The DevOps 2.6 Toolkit: Jenkins X: Cloud-Native Kubernetes-First Continuous Delivery

Description

To understand intricacies and inner workings of Jenkins X, we need to understand Kubernetes. But, you do not need to understand Kubernetes to use Jenkins X. That is one of the main contributions of the project. Jenkins X allows us to harness the power of Kubernetes without spending eternity learning the ever-growing list of the things it does. Jenkins X helps us by simplifying complex processes into concepts that can be adopted quickly and without spending months in trying to figure out "the right way to do stuff." It helps by removing and simplifying some of the problems caused by the overall complexity of Kubernetes and its ecosystem. If you are indeed a Kubernetes ninja, you will appreciate all the effort put into Jenkins X. If you're not, you will be able to jump right in and harness the power of Kubernetes without ripping your hair out of frustration caused by Kubernetes complexity.I'll skip telling you that Kubernetes is a container orchestrator, how it manages our deployments, and how it took over the world by the storm. You hopefully already know all that. Instead, I'll define Kubernetes as a platform to rule them all. Today, most software vendors are building their next generation of software to be Kubernetes-native or, at least, to work better inside it. A whole ecosystem is emerging and treating Kubernetes as a blank canvas. As a result, new tools are being added on a daily basis, and it is becoming evident that Kubernetes offers near-limitless possibilities. However, with that comes increased complexity. It is harder than ever to choose which tools to use. How are we going to develop our applications? How are we going to manage different environments? How are we going to package our applications? Which process are we going to apply for application lifecycles? And so on and so forth. Assembling a Kubernetes cluster with all the tools and processes takes time, and learning how to use what we assembled feels like a never-ending story. Jenkins X aims to remove those and quite other obstacles.Jenkins X is opinionated. It defines many aspects of the software development lifecycle, and it makes decisions for us. It tells us what to do and how. It is like a tour guide on your vacation that shows you where to go, what to look at, when to take a photo, and when it's time to take a break. At the same time, it is flexible and allows power users to tweak it to fit their own needs.The real power behind Jenkins X is the process, the selection of tools, and the glue that wraps everything into one cohesive unit that is easy to learn and use. We (people working in the software industry) tend to reinvent the wheel all the time. We spend countless hours trying to figure out how to develop our applications faster and how to have a local environment that is as close to production as possible. We dedicate time searching for tools that will allow us to package and deploy our applications more efficiently. We design the steps that form a continuous delivery pipeline. We write scripts that automate repetitive tasks. And yet, we cannot escape the feeling that we are likely reinventing things that were already done by others. Jenkins X is designed to help us with those decisions, and it helps us to pick the right tools for a job. It is a collection of industry's best practices. In some cases, Jenkins X is the one defining those practices, while in others it helps us adopting those made by others.If we are about to start working on a new project, Jenkins X will create the structure and the required files. If we need a Kubernetes cluster with all the tools selected, installed, and configured, Jenkins X will do that. If we need to create Git repositories, set webhooks, and create continuous delivery pipelines, all we need to do is execute a single `jx` command. The list of what Jenkins X does is vast, and it grows every day. Table of Contents Preface About the Author Dedication What Is Jenkins X? Installing Prerequisites Installing Jenkins X CLI To Create A Cluster Or Not To Create A Cluster Creating A Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Cluster With jx Creating An Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) Cluster With jx Creating An Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Cluster With jx Is Your Cluster Ready For Jenkins X? Installing Jenkins X In An Existing Kubernetes Cluster What Did We Get? What Now? Deleting GKE Cluster And Unused Resources Deleting EKS Cluster And Related Resources Deleting AKS Cluster And Related Resources Uninstalling Jenkins X Exploring Quickstart Projects Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Creating A Quickstart Project Exploring Quickstart Project Files Retrieving Jenkins X Activities, Logs, Pipelines, Applications, And Environments What Now? Importing Existing Projects Into Jenkins X Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Importing A Project Fixing The Auto-Generated Helm Chart Why Did We Do All That? What Now? Creating Custom Build Packs Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Choosing What To Include In A Build Pack Creating A Build Pack For Go Applications With MongoDB Datastore Testing The New Build Pack Giving Back To The Community What Now? Applying GitOps Principles Ten Commandments Of GitOps Applied To Continuous Delivery Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Exploring Jenkins X Environments Which Types Of Tests Should We Execute When Deploying To The Staging Environment? Exploring And Adapting The Staging Environment Understanding The Relation Between Application And Environment Pipelines Controlling The Environments Are We Already Following All The Commandments? What Now? Improving And Simplifying Software Development Exploring The Requirements Of Efficient Development Environment Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Creating a Remote Development Environment Working With The Code In The DevPod Using Browser-Based IDE Synchronizing Code From A Laptop Into A DevPod Integrating IDEs With Jenkins X What Now? Working With Pull Requests And Preview Environments Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Creating Pull Requests Intermezzo Merging a PR Exploring Jenkins X Garbage Collection What Now? Promoting Releases To Production Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Promoting A Release To The Production Environment What Now? Versioning Releases Semantic Versioning Explained Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Versioning Releases Through Tags Controlling Release Versioning From Jenkins X Pipelines Customizing Versioning Logic Versioning With Maven, NodeJS, And Other Build Tools What Now? Going Serverless Exploring Prow, Jenkins X Pipeline Operator, And Tekton Implementing ChatOps Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Exploring The Basic Pull Request Process Through ChatOps Exploring Additional Slash Commands How Do We Know Which Slash Commands Are Available? What Now? Using The Pipeline Extension Model The Evolution Of Jenkins Jobs And How We Got To The YAML-Based jenkins-x.yml Format Getting Rid Of Repetition Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Exploring Build Pack Pipelines Extending Build Pack Pipelines Extending Environment Pipelines What Now? Extending Jenkins X Pipelines What Are We Trying To Do? Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Naming Steps And Using Multi-Line Commands Working With Environment Variables And Agents Overriding Pipelines, Stages, And Steps And Implementing Loops Pipelines Without Buildpacks Exploring The Syntax Schema What Now? Using Jenkins X To Define And Run Serverless Deployments What is Serverless Computing? Serverless Deployments In Kubernetes Which Types Of Applications Should Run As Serverless? Why Do We Need Jenkins X To Be Serverless? What Is Tekton And How Does It Fit Jenkins X? Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Importing The Application Installing Gloo and Knative Creating A New Serverless Application Project Using Serverless Deployments With Pull Requests Limiting Serverless Deployments To Pull Requests What Now? Choosing The Right Deployment Strategy What Do We Expect From Deployments? Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X And Creating A Sample Application Using Serverless Strategy With Gloo And Knative (GKE only) Using Recreate Strategy With Standard Kubernetes Deployments Using RollingUpdate Strategy With Standard Kubernetes Deployments Evaluating Whether Blue-Green Deployments Are Useful About The World We Lived In A Short Introduction To Progressive Delivery A Quick Introduction To Istio, Prometheus, And Flagger Installing Istio, Prometheus, And Flagger Creating Canary Resources With Flagger Using Canary Strategy With Flager, Istio, And Prometheus Rolling Back Canary Deployments To Canary Or Not To Canary? Which Deployment Strategy Should We Choose? What Now? Applying GitOps Principles To Jenkins X Discussing The Cardinal Sin Creating A Kubernetes Cluster (Without Jenkins X) What Is Jenkins X Boot? Installing Jenkins X Using GitOps Principles Exploring The Changes Done By The Boot Verifying Jenkins X Boot Installation What Now? Managing Third-Party Applications Creating A Kubernetes Cluster With Jenkins X Managing Application-Specific Dependencies Managing Third-Party Applications Through Permanent Environments Managing Third-Party Applications Running In The Development Environment Managing Third-Party Applications As Jenkins X Apps Using Any Helm Chart As A Jenkins X App Which Method For Installing and Managing Third-Party Applications Should We Use? What Now? Now It's Your Turn Contributions