Upbound Docs - Deploy a Space on Azure

Deploy a Space on Azure

Get started with Upbound Spaces on a Microsoft Azure AKS cluster.

Prerequisites

This quickstart requires:

You have an account on Azure and have installed the Azure CLI.
An Upbound Account string, provided by your Upbound account representative
A license token in the form of a token.json, provided by your Upbound account representative

Important

Upbound Spaces is a paid feature of Upbound and requires a license token to successfully complete the installation. Contact Upbound if you want to try out Spaces.

Provision the hosting environment

Create an AKS cluster

Configure the name and target region you want the AKS cluster deployed to.

export SPACES_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME=upbound-space-quickstart
export SPACES_CLUSTER_NAME=upbound-space-quickstart
export SPACES_LOCATION=westus

Provision a new Azure resource group.

az group create --name ${SPACES_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME} --location ${SPACES_LOCATION}

Provision a 3-node cluster.

az aks create -g ${SPACES_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME} -n ${SPACES_CLUSTER_NAME} \
  --enable-managed-identity \
  --node-count 3 \
  --node-vm-size Standard_D4s_v4 \
  --enable-addons monitoring \
  --enable-msi-auth-for-monitoring \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --network-plugin kubenet \
  --network-policy calico

Get the kubeconfig of your AKS cluster.

az aks get-credentials --resource-group ${SPACES_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME} --name ${SPACES_CLUSTER_NAME}

Configure the pre-install

Set your Upbound organization account details

Set your Upbound organization account string as an environment variable for use in future steps

export UPBOUND_ACCOUNT=

Set up pre-install configurations

Export the path of the license token JSON file provided by your Upbound account representative.

# Change the path to where you saved the token.
export SPACES_TOKEN_PATH=""

Set the version of Spaces software you want to install.

export SPACES_VERSION=1.0.1

Set the router host and cluster type. The SPACES_ROUTER_HOST is the domain name that’s used to access the control plane instances. It’s used by the ingress controller to route requests.

# TODO: Replace this with a domain that you own!
export SPACES_ROUTER_HOST=

Important

Make sure to replace the placeholder text in SPACES_ROUTER_HOST and provide a real domain that you own

The SPACES_CLUSTER_TYPE is the Kubernetes cluster provider you’re deploying Spaces into. This quickstart targets aks.

export SPACES_CLUSTER_TYPE=aks

The up CLI gives you a “batteries included” experience. It automatically detects which prerequisites aren’t met and prompts you to install them to move forward. The up CLI introduced Spaces-related commands in v0.19.0. Make sure you use this version or newer.

Tip

Make sure your kubectl context is set to the cluster you want to install Spaces into.

By default, Spaces install sets up a public ingress as a convenience by appending the --public-ingress=true option in the command below. To defer setting up a public ingress, don’t pass this flag.

Warning

The public ingress setup below is meant to demonstrate a fastpath to a working solution. Be careful for production scenarios, since it exposes your Spaces API server to the external network.

Install the Space.

up space init --token-file="${SPACES_TOKEN_PATH}" "v${SPACES_VERSION}" \
  --public-ingress=true \
  --set "ingress.host=${SPACES_ROUTER_HOST}" \
  --set "clusterType=${SPACES_CLUSTER_TYPE}" \
  --set "account=${UPBOUND_ACCOUNT}"

If you chose to create a public ingress, you also need to create a DNS record for the load balancer of the public facing ingress. Do this before you create your first control plane.

You are ready to create your first managed control plane in your Space.

With Helm

Whereas the up CLI handles installation of the pre-requisites, with Helm you need to install them on your own. This gives you more control over the installation process.

Install cert-manager

Install cert-manager.

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.12.3/cert-manager.yaml
kubectl wait deployment -n cert-manager cert-manager-webhook --for condition=Available=True --timeout=360s

Install ingress-nginx

Install ingress-nginx.

helm upgrade --install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx \
  --create-namespace --namespace ingress-nginx \
  --repo https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx \
  --version 4.7.1 \
  --set 'controller.service.type=LoadBalancer' \
  --set 'controller.service.annotations.service\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/azure-load-balancer-health-probe-request-path=/healthz' \
  --wait

Install UXP

Install Upbound Universal Crossplane (UXP)

helm upgrade --install crossplane universal-crossplane \
  --repo https://charts.upbound.io/stable \
  --namespace upbound-system --create-namespace \
  --version v1.13.2-up.1 \
  --wait

Install provider-helm and provider-kubernetes

Install Provider Helm and Provider Kubernetes. Spaces uses these providers internally to manage resources in the cluster. You need to install these providers and grant necessary permissions to create resources.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: provider-kubernetes
spec:
  package: "xpkg.upbound.io/crossplane-contrib/provider-kubernetes:v0.9.0"
---
apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
kind: Provider
metadata:
  name: provider-helm
spec:
  package: "xpkg.upbound.io/crossplane-contrib/provider-helm:v0.15.0"
EOF

Grant the provider pods permissions to create resources in the cluster.

PROVIDERS=(provider-kubernetes provider-helm)
for PROVIDER in ${PROVIDERS[@]}; do
  cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: $PROVIDER
  namespace: upbound-system
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: $PROVIDER
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: $PROVIDER
    namespace: upbound-system
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
---
apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1alpha1
kind: ControllerConfig
metadata:
  name: $PROVIDER-hub
spec:
  serviceAccountName: $PROVIDER
EOF
  kubectl patch provider.pkg.crossplane.io "${PROVIDER}" --type merge -p "{\"spec\": {\"controllerConfigRef\": {\"name\": \"$PROVIDER-hub\"}}}"
done

Wait until the providers are ready.

kubectl wait provider.pkg.crossplane.io/provider-helm \
  --for=condition=Healthy \
  --timeout=360s
kubectl wait provider.pkg.crossplane.io/provider-kubernetes \
  --for=condition=Healthy \
  --timeout=360s

Configure the providers

Create ProviderConfigs that configure the providers to use the cluster they’re deployed into.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: helm.crossplane.io/v1beta1
kind: ProviderConfig
metadata:
  name: upbound-cluster
spec:
 credentials:
    source: InjectedIdentity
---
apiVersion: kubernetes.crossplane.io/v1alpha1
kind: ProviderConfig
metadata:
  name: upbound-cluster
spec:
  credentials:
    source: InjectedIdentity
EOF

Install Upbound Spaces

Create an image pull secret so that the cluster can pull Upbound Spaces images.

kubectl -n upbound-system create secret docker-registry upbound-pull-secret \
  --docker-server=https://us-west1-docker.pkg.dev \
  --docker-username=_json_key \
  --docker-password="$(cat $SPACES_TOKEN_PATH)"

cat $SPACES_TOKEN_PATH | helm registry login us-west1-docker.pkg.dev -u _json_key --password-stdin

Install Spaces.

helm -n upbound-system upgrade --install spaces \
  oci://us-west1-docker.pkg.dev/orchestration-build/upbound-environments/spaces \
  --version "${SPACES_VERSION}" \
  --set "ingress.host=${SPACES_ROUTER_HOST}" \
  --set "clusterType=${SPACES_CLUSTER_TYPE}" \
  --set "account=${UPBOUND_ACCOUNT}" \
  --wait

Create a DNS record

Create a DNS record for the load balancer of the public facing ingress. To get the address for the Ingress, run the following:

kubectl get ingress \
  -n upbound-system mxe-router-ingress \
  -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}'

If the preceding command doesn’t return a load balancer address then your provider may not have allocated it yet. Once it’s available, add a DNS record for the ROUTER_HOST to point to the given load balancer address. If it’s an IPv4 address, add an A record. If it’s a domain name, add a CNAME record.

You are ready to create your first managed control plane in your Space.

Create your first managed control plane

With your kubeconfig pointed at the Kubernetes cluster where you installed the Upbound Space, create a managed control plane:

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: spaces.upbound.io/v1alpha1
kind: ControlPlane
metadata:
  name: ctp1
spec:
  writeConnectionSecretToRef:
    name: kubeconfig-ctp1
    namespace: default
EOF

The first managed control plane you create in a Space takes around 5 minutes to get into a condition=READY state. Wait until it’s ready using the following command:

kubectl wait controlplane ctp1 --for condition=Ready=True --timeout=360s

Connect to your managed control plane

The connection details for your managed control plane should now exist in a secret. You can fetch the connection details with the following command:

kubectl get secret kubeconfig-ctp1 -n default -o jsonpath='{.data.kubeconfig}' | base64 -d > /tmp/ctp1.yaml

You can use the kubeconfig to interact with your managed control plane directly:

kubectl get crds --kubeconfig=/tmp/ctp1.yaml

Prerequisites

Provision the hosting environment

Create an AKS cluster

Configure the pre-install

Set your Upbound organization account details

Set up pre-install configurations

Install a Space

With the up CLI

With Helm

Install cert-manager

Install ingress-nginx

Install UXP

Install provider-helm and provider-kubernetes

Configure the providers

Install Upbound Spaces

Create a DNS record

Create your first managed control plane

Connect to your managed control plane