Spinnaker GitOps with Halyard

Spinnaker GitOps workflow

This approach enables the following workflow:

1. Spinnaker configurations are stored under source control.
2. Users have two options for updating configurations:
   • Clone the repo, make changes to the config files and commit the changes.
   • Clone the repo, run halyard container locally to update configurations using hal commands, and commit the changes.
3. A job in your existing CI tool automatically runs hal deploy apply to deploy Spinnaker changes.

Step 1: Remove secrets from your Halyard configuration

Since we’ll be storing Halyard configuration under source control, you need first to remove any secrets from it. Make sure to follow these instructions.

Step 2: Store your current configuration in source control

Create a new repository under source control with the following structure, copying your current Spinnaker configuration files:

README.md
<spin-installation-1>/
  hal/
    config
    ...
<spin-installation-2>/
  hal/
    config
    ...
<spin-installation-n>/

There are some files that you can safely ignore from source control, because they are auto generated when running some hal commands.

.gitignore

staging/
history/

You can manage multiple Spinnaker installations from a single repository.

Step 3: Create helper scripts to run Halyard and deploy Spinnaker

Halyard needs to be run as a Docker container for portability across machines.

Here is a sample script to be put in the repo’s root. It runs Halyard as a container, execs into it, and issues halyard commands. This example assumes AWS credentials present at ~/.aws and AWS_PROFILE environment variable used to select the right profile from those credentials, but you can mount any authentication files or environment variables needed to run your Halyard commands.

run-halyard.sh

#/bin/bash

set -ex

ENVIRONMENT=$1

[[ "x$ENVIRONMENT" = "x" ]] && echo "Usage: $0 <spin installation>" && exit 1

export HALYARD_VERSION=x.x.x
export HAL_HOME=`pwd`/$ENVIRONMENT/hal
export AWS_HOME='~/.aws'

# Run container
docker run --name armory-halyard --rm \
    -v $HAL_HOME:/home/spinnaker/.hal \
    -v $AWS_HOME:/home/spinnaker/.aws \
    -e AWS_PROFILE \
    -d docker.io/armory/halyard-armory:$HALYARD_VERSION

# Wait for container to start
sleep 30

# Connect to the running conainer
docker exec -it armory-halyard bash
sleep 3

docker stop armory-halyard

This other script is used for your CI tool to automatically deploy Spinnaker changes after a commit is pushed to the repo. It’s basically the same as the previous one but it only executes hal deploy apply. You need to account for this script being run in your CI environment; provide any authentication credentials needed by your environment.

apply-configs.sh

#/bin/bash

set -ex

ENVIRONMENT=$1

[[ "x$ENVIRONMENT" = "x" ]] && echo "Usage: $0 <spin installation>" && exit 1

# Delete dangling halyards
EXISTING=`docker ps -q -a -f name="halyard"`
if [ "x$EXISTING" != "x" ]
then
    docker stop $EXISTING && sleep 5
    EXISTING=`docker ps -q -a -f name="halyard"`
    if [ "x$EXISTING" != "x" ]
    then
        docker rm $EXISTING
    fi
fi

export HALYARD_VERSION=x.x.x
export HAL_HOME=`pwd`/$ENVIRONMENT/hal
export AWS_HOME='~/.aws'

# Run container
docker run --name armory-halyard --rm \
    -v $HAL_HOME:/home/spinnaker/.hal \
    -e AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID \
    -e AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY \
    -d docker.io/armory/halyard-armory:$HALYARD_VERSION

# Wait for container to start
sleep 30

# Apply the configurations
docker exec armory-halyard hal deploy apply

sleep 3

docker stop armory-halyard

Finally, this is a sample Jenkins pipeline that executes the above script.

Jenkinsfile

pipeline {
  agent any
  environment {
    AWS_CREDS = credentials('AWS_SPINNAKER')
  }
  stages {
     stage('Run hal deploy apply') {
      steps {
        sh '''
          export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=$AWS_CREDS_USR
          export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=$AWS_CREDS_PSW
          ./apply-configs.sh
        '''
      }
    }
  }
}

Putting it all together, you’ll end up with the following repo structure:

README.md
run-halyard.sh
apply-configs.sh
Jenkinsfile
<spin-installation-1>/
  hal/
    config
    ...
<spin-installation-2>/
  hal/
    config
    ...
<spin-installation-n>/

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