FluxCD 101 with Hands-On Labs

Learn how Flux enables gitops-driven continuous delivery by reconciling live Kubernetes state with git-defined configurations, scanning and updating container images, and deploying via Helm and customize controllers.

learn the core flux concepts and terminology, including bootstrapping flux components in a kubernetes cluster via gitops, flux controllers, sources, customization, reconciliation, pruning, and image automation.

Explore FluxCD features, including automatic deployments to Kubernetes and webhook integration with GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab. Configure with Kustomize, Helm, and YAML, monitor drift, and access Grafana dashboards.

Explore flux architecture in a Kubernetes cluster, with flux cd agent and weave gitops gui. See how flux monitors git, compares desired and current state, and applies changes automatically.

Explore flux architecture by deploying apps to Kubernetes via git-stored yaml manifests, using source, customize, and helm controllers, and automate image updates with image reflector and automation controllers.

Install flux via the gitops bootstrap with the flux CLI and GitHub integration, using an idempotent process that reconciles manifests from a repository to Kubernetes cluster, with a GitHub token.

Install flux in a Kubernetes cluster using the flux CLI bootstrap with GitHub. Bootstrap creates a repository, requests a personal access token, and reconciles flux components.

Access browser-based, free FluxCD labs (14 in total) from section two of the Udemy course, each spinning up a 60-minute single-node Kubernetes cluster with guided questions and solutions.

Learn how flux manages artifacts via a gitops source controller, creating sources from git or other providers, and packaging Kubernetes manifests into yaml for deployment with the customize controller.

Explore how the kustomize controller reconciles cluster state with manifests from the source controller. Create customizations from Git, OCI, or bucket sources, with optional pruning, validation, and health checks.

demonstrates creating a git source and a customization to deploy plain yaml manifests from a separate repo with flux, highlighting declarative git-backed workflows over imperatives.

Switch to the three-demo branch to see how the customization controller uses a Kustomize overlay, skipping the build and validating and applying manifests.

Explore how the flux source controller connects to an S3 bucket, authenticates with a Kubernetes generic secret, and builds a tar of app A and app B for deployment.

Learn how the helm controller works with the source controller to fetch charts from git, oci, s3, and helm repositories, package them as artifacts, and manage releases in Kubernetes.

Demonstrates deploying helm charts with flux by using a git-sourced helm release. Create and configure a values.yaml, deploy into a five-demo namespace, and observe helm chart packaging and ready state.

Deploy a helm artifact packaged as tar from a helm repository using FluxCD's helm API, create a helm repository source and values.yaml, then install with a helm release to Kubernetes.

Explore how OCI artifacts store containers, helm charts, and Kubernetes manifests in a single registry, and learn to push and pull these artifacts with Flux and GitHub container registry.

Learn to use the Flux source controller with OCI repositories to fetch Kubernetes manifests and customization overlays, manage credentials via OCI secrets, and deploy Helm charts from OCI domains.

Set up a MySQL database in a Kubernetes cluster using Flux source and customization controller, including git-driven infrastructure, config maps, namespaces, and secrets.

Flux's image automation controller uses the image reflector controller and image policy to auto-update deployment manifests in a git repository when new image tags arrive, updating deployment yaml fields accordingly.

Upgrade the flux flex cluster to install the image automation controller via bootstrap with extra components, including image reflector and image automation controllers, and verify the new pods and CRDs.

Demonstrate using the Flux image repository to fetch Docker Hub image tags, create an image repository object via YAML, reconcile changes, and observe tag scanning and updates.

Create an image policy in Flux to identify the latest patch tag from an image repository using a 7.8.x range.

Learn to use the image update automation controller to update the deployment YAML with the latest image tag from a git repo, including deploy keys for authentication.

Discover how Bitnami sealed secrets integrate with Flux to securely store Kubernetes secrets in git, encrypt with cube-seal, and decrypt in-cluster for pods without exposing plain data.

Set up Bitnami sealed secrets in a FluxCD workflow using a customization resource, deploy helm charts, and prepare to encrypt secrets with kubeseal to fetch the public certificate.

Shows encrypting a YAML secret with Bitnami sealed secrets and deploying it via FluxCD to Kubernetes, enabling decrypting the secret at runtime for secure management.

Encrypt secrets with Mozilla SOPS using GPG, generate keys, export public and private keys, and decrypt in Flux via the customization controller with SOPS as the decryption provider.

As an administrator, generate a GPG key pair, publish the public key to Git, and store the private key as a Kubernetes secret for Flux to decrypt secrets.

Encrypt and decrypt Kubernetes secrets using Mozilla SOPS with a public/private key pair, import keys, and decryption in FluxCD deployments, showcasing gitops with multiple backends.

Install the cosine binary, generate a password-protected key pair, and store the public key as a secret in the flux system namespace to enable artifact signing and verification with flux.

Sign and verify an OCI artifact with cosign, publish to an OCI registry, and configure Flux to verify signatures for version 7.1.0 deployments using a public key.

Set up the webhook receiver in the flux notification controller to trigger reconciliations on git events from GitHub, validating payloads with a secret token and notifying the source controller.

Explore alerts and providers in the notification controller, wiring a Slack provider via a Kubernetes secret to dispatch info-severity events from Flux controllers to a Slack channel.

demonstrates configuring Slack alerts for Flux CD by creating a Slack workspace and app, obtaining a bot token, and wiring a notification provider and alerts to post to a channel.

Explore flux user interface options, including the VS Code gitops tool and Weaveworks open source UI, to view Kubernetes clusters, sources, and workloads via YAML specifications and dashboards.