A lot of applications run on Kubernetes, and it has become the de-facto container orchestration system. However, as great as Kubernetes is, it has a steep learning curve, which can make it difficult for someone with no experience in operations to adopt. Usually, teams would need to spend 2-3 months learning how to use Kubernetes, and correctly set it up for their organization's needs.
You also have to learn about many dependencies on Kubernetes such as Argo CD for testing your containers, Terraform or Pulumi for managing Infrastructure as Code, tools such as Prometheus and grafana to monitor your clusters, and a lot more. So in a nutshell, Kubernetes is difficult, and you would need to learn about a lot of dependencies to use it efficiently.
Devtron
Devtron is an open-source tool that will provide a solution to the challenges with Helm. It uses Helm charts to install tools and automatically replies to any deleted resources and also makes it easier to troubleshoot. It was recently added to the Civo Marketplace which means you now only need to click one button, and you can have Devtron installed.
Let's take a look at how you can easily install devtron on a Civo Kubernetes Cluster.
Installing on Civo
We can break the entire installation down into 2 parts. Provisioning and installing the cluster, and logging into the Devtron Dashboard. Sounds easy right? That's because it is.
So the first thing to do before getting started is to create an account on Civo and add in your card details. Don't worry, you will get free credit worth $250.
Head over to the Kubernetes section in the Civo Dashboard and click on create a new cluster
The next step is to configure your cluster. Enter the cluster name, number of nodes, network settings, and firewall settings. You can leave the number of nodes, network, and firewall as default. And don't forget to select the size of your cluster. Since we have $250 of free credit, let's go ahead and select a large cluster
Next, you can select Devtron from the Marketplace, and go ahead and click on create cluster. Now your cluster will take about two minutes to create, and another few minutes for Devtron to install.
Once your cluster is ready, you can download the kubeconfig file or use the Civo CLI to connect to your cluster. We will need to connect to the cluster to get the Devtron dashboard password and monitor the installation status.
Once Devtron is successfully installed, copy the public IP address of the devtron load balancer and paste it into a browser. You can use the following command to get the admin credentials to log into the Devtron Dashboard
kubectl -n devtroncd get secret devtron-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.ADMIN_PASSWORD}' | base64 -d
What does Devtron offer?
After you log into the Devtron dashboard, you would see something similar to this. Devtron has a ton of features that we won't cover in this blog. For that, you can refer to the Devtron documentation.
You also have a chart store that lets you deploy several helm charts easily. you can even edit the chart's deployment YAML, easily and configure the chart as you need. You can even your custom charts which can then be deployed using Devtron.
Moreover, devtron now has several integrations which can be used. Below is the list of all the available integrations for Devtron, and more will be added in the future. These integrations add some useful functionalities that are required for production-ready applications. Installing these integrations is as easy as pressing one button.
Feel free to install Devtron on Civo, and try out all of its features. Do refer to the documentation, as it is very detailed and explains everything quite well.
If you find any bug or think there is a feature that could be added, feel free to raise an issue on GitHub.
Contribute to Devtron
Devtron is actively looking for open-source contributors. If you like what it does, consider giving them a star on GitHub.
Found a bug in Devtron? Raise an issue on their GitHub. Try installing Devtron on various cloud providers to see if it works properly or not.
They are also running a number of events during hacktoberfest with some cool prizes.