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Version: 1.8.0

Installation of Epinio

Introduction​

Epinio is installed from a single Helm chart and, by default, it also installs Kubed, MinIO and a container registry in your Kubernetes cluster.

You can disable the installation of Kubed, MinIO and the container registry by changing the settings as described in the respective sections.

Prerequisites​

See system requirements for a detailed list of external components your Kubernetes cluster needs to have before you install Epinio.

IMPORTANT: Some of the namespaces of the components are hardcoded in the Epinio code and thus are important to be the same as described here. In the future this may be configurable on the Epinio Helm chart.

Installation​

Ingress Controller​

Epinio creates Ingress resources for the API server, the applications and depending on your setup, the internal container registry. Those resources won't work unless an Ingress controller is running on your cluster.

If you don't have an Ingress controller already running, you can install Traefik with:

$ kubectl create namespace traefik
$ helm repo add traefik https://traefik.github.io/charts
$ helm repo update
$ export LOAD_BALANCER_IP=${LOAD_BALANCER_IP:-} # Set this to the IP of your load balancer if you know that
$ helm install traefik --namespace traefik traefik/traefik \
        --set ports.web.redirectTo=websecure \
        --set ingressClass.enabled=true \
        --set ingressClass.isDefaultClass=true \
        --set service.spec.loadBalancerIP=$LOAD_BALANCER_IP

It's also possible to use Nginx instead of Traefik following the official documentation.

Do not forget to use the option --set controller.setAsDefaultIngress=true when you install Nginx.
Otherwise, if you do not want defining Nginx as the default ingress, feel free to use --set ingress.ingressClassName=nginxwhen you deploy Epinio.

WARNING: Sometimes, when Epinio uploads your app, you might see error pushing app to server: can't upload archive: server status code: Request Entity Too Large.
In this case, you need to increase the max body size by adding an annotation to your ingress as described in nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-body-size

Cert Manager​

Epinio needs cert-manager in order to create TLS certificates for the various Ingresses (see "Ingress controller" above).

If cert-manager is not already installed on the cluster, it can be installed like this:

$ kubectl create namespace cert-manager
$ helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
$ helm repo update
$ helm install cert-manager --namespace cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
        --set installCRDs=true \
        --set extraArgs={--enable-certificate-owner-ref=true}

WARNING: if cert-manager isn't installed in the namespace cert-manager, you have to set .Values.certManagerNamespace accordingly, otherwise Epinio installation will fail.

Kubed​

Kubed is installed as a subchart when .Values.kubed.enabled is true (default). If you already have kubed running, you can skip the installation by setting the helm value "kubed.enabled" to "false".

S3 storage​

Epinio is using an S3 compatible storage to store the application source code. This chart will install Minio when .Values.minio.enabled is true (default).

In addition to Minio, Epinio offers s3gw as another internal S3 compatible storage. It is installed when .Values.minio.enabled is set to false and .Values.s3gw.enabled is set to true.

Both choices for internal S3 compatible storage can be configured to use a user-defined storageClass. If no StorageClass is defined, the default storageClass is used. For Minio the custom storageClass is set via the value of .Values.persistance.storageClass. For s3gw the custom storageClass is set via the value of .Values.s3gw.storageClass.name.

Any external S3 compatible solution can be used instead by setting Values.minio.enabled value to false (Values.s3gw.enabled is false by default) and using the values under s3 to point to the desired S3 server.

Container Registry​

When Epinio builds a container image for an application from source, it needs to store that image to a container registry. Epinio installs a container registry on the cluster when .Values.containerregistry.enabled is true (default).

Any container registry that supports basic auth authentication (e.g. gcr, dockerhub etc) can be used instead, by setting this value to false and using the relevant global values to point to the desired container registry.

Install Epinio​

If the above dependencies are available or going to be installed by this chart, Epinio can be installed with the following:

$ helm repo add epinio https://epinio.github.io/helm-charts
$ helm install epinio -n epinio --create-namespace epinio/epinio --values epinio-values.yaml --set global.domain=myepiniodomain.org

The only value that is mandatory is the .Values.global.domain which should be a wildcard domain, pointing to the IP address of your running Ingress controller.

Read more on how to setup DNS here: DNS setup

NOTE: If you're deploying Epinio in a "localhost" environment, you can use a "magic domain name".

NOTE II: in case the installation fails due to an expired certificate (for instance if you have previously initialized the epinio cli on a machine for a different cluster) please consider executing epinio epinio settings update-ca. More info at: epinio-settings-update-ca

Installation on Specific Kubernetes Offerings​

Installing Epinio is a standard process as explained above, however you might need to configure it for a specific Kubernetes cluster.

To help you, see the following HowTos for various well-known Kubernetes clusters:

NOTE: The Public Cloud howto lists the three major Cloud providers but Epinio can run on any Kubernetes cluster.