FluxCD journey with Minikube

🚀 Phase 1: The Manual Foundation

Goal: Set up the cluster and deploy a "Hello World" app the old-fashioned way to understand what we are automating.

🛠️ Step 1: Install Tools

# Install the Big Three (macOS example)
brew install minikube kubectl fluxcd/tap/flux

🏗️ Step 2: Start Minikube

minikube start --cpus 2 --memory 4096 --driver=docker
minikube addons enable ingress

📂 Step 3: Directory Layout

Create this structure on your local machine:

flux-lab/
└── base/
    ├── kustomization.yaml
    └── web-server.yaml

📄 Step 4: The Manifests

flux-lab/base/web-server.yaml

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web-server
  namespace: engineering
spec:
  replicas: 2
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:1.25
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

flux-lab/base/kustomization.yaml

resources:
  - web-server.yaml

🚀 Step 5: Deploy Manually

kubectl create namespace engineering
kubectl apply -k flux-lab/base/
kubectl get pods -n engineering

---

🤖 Phase 2: The Great Automation (FluxCD)

Goal: Connect GitHub to Minikube. From this point on, we never use kubectl apply again.

🛠️ Step 1: Environment Setup

export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_personal_access_token
export GITHUB_USER=your_github_username

🏗️ Step 2: Bootstrap Flux

flux bootstrap github \
  --owner=$GITHUB_USER \
  --repository=flux-minikube-lab \
  --branch=main \
  --path=clusters/my-cluster \
  --personal

📂 Step 3: Final Git Directory Layout

Clone your new repo and organize it exactly like this:

flux-minikube-lab/
├── apps/
│   └── web-server/
│       ├── kustomization.yaml
│       └── web-server.yaml
└── clusters/
    └── my-cluster/
        ├── flux-system/         # (Auto-generated)
        └── web-server-sync.yaml

📄 Step 4: Create the "Sync" Instruction

clusters/my-cluster/web-server-sync.yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: web-server-sync
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  interval: 1m
  path: ./apps/web-server
  prune: true
  sourceRef:
    kind: GitRepository
    name: flux-system
  targetNamespace: engineering

🚀 Step 5: Push and Pray (The GitOps Way)

git add .
git commit -m "Onboard web-server to GitOps"
git push origin main

# Force immediate sync
flux reconcile kustomization flux-system --with-source

---

🔐 Phase 3: The Secret Sauce (Sealed Secrets)

Goal: Store passwords in GitHub securely using encryption.

🏗️ Step 1: Install Infrastructure

Place these files in infrastructure/sources/ and infrastructure/controllers/.

clusters/my-cluster/infra-sync.yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
  name: infra-sync
  namespace: flux-system
spec:
  interval: 1h
  path: ./infrastructure
  prune: true
  sourceRef:
    kind: GitRepository
    name: flux-system

📂 Step 2: Final Phase 3 Directory Layout

flux-minikube-lab/
├── apps/
│   └── web-server/
│       ├── kustomization.yaml   # (Update to include sealed-db-pass.yaml)
│       ├── web-server.yaml
│       └── sealed-db-pass.yaml  # (Generated)
├── clusters/
│   └── my-cluster/
│       ├── infra-sync.yaml
│       └── web-server-sync.yaml
└── infrastructure/
    ├── controllers/
    │   └── sealed-secrets.yaml
    └── sources/
        └── sealed-secrets.yaml

🔐 Step 3: Create an Encrypted Secret

# 1. Create a raw secret (DO NOT PUSH TO GIT)
kubectl create secret generic mwd-db-pass \
  --from-literal=password=SuperSecret123 \
  --namespace engineering \
  --dry-run=client -o yaml > temp.yaml

# 2. Encrypt it using the cluster's key
kubeseal \
  --controller-name sealed-secrets \
  --controller-namespace flux-system \
  --format yaml < temp.yaml > apps/web-server/sealed-db-pass.yaml

# 3. Clean up
rm temp.yaml

🚀 Step 4: Deploy

git add .
git commit -m "Add sealed secret"
git push origin main
flux reconcile kustomization infra-sync --with-source
flux reconcile kustomization web-server-sync --with-source

---

🧠 Summary of Progress

• Phase 1: Learned Kubernetes resources.
• Phase 2: Learned FluxCD automation and the "Pull Model."
• Phase 3: Learned Security and encryption in Git.