Illumina Innovates with Rancher and Kubernetes
Notes: Pipelines are new and improved for Rancher v2.1! Therefore, if you configured pipelines while using v2.0.x, you’ll have to reconfigure them after upgrading to v2.1. Still using v2.0.x? See the pipeline documentation for previous versions.
Notes:
Before setting up any pipelines, review the pipeline overview and ensure that the project has configured authentication to your version control provider, e.g. GitHub, GitLab, Bitucket. If you haven’t configured a version control provider, you can always use Rancher’s example repositories to view some common pipeline deployments.
If you can access a project, you can enable repositories to start building pipelines. Only an administrator, cluster owner or member, or project owner can authorize version control providers.
When setting up a pipeline, it’s helpful to know a few related terms.
Pipeline:
A pipeline consists of stages and steps. It is based on a specific repository. It defines the process to build, test, and deploy your code. Rancher uses the pipeline as code model. Pipeline configuration is represented as a pipeline file in the source code repository, using the file name .rancher-pipeline.yml or .rancher-pipeline.yaml.
.rancher-pipeline.yml
.rancher-pipeline.yaml
Stages:
A pipeline stage consists of multiple steps. Stages are executed in the order defined in the pipeline file. The steps in a stage are executed concurrently. A stage starts when all steps in the former stage finish without failure.
Steps:
A pipeline step is executed inside a specified stage. A step fails if it exits with a code other than 0. If a step exits with this failure code, the entire pipeline fails and terminates.
0
Workspace:
The workspace is the working directory shared by all pipeline steps. In the beginning of a pipeline, source code is checked out to the workspace. The command for every step bootstraps in the workspace. During a pipeline execution, the artifacts from a previous step will be available in future steps. The working directory is an ephemeral volume and will be cleaned out with the executor pod when a pipeline execution is finished.
After the version control provider is authorized, you are automatically re-directed to start configuring which repositories that you want start using pipelines with. Even if someone else has set up the version control provider, you will see their repositories and can build a pipeline.
From the Global view, navigate to the project that you want to configure pipelines.
Click Resources > Pipelines. In versions prior to v2.3.0, click Workloads > Pipelines.
Click on Configure Repositories.
A list of repositories are displayed. If you are configuring repositories the first time, click on Authorize & Fetch Your Own Repositories to fetch your repository list.
For each repository that you want to set up a pipeline, click on Enable.
When you’re done enabling all your repositories, click on Done.
Results: You have a list of repositories that you can start configuring pipelines for.
Now that repositories are added to your project, you can start configuring the pipeline by adding automated stages and steps. For your convenience, there are multiple built-in step types for dedicated tasks.
Find the repository that you want to set up a pipeline for. Pipelines can be configured either through the UI or using a yaml file in the repository, i.e. .rancher-pipeline.yml or .rancher-pipeline.yaml. Throughout the next couple of steps, we’ll provide the options of how to do pipeline configuration through the UI or the YAML file.
Note: When editing the pipeline configuration, it takes a few moments for Rancher to check for an existing pipeline configuration.
Select which branch to use from the list of branches.
branch
Pipeline configuration is split into stages and steps. Remember that stages must fully complete before moving onto the next stage, but steps in a stage run concurrently.
For each stage, you can add different step types. Learn more about how to configure each step type:
Note: As you build out each step, there are different advanced options based on the step type.
If you haven’t added any stages, click Configure pipeline for this branch to configure the pipeline through the UI.
Add stages to your pipeline execution by clicking Add Stage.
After you’ve created a stage, start adding steps by clicking Add a Step. You can add multiple steps to each stage.
For each stage, you can add multiple steps. Read more about each step type and the advanced options to get all thhe details on how to configure the YAML. This is only a small example of how to have multiple stages with a singular step in each stage.
# example stages: - name: Build something # Conditions for stages when: branch: master event: [ push, pull_request ] # Multiple steps run concurrently steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: date -R - name: Publish my image steps: - publishImageConfig: dockerfilePath: ./Dockerfile buildContext: . tag: rancher/rancher:v2.0.0 # Optionally push to remote registry pushRemote: true registry: reg.example.com
Available as of v2.2.0
Notifications: Decide if you want to set up notifications for your pipeline. You can enable notifications to any notifiers based on the build status of a pipeline. Before enabling notifications, Rancher recommends setting up notifiers so it will be easy to add recipients immediately.
Within the Notification section, turn on notifications by clicking Enable.
Select the conditions for the notification. You can select to get a notification for the following statuses: Failed, Success, Changed. For example, if you want to receive notifications when an execution fails, select Failed.
Failed
Success
Changed
If you don’t have any existing notifiers, Rancher will provide a warning that no notifers are set up and provide a link to be able to go to the notifiers page. Follow the instructions to add a notifier. If you already have notifiers, you can add them to the notification by clicking the Add Recipient button.
Note: Notifiers are configured at a cluster level and require a different level of permissions.
For each recipient, select which notifier type from the dropdown. Based on the type of notifier, you can use the default recipient or override the recipient with a different one. For example, if you have a notifier for Slack, you can update which channel to send the notification to. You can add additional notifiers by clicking Add Recipient.
In the notification section, you will provide the following information:
notification
# Example stages: - name: Build something steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: ls notification: recipients: - # Recipient recipient: "#mychannel" # ID of Notifier notifier: "c-wdcsr:n-c9pg7" - recipient: "test@example.com" notifier: "c-wdcsr:n-lkrhd" # Select which statuses you want the notification to be sent condition: ["Failed", "Success", "Changed"] # Ability to override the default message (Optional) message: "my-message"
Set up the Trigger Rules for the pipeline.
Enter a Timeout for the pipeline. By default, each pipeline execution has a timeout of 60 minutes. If the pipeline execution cannot complete within its timeout period, the pipeline is aborted.
Enter a new value in the Timeout field.
In the timeout section, enter the timeout value in minutes.
timeout
# example stages: - name: Build something steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: ls # timeout in minutes timeout: 30
When all the stages and steps are configured, click Done.
Results: Your pipeline is now configured and ready to be run.
Run your pipeline for the first time. From the project view in Rancher, go to Resources > Pipelines. (In versions prior to v2.3.0, go to the Pipelines tab.) Find your pipeline and select the vertical Ellipsis (…) > Run.
During this initial run, your pipeline is tested, and the following pipeline components are deployed to your project as workloads in a new namespace dedicated to the pipeline:
docker-registry
jenkins
minio
This process takes several minutes. When it completes, you can view each pipeline component from the project Workloads tab.
When a repository is enabled, a webhook is automatically set in the version control provider. By default, the pipeline is triggered by a push event to a repository, but you can modify the event(s) that trigger running the pipeline.
Available Events:
Note: This option doesn’t exist for Rancher’s example repositories.
From the Global view, navigate to the project that you want to modify the event trigger for the pipeline.
Find the repository that you want to modify the event triggers. Select the vertical Ellipsis (…) > Setting.
Select which event triggers (Push, Pull Request or Tag) you want for the repository.
Click Save.
Within each stage, you can add as many steps as you’d like. When there are multiple steps in one stage, they run concurrently.
The Run Script step executes arbitrary commands in the workspace inside a specified container. You can use it to build, test and do more, given whatever utilities the base image provides. For your convenience, you can use variables to refer to metadata of a pipeline execution. Please refer to the pipeline variable substitution reference for the list of available variables.
From the Step Type drop-down, choose Run Script and fill in the form.
Click Add.
# example stages: - name: Build something steps: - runScriptConfig: image: golang shellScript: go build
The Build and Publish Image step builds and publishes a Docker image. This process requires a Dockerfile in your source code’s repository to complete successfully.
Available as of Rancher v2.1.0
The option to publish an image to an insecure registry is not exposed in the UI, but you can specify an environment variable in the YAML that allows you to publish an image insecurely.
From the Step Type drop-down, choose Build and Publish.
Fill in the rest of the form. Descriptions for each field are listed below. When you’re done, click Add.
./Dockerfile
./path/to/myDockerfile
name:tag
example.com/repo/my-image:dev
repo/my-image:dev
.
You can use specific arguments for Docker daemon and the build. They are not exposed in the UI, but they are available in pipeline YAML format, as indicated in the example below. Available environment variables include:
# This example shows an environment variable being used # in the Publish Image step. This variable allows you to # publish an image to an insecure registry: stages: - name: Publish Image steps: - publishImageConfig: dockerfilePath: ./Dockerfile buildContext: . tag: repo/app:v1 pushRemote: true registry: example.com env: PLUGIN_INSECURE: "true"
The Publish Catalog Template step publishes a version of a catalog app template (i.e. Helm chart) to a git hosted chart repository. It generates a git commit and pushes it to your chart repository. This process requires a chart folder in your source code’s repository and a pre-configured secret in the dedicated pipeline namespace to complete successfully. Any variables in the pipeline variable substitution reference is supported for any file in the chart folder.
From the Step Type drop-down, choose Publish Catalog Template.
Chart.yaml
USERNAME
PASSWORD
DEPLOY_KEY
You can add Publish Catalog Template steps directly in the .rancher-pipeline.yml file.
Under the steps section, add a step with publishCatalogConfig. You will provide the following information:
steps
publishCatalogConfig
# example stages: - name: Publish Wordpress Template steps: - publishCatalogConfig: path: ./charts/wordpress/latest catalogTemplate: wordpress version: ${CICD_GIT_TAG} gitUrl: git@github.com:myrepo/charts.git gitBranch: master gitAuthor: example-user gitEmail: user@example.com envFrom: - sourceName: publish-keys sourceKey: DEPLOY_KEY
This step deploys arbitrary Kubernetes resources to the project. This deployment requires a Kubernetes manifest file to be present in the source code repository. Pipeline variable substitution is supported in the manifest file. You can view an example file at GitHub. Please refer to the pipeline variable substitution reference for the list of available variables.
From the Step Type drop-down, choose Deploy YAML and fill in the form.
Enter the YAML Path, which is the path to the manifest file in the source code.
# example stages: - name: Deploy steps: - applyYamlConfig: path: ./deployment.yaml
The Deploy Catalog App step deploys a catalog app in the project. It will install a new app if it is not present, or upgrade an existing one.
From the Step Type drop-down, choose Deploy Catalog App.
You can add Deploy Catalog App steps directly in the .rancher-pipeline.yml file.
Under the steps section, add a step with applyAppConfig. You will provide the following information:
applyAppConfig
Launch app
View details
# example stages: - name: Deploy App steps: - applyAppConfig: catalogTemplate: cattle-global-data:library-mysql version: 0.3.8 answers: persistence.enabled: "false" name: testmysql targetNamespace: test
Within a pipeline, there are multiple advanced options for different parts of the pipeline.
Trigger rules can be created to have fine-grained control of pipeline executions in your pipeline configuration. Trigger rules come in two types:
Run this when:
This type of rule starts the pipeline, stage, or step when a trigger explicitly occurs.
Do Not Run this when:
This type of rule skips the pipeline, stage, or step when a trigger explicitly occurs.
If all conditions evaluate to true, then the pipeline/stage/step is executed. Otherwise it is skipped. When a pipeline is skipped, none of the pipeline is executed. When a stage/step is skipped, it is considered successful and follow-up stages/steps continue to run.
true
Wildcard character (*) expansion is supported in branch conditions.
*
From the Global view, navigate to the project that you want to configure a pipeline trigger rule.
From the repository for which you want to manage trigger rules, select the vertical Ellipsis (…) > Edit Config.
Click on Show Advanced Options.
In the Trigger Rules section, configure rules to run or skip the pipeline.
Click Add Rule. In the Value field, enter the name of the branch that triggers the pipeline.
Optional: Add more branches that trigger a build.
Click Done.
From the Global view, navigate to the project that you want to configure a stage trigger rule.
Find the stage that you want to manage trigger rules, click the Edit icon for that stage.
Click Show advanced options.
In the Trigger Rules section, configure rules to run or skip the stage.
Click Add Rule.
Choose the Type that triggers the stage and enter a value.
Push
Pull Request
Tag
Find the step that you want to manage trigger rules, click the Edit icon for that step.
In the Trigger Rules section, configure rules to run or skip the step.
Choose the Type that triggers the step and enter a value.
# example stages: - name: Build something # Conditions for stages when: branch: master event: [ push, pull_request ] # Multiple steps run concurrently steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: date -R # Conditions for steps when: branch: [ master, dev ] event: push # branch conditions for the pipeline branch: include: [ master, feature/*] exclude: [ dev ]
When configuring a pipeline, certain step types allow you to use environment variables to configure the step’s script.
From the pipeline for which you want to edit build triggers, select Ellipsis (…) > Edit Config.
Within one of the stages, find the step that you want to add an environment variable for, click the Edit icon.
Click Add Variable, and then enter a key and value in the fields that appear. Add more variables if needed.
Add your environment variable(s) into either the script or file.
# example stages: - name: Build something steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: echo ${FIRST_KEY} && echo ${SECOND_KEY} env: FIRST_KEY: VALUE SECOND_KEY: VALUE2
If you need to use security-sensitive information in your pipeline scripts (like a password), you can pass them in using Kubernetes secrets.
Create a secret in the same project as your pipeline, or explicitly in the namespace where pipeline build pods run.
Note: Secret injection is disabled on pull request events.
Within one of the stages, find the step that you want to use a secret for, click the Edit icon.
Click Add From Secret. Select the secret file that you want to use. Then choose a key. Optionally, you can enter an alias for the key.
# example stages: - name: Build something steps: - runScriptConfig: image: busybox shellScript: echo ${ALIAS_ENV} # environment variables from project secrets envFrom: - sourceName: my-secret sourceKey: secret-key targetKey: ALIAS_ENV
For your convenience, the following variables are available for your pipeline configuration scripts. During pipeline executions, these variables are replaced by metadata. You can reference them in the form of ${VAR_NAME}.
${VAR_NAME}
CICD_GIT_REPO_NAME
CICD_GIT_URL
CICD_GIT_COMMIT
CICD_GIT_BRANCH
CICD_GIT_REF
CICD_GIT_TAG
CICD_EVENT
push
pull_request
tag
CICD_PIPELINE_ID
CICD_EXECUTION_SEQUENCE
CICD_EXECUTION_ID
{CICD_PIPELINE_ID}-{CICD_EXECUTION_SEQUENCE}
CICD_REGISTRY
Deploy YAML
CICD_IMAGE