iboonox / arkade

Kubernetes apps, the easy way 😎

arkade - get Kubernetes apps, the easy way

Gone are the days of contending with dozens of README files just to get the right version of helm and to install a chart with sane defaults. arkade (ark for short) provides a clean CLI with strongly-typed flags to install charts and apps to your cluster in one command.

What about helm and k3sup?

In the same way that brew uses git and Makefiles to compile applications for your Mac, arkade uses upstream helm charts and kubectl to install applications to your Kubernetes cluster.

On k3sup vs. arkade: The codebase in this project is derived from k3sup. k3sup (ketchup) was developed to automate building of k3s clusters over SSH, then gained the powerful feature to install apps in a single command. The presence of the word "k3s" in the name of the application confused many people, this is why arkade has come to exist.

And yes, of course it works with k3s and where possible, apps are available for ARM.

Get arkade

curl -sLS https://dl.get-arkade.dev | sh
sudo install arkade /usr/local/bin/

arkade --help

An alias of ark is created at installation time.

Usage

Here's a few examples of apps you can install, for a complete list run: [ark]ade install --help.

Install an app

No need to worry about whether you're installing to Intel or ARM architecture, the correct values will be set for you automatically.

[ark]ade install openfaas --gateways 2 --load-balancer false

Normally up to a dozen commands (including finding and downloading helm), now just one. No searching for the correct CRD to apply, no trying to install helm, no trying to find the correct helm repo to add:

[ark]ade install cert-manager

Other common tools:

[ark]ade install nginx-ingress

[ark]ade install metrics-server

We use strongly typed Go CLI flags, so that you can run --help instead of trawling through countless Helm chart README files to find the correct --set combination for what you want.

[ark]ade install inlets-operator --help

Install inlets-operator to get public IPs for your cluster

Usage:
  arkade install inlets-operator [flags]

Examples:
  arkade install inlets-operator --namespace default

Flags:
      --helm3                     Use helm3, if set to false uses helm2 (default true)
  -h, --help                      help for inlets-operator
  -l, --license string            The license key if using inlets-pro
  -n, --namespace string          The namespace used for installation (default "default")
      --organization-id string    The organization id (Scaleway
      --pro-client-image string   Docker image for inlets-pro's client
      --project-id string         Project ID to be used (for GCE and Packet)
  -p, --provider string           Your infrastructure provider - 'packet', 'digitalocean', 'scaleway', 'gce' or 'ec2' (default "digitalocean")
  -r, --region string             The default region to provision the exit node (DigitalOcean, Packet and Scaleway (default "lon1")
      --set stringArray           Use custom flags or override existing flags 
                                  (example --set=image=org/repo:tag)
  -t, --token-file string         Text file containing token or a service account JSON file
      --update-repo               Update the helm repo (default true)
  -z, --zone string               The zone to provision the exit node (Used by GCE (default "us-central1-a")

[ark]ade install inlets-operator --access-token $HOME/digitalocean --region lon1

You can also set helm overrides, for apps which use helm via --set

ark install openfaas --set=faasIdler.dryRun=false

After installation, an info message will be printed with help for usage, you can get back to this at any time via:

arkade app info <NAME>

Get a self-hosted TLS registry with authentication

Here's how you can get a self-hosted Docker registry with TLS and authentication in just 5 commands on an empty cluster:

arkade install nginx-ingress
arkade install cert-manager
arkade install docker-registry
arkade install docker-registry-ingress \
  --email [e-mail] \
  --domain reg.example.com

Get OpenFaaS with TLS

The same for OpenFaaS would look like this:

arkade install nginx-ingress
arkade install cert-manager
arkade install openfaas
arkade install openfaas-ingress \
  --email [e-mail] \
  --domain reg.example.com

Get a public IP for a private cluster and your IngressController

And if you're running on a private cloud, on-premises or on your laptop, you can simply add the inlets-operator using inlets-pro to get a secure TCP tunnel and a public IP address.

[ark]ade install inlets-operator \
  --access-token $HOME/digitalocean-token \
  --region lon1 \
  --license $(cat $HOME/license.txt)

Explore the apps

arkade install --help
ark --help

cert-manager            Install cert-manager
chart                   Install the specified helm chart
cron-connector          Install cron-connector for OpenFaaS
crossplane              Install Crossplane
docker-registry         Install a Docker registry
docker-registry-ingress Install registry ingress with TLS
info                    Find info about a Kubernetes app
inlets-operator         Install inlets-operator
istio                   Install istio
kafka-connector         Install kafka-connector for OpenFaaS
kubernetes-dashboard    Install kubernetes-dashboard
linkerd                 Install linkerd
metrics-server          Install metrics-server
minio                   Install minio
mongodb                 Install mongodb
nginx-ingress           Install nginx-ingress
openfaas                Install openfaas
openfaas-ingress        Install openfaas ingress with TLS
postgresql              Install postgresql

Tools and cached versions of helm

When required, tools, CLIs, and the helm binaries are downloaded and extracted to $HOME/.arkade.

If installing a tool which uses helm3, arkade will check for a cached version and use that, otherwise it will download it on demand.

Contributing

Suggesting a new app

To suggest a new app, please check past issues and raise an issue for it.

Improving the code or fixing an issue

Before contributing code, please see the CONTRIBUTING guide. Note that arkade uses the same guide as inlets.dev.

Both Issues and PRs have their own templates. Please fill out the whole template.

All commits must be signed-off as part of the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO)

License

MIT