC configuration
  • Easier upgrades by changing targetRevision
  • The same multi-source Argo CD pattern already used for Karpenter, Kyverno, Prometheus and other tools

Sequel Later….

• Later.. The demo workload &/or rollout strategy will arrive after…

apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml

• The chart supports CRD installation and upgrades through installCRDs; its defaults also provide non-root and read-only filesystem security settings.
  • The current stable controller is Argo Rollouts v1.10.2; the current Helm chart is 2.43.11. We’ll avoid the v1.11.0-rc1 prerelease.
• Sources:
  • https://github.com/argoproj/argo-helm/blob/main/charts/argo-rollouts/values.yaml?

applications/lab/platform/argo-rollouts.yaml

• Important to callout the annotation wave of “-1” cuz the controller is installed before Rollout workloads. Then also note the sources targetrevision utilized

=======================
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: argo-rollouts
  namespace: argocd
  annotations:
    # Install the controller before Rollout workloads.
    argocd.argoproj.io/sync-wave: "-1"
spec:
  project: lab-platform
  sources:
    - repoURL: https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
      chart: argo-rollouts
      targetRevision: 2.43.11
      helm:
        releaseName: argo-rollouts
        valueFiles:
          - $values/apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml
=======================

applications/lab/projects/lab-platform.yaml

• Add to sourceRepos & destinations, the clusterResourceWhitelist & namespaceResourceWhitelist did NOT change.

=======================
  sourceRepos:
    - https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
=======================
destinations:
    - namespace: argo-rollouts
      server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
=======================

Validate Helm Chart & Install

=======================
helm repo add argo \
  https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
=======================
helm repo update
=======================
helm lint argo/argo-rollouts \
  --version 2.43.11 \
  --values apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml
=======================
helm template argo-rollouts \
  argo/argo-rollouts \
  --version 2.43.11 \
  --namespace argo-rollouts \
  --values apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml \
  > /tmp/argo-rollouts-rendered.yaml
=======================

GitOps validation workflow passes in GitHub Actions.

• Hopefully it passed?

.github/workflows/gitops-validate.yaml

• Add to the file only one entry to the existing helm-render matrix & then thru the command add the helm template.
• You will know its successful by seeing the extra job for argo-rollouts for metric helm-render.

=======================
strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        include:
          - name: argo-rollouts
            repository: https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
            chart: argo-rollouts
            version: 2.43.11
            values: apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml
            namespace: argo-rollouts
=======================
helm template \
  argo-rollouts \
  argo-rollouts \
  --repo https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm \
  --version 2.43.11 \
  --values apps/argo-rollouts/values.yaml \
  --namespace argo-rollouts \
  --kube-version 1.31.0 \
  --include-crds \
  > /tmp/argo-rollouts-rendered.yaml
test -s /tmp/argo-rollouts-rendered.yaml &&
echo "Argo Rollouts rendered successfully"
=======================

Phase 2: Deploy a simple Rollout demonstration workload.

applications/lab/projects/lab-platform.yaml

terraform apply