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      How to Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with WordPress


      The world is moving faster than ever, and that means your website needs to keep up. No matter where you are in the world, chances are your users are scattered across the globe. For that reason, you need to make sure that your site is capable of performing quickly, regardless of geographic location.

      One way you can keep your site’s speed and performance consistent is by using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN is a network of remote servers spread worldwide, each of which contains a copy of your site that visitors can access. Not only will this setup make your site faster, but it can also help to secure it and reduce your bandwidth usage.

      What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

      Cloudflare performance chart

      A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of multiple servers that are placed in different locations around the world. When you use a CDN with your site, all those servers will be loaded with static versions of your files. These usually include code like CSS and JavaScript, images, documents, videos, and other data.

      While the two may seem similar, it’s important to recognize that a CDN is not the same thing as a web host. Your host is the server where your site ‘lives’, and it is sometimes called the ‘origin server.’ The CDN servers simply copy static files from your origin server to deliver them to your visitors more quickly.

      The Benefits of Using a CDN with Your WordPress Website

      Sucuri CDN performance chart

      Normally, when a user visits your site, they connect directly to the origin server through their browser and download all the necessary files from there. However, this process can lead to problems for users who are located far away from the origin server. This distance can cause significantly longer loading times.

      Your site’s speed can negatively affect its bounce rates, which can, in turn, be catastrophic for your conversions. Therefore, this is not a small issue. Since all visitors are requesting the same files from one server, you may even experience more downtime.

      That’s where a CDN comes in handy. When you use a CDN, visitors will instead connect to your site via the server closest to them. That way, your pages load much faster and will cause less strain on your origin server.

      Using a CDN also:

      • Makes your site more crash-resistant. If one CDN server goes down, the site will simply load from another. This setup enables your website to handle more traffic.
      • Improves the user experience. The fact that your site is effectively spread across the globe creates a more consistent experience for all visitors.
      • Improves your SEO rankings. A site’s speed is factored into its search engine rankings, so speeding it up makes it more likely to appear higher in search results.
      • Reduces bandwidth usage. Since your origin server doesn’t need to send as much data to each visitor, you minimize the amount of bandwidth used.
      • Helps protect against basic attacks. A CDN is designed to cope with large amounts of traffic, which helps against the most common types of malicious activity, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

      As you can see, using a CDN can help improve a lot more than just your site’s speed and reliability. The only question left is how to get started. Let’s now take a look at some of the best CDN solutions you can implement on your WordPress site.

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      9 Excellent CDN Solutions for WordPress

      Once you’ve decided to implement a CDN, you just need to find the solution that best suits your requirements. Here are 9 CDN solutions you can use alongside your WordPress site.

      Don’t forget that you can also improve your site’s speed by opting for a hosting plan that’s fully optimized for WordPress, such as our DreamPress service!

      1. Cloudflare

      Cloudflare

      Cloudflare is an immensely popular CDN solution for WordPress. Not only does it have over 275 data centers, but it’s also one of the few CDN providers that offer a free plan. This makes it a smart option for site owners who want a reliable solution that’s also simple to implement.

      Installing the Cloudflare plugin on a WordPress site is as easy as installing the plugin and creating a free account. You can then activate the default settings, and you’re good to go.

      Key Features

      • Easy to use alongside a WordPress website, with minimal configuration required
      • Automatically empties your cache when you update the site
      • Includes a Web Application Firewall (WAF) on all premium plans

      Pricing: Cloudflare is free to use but also offers several premium plans that start at $20/month. These include additional site services, such as image optimization, increased security, and prioritized support.

      2. Site Accelerator by Jetpack

      Jetpack Site Accelerator for WordPress

      Jetpack is one of the most comprehensive and popular WordPress plugins out there. However, you might not know that it also contains a neat little CDN solution called Site Accelerator. This CDN serves all your images from a cloud network to optimize your site’s speed. It also optimizes and serves static files such as CSS and JavaScript.

      Key Features

      • Requires no configuration
      • Automatically applies to all images and static files in your pages and posts
      • Improves performance, particularly on sites with many images

      Pricing: Site Accelerator is included with Jetpack. You can simply install the plugin for free and activate it on your website. Even better, if you’re a DreamPress Plus or Advanced user, you get Jetpack Pro (and all its top-notch, premium features) included with your hosting account for free.

      3. StackPath

      StackPath CDN

      StackPath is one of the most secure CDN solutions available. All plans include a firewall, as well as protection against DDoS attacks and request overloads. The developer tools enable additional configuration and provide access to real-time information about your site’s performance.

      Implementing StackPath’s CDN with WordPress can be done using one of several plugins, including WP Super Cache and Hyper Cache.

      Key Features

      • Offers excellent security features, including two-step authentication and a firewall
      • Enables developers to integrate their apps and websites
      • Includes real-time traffic analytics

      Pricing: StackPath offers a 15-day free trial when you sign up. After that, you can subscribe to one of its premium plans. While StackPath doesn’t currently list prices on its website, you can easily contact the sales department to inquire about rates and request a demo.

      4. MetaCDN

      MetaCDN

      MetaCDN is specially tailored for sites that feature videos and live streaming. With over 120 servers, it offers fast speeds and solid performance. Some of the premium plans also use a multi-CDN structure, which combines several CDN networks into one for even better performance. To integrate MetaCDN into WordPress, you must use the W3 Total Cache plugin.

      Key Features

      • Ideal for sites containing videos and live streams
      • Offers improved performance through a multi-CDN structure
      • Rolls over unused credits to the next month

      Pricing: MetaCDN offers a 7-day free trial that includes all of its features. You can then continue with one of its three premium plans, which can be paid either monthly or annually.

      5. Google Cloud CDN

      Cloud CDN

      Google Cloud CDN is the bespoke solution for websites hosted by Google Cloud. The Cloud CDN is seamlessly integrated into all sites hosted on this platform, so minimal configuration is required. This solution offers solid, reliable performance, as well as incorporated security measures.

      To use Google Cloud CDN, you must install WordPress on the Google Cloud Platform. You can then enable CDN functionality using the Cloud Platform’s interface.

      Key Features

      • Automatically integrated into the Google Cloud Platform
      • Offers SSL certification at no additional cost
      • Ensures that your site maintains the same IP address without requiring regional DNS

      Pricing: Google offers a free trial that does require a credit card but it won’t automatically charge you when the trial ends.

      6. Microsoft Azure CDN

      Azure CDN

      Microsoft Azure CDN is part of the Azure platform, which also offers cloud computing, security, and analytics tools. Azure optimizes your files and offers advanced caching functionality to make your site faster and more reliable.

      You can connect Azure CDN to WordPress by first using the Azure App. The CDN can then be implemented using a caching plugin, such as CDN Enabler or WP Super Cache.

      Key Features

      • Provides a solid choice for sites that offer streaming video and remote computing
      • Suits both beginners and advanced users
      • Offers two networks: Akamai and Verizon

      Pricing: Azure offers a 30-day free trial. The premium plans range from pay-as-you-go subscriptions to enterprise agreements.

      7. Sucuri

      Sucuri CDN

      Sucuri boasts impressive results, promising to make your site, on average, 70% faster after implementation. It also provides on-site security measures, such as malware cleaning and security alerts. These are useful features, although they may not be necessary depending on your web host (DreamHost plans come with a built-in firewall, for example).

      To activate the Sucuri platform, you need to use the DNS Manager. There you can add your details to activate your firewall and CDN.

      Key Features

      • Protects against spam, malware, and attacks
      • Integrates into your existing CDN provider
      • Requires no installation and provides help when setting it up

      Pricing: Sucuri offers two premium plans, starting from $9.99/month. Additional security plans start at $199.99/year.

      8. KeyCDN

      KeyCDN

      KeyCDN is another solid option that integrates easily into WordPress. Its servers are placed worldwide and use only SSD, which improves performance and shortens loading times.

      KeyCDN’s payment plans are also based on what you use, which can be handy to avoid paying more than you need. You can integrate KeyCDN into WordPress using the free CDN Enabler plugin.

      Key Features

      • Uses only SSD servers for excellent performance
      • Includes free SSL and HTTP/2 support
      • Instantly empties your cache when the site is updated

      Pricing: KeyCDN offers a free trial. Its pricing plans include pay-as-you-go subscriptions that start at $0.04 per GB. It also offers a price calculator, enabling you to get a quote.

      9. Amazon CloudFront

      Amazon CloudFront

      Amazon CloudFront is one of the most prominent CDN options available and is famously used by both Spotify and Slack. Its global network and security services help ensure that your site is fast and safe. It also offers full integration with its other AWS services.

      CloudFront can be integrated into WordPress using a caching plugin like WP Super Cache. You can also use the WP Offload S3 plugin to move your existing library into Amazon S3 and deliver it via CloudFront.

      Key Features

      • Provides trusted and reliable service
      • Includes full integration with all other AWS services
      • Offers 12 months of free usage

      Pricing: AWS offers a free tier that includes 12 months of free CloudFront usage. The premium plans for CloudFront are pay-as-you-go, with prices that depend on your location. For the United States, the prices start at $0.085 per GB.

      Speed Up Your WordPress Site

      Keeping your site fast and secure is paramount. You need to make sure that no matter where your users are located, they can access your website quickly. Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a simple and affordable way to accomplish this while also helping to keep your site secure.

      Do More with DreamPress

      DreamPress Plus and Pro users get access to Jetpack Professional (and 200+ premium themes) at no added cost!

      Managed WordPress Hosting - DreamPress



      Source link

      Automating GitOps and Continuous Delivery With DigitalOcean Kubernetes


      How to Join

      This Tech Talk is free and open to everyone. Register below to get a link to join the live stream or receive the video recording after it airs.

      DateTimeRSVP
      December 15, 202111:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET / 4:00–5:00 p.m. GMT

      About the Talk

      Curious what a production-ready, GitOps-enabled Kubernetes cluster looks like?

      Discover how you can build production-ready Kubernetes clusters quickly, complete with day-2 capabilities like ingress, logging, monitoring, alerting, and backup.

      Streamline setting up your ideal configuration with Terraform, Flux, and Helm.

      What You’ll Learn

      • What is GitOps
      • How GitOps and Flux can be used to automate configuring a Kubernetes cluster
      • How to use Terraform, Helm, and Flux to set up a Kubernetes cluster

      This Talk Is Designed For

      Anyone that is building day-2 ready Kubernetes clusters.

      Prerequisites

      Familiarity with how to set up a Kubernetes cluster and interact with the kube-api via kubectl.

      Resources

      DOKS docs

      DOKS quickstart

      Kubernetes in minutes, on DigitalOcean

      DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS) is a managed Kubernetes service that lets you deploy Kubernetes clusters without the complexities of handling the control plane and containerized infrastructure. Clusters are compatible with standard Kubernetes toolchains and integrate natively with DigitalOcean Load Balancers and block storage volumes.



      Source link

      How To Set Up a Continuous Delivery Pipeline with Flux on DigitalOcean Kubernetes


      The author selected the Free and Open Source Fund to receive a donation as part of the Write for DOnations program.

      Introduction

      By itself, Kubernetes does not offer continuous integration and deployment features. While these concepts are often not widespread in smaller projects, bigger teams who host and update their deployments extensively find it much easier to set up such processes to alleviate manual time-consuming tasks and instead focus on developing the software that’s being deployed. One approach to maintaining continuous delivery for Kubernetes is GitOps.

      GitOps views the Git repositories hosting the application and Kubernetes manifests as the central source of truth regarding deployments. It allows for separated deployment environments by using repository branches, gives you the ability to quickly reproduce any config state, current or past, on any cluster, and makes rollbacks trivial thanks to Git versioning. The manifests are secure, synchronized, and easily accessible at all times. Modifications to the manifest or application can be audited, allowed, or denied depending on external factors (usually, the continuous integration system). Automating the process from pushing the code to having it deploy on a cluster can greatly increase productivity and enhance the developer experience while making the deployment always consistent with the central code base.

      Flux is an open-source tool facilitating the GitOps continuous delivery approach for Kubernetes. Flux allows for automated application and configuration deployments to your clusters by monitoring the configured Git repositories and automatically applying the changes as soon as they become available. It can apply Kustomize manifests (which provide an easy way to optionally patch parts of the usual Kubernetes manifests on the fly), as well as watch over Helm chart releases. You can also configure it to be notified via Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, or any other service that supports webhooks. Webhooks provide a way of notifying an app or a service of an event that’s happened somewhere else and provide its description.

      In this tutorial, you’ll install Flux and use it to set up continuous delivery for the podinfo app to your DigitalOcean Kubernetes cluster. podinfo is an app that provides details about the environment it’s running in. You’ll host the repositories holding Flux configuration and podinfo on your GitHub account. You’ll set up Flux to watch over the app repository, automatically apply the changes, and notify you on Slack using webhooks. In the end, all changes that you make to the monitored repository will quickly be propagated to your cluster.

      Prerequisites

      To complete this tutorial, you will need:

      • A DigitalOcean Kubernetes cluster with your connection configuration configured as the kubectl default. Instructions on how to configure kubectl are shown under the Connect to your Cluster step when you create your cluster. To learn how to create a Kubernetes cluster on DigitalOcean, see Kubernetes Quickstart.
      • A Slack workspace you’re a member of. To learn how to create a workspace, visit the official docs.
      • A GitHub account with a Personal Access Token (PAT) created with all privileges. To learn how to create one, visit the official docs.

      • Git initialized and set up on your local machine. To get started with Git, as well as see installation instructions, visit the How To Contribute to Open Source: Getting Started with Git tutorial.

      • The podinfo app repository forked to your GitHub account. For instructions on how to fork a repository to your account, visit the official getting started docs.

      Step 1 — Installing and Bootstrapping Flux

      In this step, you’ll set up Flux on your local machine, install it to your cluster, and set up a dedicated Git repository for storing and versioning its configuration.

      On Linux, you can use the official Bash script to install Flux. If you’re on MacOS, you can either use the official script, following the same steps as for Linux, or use Homebrew to install Flux with the following command:

      • brew install fluxcd/tap/flux

      To install Flux using the officially provided script, download it by running the following command:

      • curl https://fluxcd.io/install.sh -so flux-install.sh

      You can inspect the flux-install.sh script to verify that it’s safe by running this command:

      To be able to run it, you must mark it as executable:

      Then, execute the script to install Flux:

      You’ll see the following output, detailing what version is being installed:

      Output

      [INFO] Downloading metadata https://api.github.com/repos/fluxcd/flux2/releases/latest [INFO] Using 0.13.4 as release [INFO] Downloading hash https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/releases/download/v0.13.4/flux_0.13.4_checksums.txt [INFO] Downloading binary https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/releases/download/v0.13.4/flux_0.13.4_linux_amd64.tar.gz [INFO] Verifying binary download [INFO] Installing flux to /usr/local/bin/flux

      To enable command autocompletion, run the following command to configure the shell:

      • echo ". <(flux completion bash)" >> ~/.bashrc

      For the changes to take effect, reload ~/.bashrc by running:

      You now have Flux available on your local machine. Before installing it to your cluster, you’ll first need to run the prerequisite checks that verify compatibility:

      Flux will connect to your cluster, which you’ve set up a connection to in the prerequisites. You’ll see an output similar to this:

      Output

      ► checking prerequisites ✔ kubectl 1.21.1 >=1.18.0-0 ✔ Kubernetes 1.20.2 >=1.16.0-0 ✔ prerequisites checks passed

      Note: If you see an error or a warning, double check the cluster you’re connected to. It’s possible that you may need to perform an upgrade to be able to use Flux. If kubectl is reported missing, repeat the steps from the prerequisites for your platform and check that it’s in your PATH.

      During the bootstrapping process, Flux creates a Git repository at a specified provider and initializes it with a default configuration. To do so requires your GitHub username and personal access token, which you’ve retrieved in the prerequisites. The repository will be available under your account on GitHub.

      You’ll store your GitHub username and personal access token as environment variables to avoid typing them multiple times. Run the following commands, replacing the highlighted parts with your GitHub credentials:

      • export GITHUB_USER=your_username
      • export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_personal_access_token

      You can now bootstrap Flux and install it to your cluster by running:

      • flux bootstrap github
      • --owner=$GITHUB_USER
      • --repository=flux-config
      • --branch=main
      • --path=./clusters/my-cluster
      • --personal

      In this command, you specify that the repository should be called flux-config at provider github, owned by the user you’ve just defined. The new repository will be personal (not under an organization) and will be made private by default.

      The output you’ll see will be similar to this:

      Output

      ► connecting to github.com ► cloning branch "main" from Git repository "https://github.com/GITHUB_USER/flux-config.git" ✔ cloned repository ► generating component manifests ✔ generated component manifests ✔ committed sync manifests to "main" ("b750ffae686c2f110364694d2ddae26c7f18c6a2") ► pushing component manifests to "https://github.com/GITHUB_USER/flux-config.git" ► installing components in "flux-system" namespace ✔ installed components ✔ reconciled components ► determining if source secret "flux-system/flux-system" exists ► generating source secret ✔ public key: ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQDKw943TnUiKLVk4WMLC5YCeC+tIPVvJprQxTfLqcwkHtedMJPanJFifmbQ/M3CAq1IgqyQTydRJSJu6E/4YDOwx1vawStR9XU16rkn+rZbmvRxZ97E0HNb5m54OwmziAWf0EPdsfiIIJYSRkCMihpKJUNoakl+sng6LQsW+WIRlOK39aJRWud+rygQEuEKmD7YHKQ0VSb/L5v50jiPgEZImiREHNfjBU+RkEni3aZuOO3jNy5WdlPkpdqfHe8fdFsjJnvNB0zmfe3eTIB2fbdDzxo2usLbFeAMhGCRYsGnniHsytBHNLmxDM/4I18xlNN9e6WEYpgHEJVb8azKmwSX ✔ configured deploy key "flux-system-main-flux-system-./clusters/my-cluster" for "https://github.com/GITHUB_USER/flux-config" ► applying source secret "flux-system/flux-system" ✔ reconciled source secret ► generating sync manifests ✔ generated sync manifests ✔ committed sync manifests to "main" ("1dc033e24f3288a70ff80c57816e16c52bc62303") ► pushing sync manifests to "https://github.com/GITHUB_USER/flux-config.git" ► applying sync manifests ✔ reconciled sync configuration ◎ waiting for Kustomization "flux-system/flux-system" to be reconciled ✔ Kustomization reconciled successfully ► confirming components are healthy ✔ source-controller: deployment ready ✔ kustomize-controller: deployment ready ✔ helm-controller: deployment ready ✔ notification-controller: deployment ready ✔ all components are healthy

      Flux noted that it made a new Git repository, committed a basic starting configuration to it, and provisioned necessary controllers in your cluster.

      In this step, you’ve installed Flux on your local machine, created a new Git repository to hold its configuration, and deployed its server-side components to your cluster. The changes defined by the commits in the repository will now get propagated to your cluster automatically. In the next step, you’ll create configuration manifests ordering Flux to automate deployments of the podinfo app you’ve forked whenever a change occurs.

      Step 2 — Configuring the Automated Deployment

      In this section, you will configure Flux to watch over the podinfo repository that you’ve forked and apply the changes to your cluster as soon as they become available.

      In addition to creating the repository and initial configuration, Flux offers commands to help you generate config manifests with your parameters faster than writing them from scratch. The manifests, regardless of what they define, must be available in its Git repository to be taken into consideration. To add them to the repository, you’ll first need to clone it to your machine to be able to push changes. Do so by running the following command:

      • git clone https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/flux-config ~/flux-config

      You may be asked for your username and password. Input your account username and provide your personal access token for the password.

      Then, navigate to it:

      To instruct Flux to monitor the forked podinfo repository, you’ll first need to let it know where it’s located. This is achieved by creating a GitRepository manifest, which details the repository URL, branch, and monitoring interval.

      To create the manifest, run the following command:

      • flux create source git podinfo
      • --url=https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/podinfo
      • --branch=master
      • --interval=30s
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-source.yaml

      Here, you specify that the source will be a Git repository with the given URL and branch. You pass in --export to output the generated manifest and pipe it into podinfo-source.yaml, located under ./clusters/my-cluster/ in the main config repository, where manifests for the current cluster are stored.

      You can show the contents of the generated file by running:

      • cat ./clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-source.yaml

      The output will look similar to this:

      ~/flux-config/clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-source.yaml

      ---
      apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1beta1
      kind: GitRepository
      metadata:
        name: podinfo
        namespace: flux-system
      spec:
        interval: 30s
        ref:
          branch: master
        url: https://github.com/GITHUB_USER/podinfo
      

      You can check that the parameters you just passed into Flux are correctly laid out in the generated manifest.

      You’ve now defined a source Git repository that Flux can access, but you still need to tell it what to deploy. Flux supports Kustomize resources, which podinfo exposes under the kustomize directory. By supporting Kustomizations, Flux does not limit itself, because Kustomize manifests can be as simple as just including all usual manifests unchanged.

      Create a Kustomization manifest, which tells Flux where to look for deployable manifests, by running the following command:

      • flux create kustomization podinfo
      • --source=podinfo
      • --path="./kustomize"
      • --prune=true
      • --validation=client
      • --interval=5m
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-kustomization.yaml

      For the --source, you specify the podinfo Git repository you’ve just created. You also set the --path to ./kustomize, which refers to the filesystem structure of the source repository. Then, you save the YAML output into a file called podinfo-kustomization.yaml in the directory for the current cluster.

      The Git repository and Kustomization you’ve created are now available, but the cluster-side of Flux can’t yet see them because they’re not in the remote repository on GitHub. To push them, you must first commit them by running:

      • git add . && git commit -m "podinfo added"

      With the changes now committed, push them to the remote repository:

      Same as last time, git may ask you for your credentials. Input your username and your personal access token to continue.

      The new manifests are now live, and cluster-side Flux will soon pick them up. You can watch it sync the cluster’s state with the one presented in the manifests by running:

      • watch flux get kustomizations

      After the refresh interval specified for the Git repository elapses (which you’ve set to 30s in the manifest above), Flux will retrieve its latest commit and update the cluster. Once it does, you’ll see output similar to this:

      Output

      NAME READY MESSAGE flux-system True Applied revision: main/fc07af652d3168be329539b30a4c3943a7d12dd8 podinfo True Applied revision: master/855f7724be13f6146f61a893851522837ad5b634

      You can see that a podinfo Kustomization was applied, along with its branch and commit hash. You can list deployments and services as well to check that podinfo is deployed:

      • kubectl get deployments,services

      You’ll see that they are present, configured according to their respective manifests:

      Output

      NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE deployment.apps/podinfo 2/2 2 2 56s NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE service/kubernetes ClusterIP 10.245.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 34m service/podinfo ClusterIP 10.245.78.189 <none> 9898/TCP,9999/TCP 56s

      Any changes that you manually make to these and other resources that Flux controls will quickly be overwritten with the ones referenced from Git repositories. To make changes, you’d need to modify the central sources, not the actual deployments in a cluster. This applies to deleting resources as well — any resources you manually delete from the cluster will soon be reinstated. To delete them, you’d need to remove their manifests from the monitored repositories and wait for the changes to be propagated.

      Flux’s behavior is intentionally rigid because it operates on what it finds in the remote repositories at the end of each refresh interval. Suspending Kustomization monitoring and, in turn, state reconciliation is useful when you need to manually override the resources in the cluster without being interrupted by Flux.

      You can pause monitoring of a Kustomization indefinitely by running:

      • flux suspend kustomization kustomization_name

      The default behavior can be brought back by running flux resume on a paused Kustomization:

      • flux resume kustomization kustomization_name

      You now have an automated process in place that will deploy podinfo to your cluster every time a change occurs. You’ll now set up Slack notifications, so you’ll know when a new version of podinfo is being deployed.

      Step 3 — Setting up Slack Notifications

      Now that you’ve set up automatic podinfo deployments to your cluster, you’ll connect Flux to a Slack channel, where you’ll be notified of every deployment and its outcome.

      To integrate with Slack, you’ll need to have an incoming webhook on Slack for your workspace. Incoming webhooks are a way of posting messages to the configured Slack channel.

      If you haven’t ever created a webhook, you’ll first need to create an app for your workspace. To do so, first log in to Slack and navigate to the app creation page. Press on the green Create New App button and select From scratch. Name it flux-app, select the desired workspace, and click Create New App.

      You’ll be redirected to the settings page for the new app. Click on Incoming Webhooks on the left navigation bar.

      Slack app - Incoming Webhooks

      Enable webhooks for flux-app by flipping the switch button next to the title Activate Incoming Webhooks.

      Slack app - Activate Incoming Webhooks

      A new section further down the page will be uncovered. Scroll down and click the Add New Webhook to Workspace button. On the next page, select the channel you want the reports to be sent to and click Allow.

      You’ll be redirected back to the settings page for webhooks, and you’ll see a new webhook listed in the table. Click on Copy to copy it to clipboard and make note of it for later use.

      You’ll store the generated Slack webhook for your app in a Kubernetes Secret in your cluster, so that Flux can access it without explicitly specifying it in its configuration manifests. Storing the webhook as a Secret also lets you easily replace it in the future.

      Create a Secret called slack-url containing the webhook by running the following command, replacing your_slack_webhook with the URL you’ve just copied:

      • kubectl -n flux-system create secret generic slack-url --from-literal=address=your_slack_webhook

      The output will be:

      Output

      secret/slack-url created

      You’ll now create a Provider, which allows Flux to talk to the specified service using webhooks. They read the webhook URL from Secrets, which is why you’ve just created one. Run the following Flux command to create a Slack Provider:

      • flux create alert-provider slack
      • --type slack
      • --channel general
      • --secret-ref slack-url
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/slack-alert-provider.yaml

      Aside from Slack, Flux supports communicating with Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other platforms via webhooks. It also supports sending generic JSON to accommodate more software that parses this format.

      A Provider only allows Flux to send messages and does not specify when messages should be sent. For Flux to react to events, you’ll need to create an Alert using the slack Provider by running:

      • flux create alert slack-alert
      • --event-severity info
      • --event-source Kustomization/*
      • --event-source GitRepository/*
      • --provider-ref slack
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/slack-alert.yaml

      This command creates an alert manifest called slack-alert that will react to all Kustomization and Git repository changes and report them to the slack provider. The event severity is set to info, which will allow the alert to be triggered on all events, such as Kubernetes manifests being created or applied, something delaying deployment, or an error occurring. To report only errors, you can specify error instead. The resulting generated YAML is exported to a file called slack-alert.yaml.

      Commit the changes by running:

      • git add . && git commit -m "Added Slack alerts"

      Push the changes to the remote repository by running the following command, inputting your GitHub username and personal access token if needed:

      After the configured refresh interval for the Git repository elapses, Flux will retrieve and apply the changes. You can watch the Alert become available by running:

      • watch kubectl -n flux-system get alert

      You’ll soon see that it’s Initialized:

      Output

      NAME READY STATUS AGE slack-alert True Initialized 7s

      With alerting now set up, any actions that Flux takes will be logged in the Slack channel of the workspace that the webhook is connected to.

      You’ll test this connection by introducing a change to your fork of podinfo. First, clone it your local machine by running:

      • git clone https://github.com/$GITHUB_USER/podinfo.git ~/podinfo

      Navigate to the cloned repository:

      You’ll modify the name of its Service, which is defined in ~/podinfo/kustomize/service.yaml. Open it for editing:

      • nano ~/podinfo/kustomize/service.yaml

      Modify the Service name, like so:

      ~/podinfo/kustomize/service.yaml

      apiVersion: v1
      kind: Service
      metadata:
        name: podinfo-1
      spec:
        type: ClusterIP
        selector:
          app: podinfo
        ports:
          - name: http
            port: 9898
            protocol: TCP
            targetPort: http
          - port: 9999
            targetPort: grpc
            protocol: TCP
            name: grpc
      

      Save and close the file, then commit the changes by running:

      • git add . && git commit -m "Service name modified"

      Then, push the changes:

      After a few minutes, you’ll see the changes pop up in Slack as they are deployed:

      Slack - Flux reported changes

      Flux fetched the new commit, created a new Service called podinfo-1, configured it, and deleted the old one. This order of actions ensures that the old Service (or any other manifest) stays untouched if provisioning of the new one fails.

      In case the new revision of the watched manifests contains a syntax error, Flux will report an error:

      Slack - Flux reported failed deployment

      You’ve connected Flux to your Slack workspace, and will immediately be notified of all actions and deployments that happen. You’ll now set up Flux to watch over Helm releases.

      Step 4 — (Optional) Automating Helm Release Deployments

      In addition to watching over Kustomizations and Git repositories, Flux can also monitor Helm charts. Flux can monitor charts residing in Git or Helm repositories, as well as in S3 cloud storage. You’ll now set it up to watch over the podinfo chart, which is located in a Helm repository.

      The process of instructing Flux to monitor a Helm chart is similar to what you did in step 2. You’ll first need to define a source that it can poll for changes (of one of the three types noted earlier). Then, you’ll specify which chart to actually deploy among the ones it finds by creating a HelmRelease.

      Navigate back to the flux-config repository:

      Run the following command to create a source for the Helm repository that contains podinfo:

      • flux create source helm podinfo
      • --url=https://stefanprodan.github.io/podinfo
      • --interval=10m
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-helm-repo.yaml

      Here, you specify the URL of the repository and how often it should be checked. Then, you save the output into a file called podinfo-helm-repo.yaml.

      With the source repository now defined, you can create a HelmRelease, defining which chart to monitor:

      • flux create hr podinfo
      • --interval=10m
      • --source=HelmRepository/podinfo
      • --chart=podinfo
      • --target-namespace=podinfo-helm
      • --export > ./clusters/my-cluster/podinfo-helm-chart.yaml

      As in the previous command, you save the resulting YAML output to a file, here called podinfo-helm-chart.yaml. You also pass in the name of the chart (podinfo), set the --source to the repository you’ve just defined and specify that the namespace the chart will be installed to is podinfo-helm.

      Since the podinfo-helm namespace does not exist, create it by running:

      • kubectl create namespace podinfo-helm

      Then, commit and push the changes:

      • git add . && git commit -m "Added podinfo Helm chart" && git push

      After a few minutes, you’ll see that Flux logged a successful Helm chart upgrade in Slack:

      Slack - Flux logged successful chart install

      You can check the pods contained in the podinfo-helm namespace by running:

      • kubectl get pods -n podinfo-helm

      The output will be similar to this:

      Output

      NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE podinfo-chart-podinfo-7c9b7667cb-gshkb 1/1 Running 0 33s

      This means that you have successfully configured Flux to monitor and deploy the podinfo Helm chart. As soon as a new version is released, or a modification is pushed, Flux will retrieve and deploy the newest variant of the Helm chart for you.

      Conclusion

      You’ve now automated Kubernetes manifest deployments using Flux, which allows you to push commits to watched repositories and have them automatically applied to your cluster. You’ve also set up alerting to Slack, so you’ll always know what deployments are happening in real time, and you can look up previous ones and see any errors that might have occurred.

      In addition to GitHub, Flux also supports retrieving and bootstrapping Git repositories hosted at GitLab. You can visit the official docs to learn more.



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