Deploying with kubectl

To install with kubectl, you need to get the Kubernetes configuration files.

They have the required metadata set for service discovery needed by the different applications and services deployed. To check out the code, enter the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/spring-cloud/spring-cloud-dataflow
cd spring-cloud-dataflow
git checkout main

Installing Spring Cloud Data Flow via the install-scdf.sh script.

Spring Cloud Data Flow offers the install-scdf.sh script that will execute the kubectl commands to install a SCDF for development purposes on Kubernetes. If you can not run a shell script you can follow the manual instructions shown below . The script currently supports the following Kubernetes platforms: kind, minikube, gke, and tmc,

Configure Spring Cloud Data Flow create Grafana Dashboard

If you wish to view metrics in Grafana for the applications launched by SCDF, edit the src/deploy/k8s/yaml/server-config.yaml and set the management.defaults.metrics.export.enabled to true before executing the install-scdf.sh script.

Configuring install-scdf.sh and installing Spring Cloud Data Flow

Environment setup

The script offers the following environment variables to establish how you want to install SCDF:

• NS - Establishes the namespace that the dataflow instance will be installed.
• K8S_DRIVER - Configure the Kubernetes environment based on your Kubernetes deployment. Currently supports kind, docker (minikube), tmc. It defaults to kind.
• DOCKER_SERVER - The docker registry that is supported in your environment.
• DOCKER_USER - The user for the docker server.
• DOCKER_PASSWORD - The password for the docker server.
• DOCKER_EMAIL - The email for the docker server.
• DATABASE - The database to be setup and used by Spring Cloud Data Flow and Task Applications. Currently supports mariadb or postgresql. The default is postgresql.
• BROKER - The messaging broker to be setup and used by Spring Cloud Data Flow and its stream applications. It currently supports rabbitmq and kafka. It defaults to rabbitmq.
• PROMETHEUS - Sets up a prometheus, prometheus-proxy, and a grafana instance if set to true. The default is false.

Before executing install-scdf.sh you can configure you local environment using on of the use-*.sh scripts:

cd <home directory of spring cloud data flow>/src/deploy/k8s/
source ./use-kind.sh --namespace test-ns mariadb kafka

The available use-* scripts for setting the Kubernetes environment running on your local machine are as follows:

• use-kind.sh - Establishes the environment variables to deploy a SCDF Application on your Kind instance.
• use-mk-docker.sh - Establishes the environment variables to deploy a SCDF Application on your Minikube instance on Docker.
• use-mk-kvm2.sh - Establishes the environment variables to deploy a SCDF Application on your Minikube instance using KVM2.
• use-tmc.sh - Establishes the environment variables to deploy a SCDF Application using Tanzu Mission Control.
• use-gke.sh - Establishes the environment variables to deploy a SCDF Application on Google Kubernetes Engine.

cd <home directory of spring cloud data flow>/src/deploy/k8s/
./configure-k8s.sh

To launch install-scdf.sh so that it will deploy Spring Cloud Data Flow in the default namespace of Minikube using Dockerhub for your registry, Mariadb as your database, Rabbitmq as your broker, and Prometheus for your metrics, you would setup and launch the script as follows:

cd <home directory of spring cloud data flow>/src/deploy/k8s/
source ./use-mk-docker.sh --namespace mariadb rabbitmq
export DOCKER_SERVER=registry.hub.docker.com
export DOCKER_USER=<your user name>
export DOCKER_PASSWORD=<your password>
export DOCKER_EMAIL=<your email>
export PROMETHEUS=true
./install-scdf.sh

To access the SCDF and Grafana ports from your local machine for the example above run the commands below:

kubectl port-forward <scdf-podname> 9393:9393
kubectl port-forward <grafana-podname> 3000:3000

Uninstalling Spring Cloud Data Flow via the delete-scdf.sh script.

If you are deleting the SCDF deployment created by the install-scdf.sh set the following environment variables :

• NS - Establishes the namespace that the dataflow instance is deployed.
• K8S_DRIVER - The Kubernetes environment that your SCDF is deployed. Currently supports kind, docker (minikube), tmc. It defaults to kind.
• DOCKER_SERVER - The docker registry that is supported in your environment
• DATABASE - The database to be removed that was used by Spring Cloud Data Flow and Task applications. Currently supports mariadb or postgresql. The default is postgresql.
• BROKER - The messaging broker to be removed that was used by Spring Cloud Data Flow and its stream applications. It currently supports rabbitmq and kafka. It defaults to rabbitmq.
• PROMETHEUS - Removes a prometheus, prometheus-proxy, and a grafana instance if set to true. The default is false.

An example would be if you wanted to delete a Spring Cloud Data Flow deployed in the default namespace of Minikube, Mariadb as your database, Rabbitmq as your broker, and Prometheus, you would setup and launch the script as follows:

cd <home directory of spring cloud data flow>/src/deploy/k8s/
export NS=default
export K8S_DRIVER=docker
export DATABASE=mariadb
export PROMETHEUS=true
./delete-scdf.sh

Kubectl Installation Instructions

If the install-scdf.sh script will not work for you or if you wish to install SCDF in another way, you can use the instructions below:

Choose a Message Broker

For deployed applications to communicate with each other, you need to select a message broker. The sample deployment and service YAML files provide configurations for RabbitMQ and Kafka. You need to configure only one message broker.

RabbitMQ

Run the following command to start the RabbitMQ service:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/rabbitmq/

You can use kubectl get all -l app=rabbitmq to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

Kafka

Run the following command to start the Kafka service:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/kafka/

You can use kubectl get all -l app=kafka to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

Deploy Services, Skipper, and Data Flow

You must deploy a number of services and the Data Flow server. The following subsections describe how to do so:

1. Deploy MariaDB
2. Enable Monitoring
3. Create Data Flow Role Bindings and Service Account
4. Deploy Skipper
5. Deploy the Data Flow Server

Deploy MariaDB

We use MariaDB for this guide, but you could use a Postgres or H2 database instead. We include JDBC drivers for all three of these databases. To use a database other than MariaDB, you must adjust the database URL and driver class name settings.

Run the following command to start the MariaDB service:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/mariadb/

You can use kubectl get all -l app=mariadb to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running. You can use

Enable Monitoring

How to enable monitoring varies by monitoring platform:

• Prometheus and Grafana
• Wavefront

Prometheus and Grafana

The Prometheus RSocket implementation lets you establish persistent bidirectional RSocket connections between all Stream and Task applications and one or more Prometheus RSocket Proxy instances. Prometheus is configured to scrape each proxy instance. Proxies, in turn, use the connection to pull metrics from each application. The scraped metrics are viewable through Grafana dashboards. Out of the box, the Grafana dashboard comes pre-configured with a Prometheus data-source connection along with Data Flow-specific dashboards to monitor the streaming and task applications in a data pipeline.

Setup Prometheus Roles, Role Bindings, and Service Account

Run the following commands to create the cluster role, binding, and service account:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-clusterroles.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-clusterrolebinding.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-serviceaccount.yaml

Deploy Prometheus Proxy

Run the following commands to deploy Prometheus RSocket Proxy:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus-proxy/

You can use kubectl get all -l app=prometheus-proxy to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

Deploy Prometheus

Run the following commands to deploy Prometheus:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-configmap.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-deployment.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/prometheus/prometheus-service.yaml

You can use kubectl get all -l app=prometheus to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

Deploy Grafana

Run the following command to deploy Grafana:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/grafana/

You can use kubectl get all -l app=grafana to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

❗  Because you are using a Docker driver on darwin, the terminal needs to be open to run it.

spring:
  cloud:
    dataflow:
      metrics.dashboard:
        url: 'https://grafana:3000'

The default Grafana dashboard credentials are a username of admin and a password of password. You can change these defaults by modifying the src/kubernetes/grafana/grafana-secret.yaml file.

To enable Prometheus for Spring Cloud Skipper Server, mirror the Data Flow configuration to the Skipper's configuration file (src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-{kafka|rabbit}.yaml):

management:
  metrics:
    export:
      prometheus:
        enabled: true
        rsocket:
          enabled: true
          host: prometheus-proxy
          port: 7001

If you do not want to deploy Prometheus and Grafana for metrics and monitoring, you should remove the following section of src/kubernetes/server/server-config.yaml:

management:
  metrics:
    export:
      prometheus:
        enabled: true
        rsocket:
          enabled: true
          host: prometheus-proxy
          port: 7001
spring:
  cloud:
    dataflow:
      metrics.dashboard:
        url: 'https://grafana:3000'

Wavefront

Metrics for the Spring Cloud Data Flow server along with deployed streams and tasks can be sent to the Wavefront service. Before enabling Wavefront, ensure you have your Wavefront URL and API token.

First, create a secret (to encode your API token) in a file called wavefront-secret.yaml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: wavefront-api
  labels:
    app: wavefront
data:
  wavefront-api-token: bXl0b2tlbg==

The value of wavefront-api-token is a base64-encoded string that represents your API token. For more information on Secrets, see the Kubernetes Documentation.

Create the secret:

kubectl create -f wavefront-secret.yaml

To mount the secret and make it available to Spring Cloud Data Flow, modify the src/kubernetes/server/server-deployment.yaml file, making the following additions:

spec:
  containers:
    - name: scdf-server
      volumeMounts:
        - name: wavefront-api
          mountPath: /etc/secrets/wavefront-api
          readOnly: true
  volumes:
    - name: wavefront-api
      secret:
        secretName: wavefront-api

You can enable Wavefront for Spring Cloud Data Flow server, streams, or tasks based on your needs. Each is configured independently, letting one or all be configured.

To enable Wavefront for Spring Cloud Data Flow Server, modify the src/kubernetes/server/server-config.yaml file, making the following additions:

data:
  application.yaml: |-
    management:
      metrics:
        export:
          wavefront:
            enabled: true
            api-token: ${wavefront-api-token}
            uri: https://yourwfuri.wavefront.com
            source: yoursourcename

Changing the values of uri and source to those matching your setup. The api-token value is automatically resolved from the secret.

By default, the above configuration is applied automatically to the deployed Streams and Tasks as well, and metrics from them are sent to Wavefront. Use the applicationProperties.stream.* and applicationProperties.task.* to alter the defaults.

To enable Wavefront for Spring Cloud Skipper Server, mirror the Data Flow configuration to the Skipper's configuration file (src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-{kafka|rabbit}.yaml) and add the wavefront-api volume to the src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-deployment.yaml file.

spring:
  cloud:
    dataflow:
      metrics.dashboard:
        url: 'https://yourwfuri.wavefront.com'
        type: 'WAVEFRONT'

Create Data Flow Role Bindings and Service Account

To create Role Bindings and Service account, run the following commands:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/server-roles.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/server-rolebinding.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/service-account.yaml

You can use kubectl get roles and kubectl get sa to list the available roles and service accounts.

Deploy Skipper

Data Flow delegates the streams lifecycle management to Skipper. You need to deploy Skipper to enable the stream management features.

The deployment is defined in the src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-deployment.yaml file. To control what version of Skipper gets deployed, you can modify the tag used for the Docker image in the container specification, as follows:

spec:
  containers:
    - name: skipper
      image: springcloud/spring-cloud-skipper-server:2.11.2 #

• You can change the version as you like.

To use RabbitMQ as the messaging middleware, run the following command:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-rabbit.yaml

To use Apache Kafka as the messaging middleware, run the following command:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-kafka.yaml

Additionally, to use the Apache Kafka Streams Binder, update the environmentVariables attribute to include the Kafka Streams Binder configuraton in src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-kafka.yaml, as follows:

environmentVariables: 'SPRING_CLOUD_STREAM_KAFKA_BINDER_BROKERS=kafka-broker:9092,SPRING_CLOUD_STREAM_KAFKA_BINDER_ZK_NODES=${KAFKA_ZK_SERVICE_HOST}:${KAFKA_ZK_SERVICE_PORT}, SPRING_CLOUD_STREAM_KAFKA_STREAMS_BINDER_BROKERS=kafka-broker:9092,SPRING_CLOUD_STREAM_KAFKA_STREAMS_BINDER_ZK_NODES=${KAFKA_ZK_SERVICE_HOST}:${KAFKA_ZK_SERVICE_PORT}'

Run the following commands to start Skipper as the companion server for Spring Cloud Data Flow:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-deployment.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-svc.yaml

You can use kubectl get all -l app=skipper to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

Deploy Data Flow Server

The deployment is defined in the src/kubernetes/server/server-deployment.yaml file. To control which version of Spring Cloud Data Flow server gets deployed, modify the tag used for the Docker image in the container specification, as follows:

spec:
  containers:
    - name: scdf-server
      image: springcloud/spring-cloud-dataflow-server:2.11.2

You must specify the version of Spring Cloud Data Flow server that you want to deploy. To do so, change the version as you like. This document is based on the 2.11.2 release. You can use the docker latest tag for BUILD-SNAPSHOT releases. The Skipper service should be running and the SPRING_CLOUD_SKIPPER_CLIENT_SERVER_URI property in src/kubernetes/server/server-deployment.yaml should point to it.

The Data Flow Server uses the Fabric8 Java client library to connect to the Kubernetes cluster. There are several ways to configure the client to connect the cluster. We use environment variables to set the values needed when deploying the Data Flow server to Kubernetes. We also use the Spring Cloud Kubernetes library to access the Kubernetes ConfigMap and Secrets settings.

The ConfigMap settings for RabbitMQ are specified in the src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-rabbit.yaml file and for Kafka in the src/kubernetes/skipper/skipper-config-kafka.yaml file.

MariaDB secrets are located in the src/kubernetes/mariadb/mariadb-secrets.yaml file. If you modified the password for MariaDB, you should change it in the src/kubernetes/maria/mariadb-secrets.yaml file. Any secrets have to be provided in base64 encoding.

To create the configuration map with the default settings, run the following command:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/server-config.yaml

Now you need to create the server deployment, by running the following commands:

kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/server-svc.yaml
kubectl create -f src/kubernetes/server/server-deployment.yaml

You can use kubectl get all -l app=scdf-server to verify that the deployment, pod, and service resources are running.

You can use the kubectl get svc scdf-server command to locate the EXTERNAL_IP address assigned to scdf-server. You can use that address later to connect from the shell. The following example (with output) shows how to do so:

kubectl get svc scdf-server
NAME         CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP       PORT(S)    AGE
scdf-server  10.103.246.82    130.211.203.246   80/TCP     4m

In this case, the URL you need to use is https://130.211.203.246.

If you use Minikube, you do not have an external load balancer, and the EXTERNAL_IP shows as <pending>. You need to use the NodePort assigned for the scdf-server service. You can use the following command (shown with its output) to look up the URL to use:

minikube service --url scdf-server
https://192.168.99.100:31991

If you see the following message, ❗ Because you are using a Docker driver on darwin, the terminal needs to be open to run it., Then use the following command instead:

kubectl port-forward <scdf-server pod name> 9393:80

Shut Down and Cleanup Data Flow

Stop and Cleanup RabbitMQ

When using RabbitMQ, use kubectl delete all -l app=rabbitmq to clean up RabbitMQ.

Stop and Cleanup Kafka

When using Kafka, use kubectl delete all -l app=kafka to clean up Kafka.

Stop and Cleanup MariaDB

Use kubectl delete all,pvc,secrets -l app=mariadb to clean up Mariadb.

Stop and Cleanup Prometheus Proxy

You can use kubectl delete all,cm,svc -l app=prometheus-proxy to clean up the Prometheus proxy. To cleanup roles, bindings, and the service account for the Prometheus proxy, run the following command:

kubectl delete clusterrole,clusterrolebinding,sa -l app=prometheus-proxy

Stop and Cleanup Prometheus

Use kubectl delete all,cm,svc -l app=prometheus to clean up Prometheus.

Use the following when it is time to clean up prometheus' cluster roles and role bindings:

kubectl delete clusterrole,clusterrolebinding,sa -l app=prometheus

Stop and Cleanup Grafana

You can use kubectl delete all,cm,svc,secrets -l app=grafana to clean up Grafana.

Stop and Cleanup Skipper

You can use kubectl delete all,cm -l app=skipper to clean up Skipper.

Stop and Cleanup Data Flow Server

Cleanup Roles and Bindings for Data Flow

To clean up roles, bindings and the service account, use the following commands:

kubectl delete role scdf-role
kubectl delete rolebinding scdf-rb
kubectl delete serviceaccount scdf-sa

Stop and Cleanup Data Flow Server Application

You can use kubectl delete all,cm -l app=scdf-server to clean up the Data Flow Server.