GitHub Actions: Docker build to AWS ECR and Helm chart deployment to AWS EKS
So, we have a deployed Kubernetes cluster – see the Terraform: Creating EKS, Part 1 – VPCs, Subnets, and Endpoints series.
And we have a GitHub Actions workflow to deploy it – see GitHub Actions: Deploying Dev/Prod environments with Terraform.
It’s time to start deploying our backend to Kubernetes.
Here we will use GitHub Actions again – we will build a Docker image with our Backend API service, store it in AWS Elastic Container Service, and then deploy a Helm chart to which we will pass a new Docker Tag in values
.
For now, we have only one working environment, Dev, but later we will add Staging and Production. In addition, we need to be able to deploy a feature environment to the same Dev EKS, but with custom values for some variables.
However, we will now do it in the test repository “atlas-test” and with the test Helm chart.
Release flow planning
How will we release it?
So far, we have decided with the following flow:
That is:
a developer creates a branch, writes code, tests locally in Docker Compose
after completing work on the feature – he creates a Pull Request with the label “deploy”
workflow: Deploy Feature Env
a trigger: the creation of a Pull Request with the label “deploy“
builds a Docker image and tags it with
git commit sha --short
push it to the ECR
create a feature environment in GitHub
deploys to Kubernetes Dev in a feature-env namespace, where the developer can additionally test changes in conditions close to real ones
after the PR merge to the master branch:
workflow: Deploy Dev
a trigger: push to master or manually
builds a Docker image and tags it with
git commit sha --short
deploy to Dev
if the deployment was successful (Helm did not generate any errors, Pods started, i.e. readiness and liveness Probes passed) – create a Git Tag
tag an existing Docker image with this tag
workflow: Deploy Stage
a trigger: a Git Tag created
deploys an existing Docker image with this tag
integration tests are launched (mobile, web)
if the tests pass, create a GitHub Release – changelog, etc.
workflow: Deploy Prod
a trigger: a GitHub Release was created
deploys the existing Docker image with the tag of this release
tests are performed
manual deploy
- from any existing image to Dev or Staging
Today, we’ll create two workflows – Deploy Dev and Deploy and Destroy Feature-env.
Setup AWS
First, we need to have an ECR and an IAM Role.
ECR to store the images that will be deployed, and the IAM Role will use GitHub Action to access the ECR and log in to EKS during the deployment.
We already have a repository in ECR, also called “atlas-test“, created manually for now – later we will transfer ECR management to Terraform.
However, AWS IAM roles for GitHub projects that will deploy to Kubernetes can be created immediately at the stage of creating an EKS cluster.
Terraform: creating an IAM Role
For deploying from GitHub to AWS, we use OpenID Connect, which means that an authenticated GitHub user (or in our case, a GitHub Actions Runner) can come to AWS and run AssumeRole there, and then with the policies of this role, pass authorization in AWS – checking what he can do there.
To deploy from GitHub to EKS, we need policies on:
eks:DescribeCluster
andeks:ListClusters
: to authorize in the EKS-clusterecr
: push and read images from the ECR repository
In addition, for this role, we will set a restriction on which GitHub repository the AssumeRole can be executed from.
In the EKS project, add a github_projects
variable with a type list
, which will contain all the GitHub projects that we will allow deploying to this cluster:
...
variable "github_projects" { type = list(string) default = [ "atlas-test" ] description = "GitHub repositories to allow access to the cluster" }
Describe the role itself, where in the for_each
loop we’ll go through all the elements of the github_projects
list:
data "aws_caller_identity" "current" {}
resource "aws_iam_role" "eks_github_access_role" { for_each = var.github_projects name = "${local.env_name}-github-${each.value}-access-role"
assume_role_policy = jsonencode({ Version = "2012-10-17" Statement = [ { Action = "sts:AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity" Effect = "Allow" Sid = "" Principal = { Federated : "arn:aws:iam::${data.aws_caller_identity.current.account_id}:oidc-provider/token.actions.githubusercontent.com" } Condition: { StringLike: { "token.actions.githubusercontent.com:sub": "repo:GitHubOrgName/${each.value}:*" }, StringEquals: { "token.actions.githubusercontent.com:aud": "sts.amazonaws.com" } } } ] })
inline_policy { name = "${local.env_name}-github-${each.value}-access-policy"
policy = jsonencode({ Version = "2012-10-17" Statement = [ { Action = [ "eks:DescribeCluster*", "eks:ListClusters" ] Effect = "Allow" Resource = module.eks.cluster_arn }, { Action = [ "ecr:GetAuthorizationToken", "ecr:BatchGetImage", "ecr:BatchCheckLayerAvailability", "ecr:CompleteLayerUpload", "ecr:GetDownloadUrlForLayer", "ecr:InitiateLayerUpload", "ecr:PutImage", "ecr:UploadLayerPart" ] Effect = "Allow" Resource = "*" }, ] }) }
tags = { Name = "${local.env_name}-github-${each.value}-access-policy" } }
Here:
in the
assume_role_policy
, allowAssumeRoleWithWebIdentity
of this role for the token.actions.githubusercontent.com Identity Profile from AWS IAM, and the repository repo:GitHubOrgName:atlas-testin the
inline_policy
:allow
eks:DescribeCluster
of the cluster to where we will deployallow
eks:ListClusters
of all clustersallow operations in ECR to all repositories
On ECR, it would be better to limit it to specific repositories, but this is still in the test, and it is not yet known what the naming of the repositories will be.
See Pushing an image, AWS managed policies for Amazon Elastic Container Registry, and Amazon EKS identity-based policy examples.
Next, you need to add these created roles to the aws_auth_roles
, where we already have a Role:
... aws_auth_roles = [ { rolearn = aws_iam_role.eks_masters_access_role.arn username = aws_iam_role.eks_masters_access_role.arn groups = ["system:masters"] } ] ...
In locals
build a new list(map(any))
– the github_roles
.
Then in the aws_auth_roles
using the flatten()
function create a new list
that includes the eks_masters_access_role
and roles from the github_roles
:
... locals { vpc_out = data.terraform_remote_state.vpc.outputs github_roles = [ for role in aws_iam_role.eks_github_access_role : { rolearn = role.arn username = role.arn groups = ["system:masters"] }] aws_auth_roles = flatten([ { rolearn = aws_iam_role.eks_masters_access_role.arn username = aws_iam_role.eks_masters_access_role.arn groups = ["system:masters"] }, local.github_roles ]) } ...
For now, we’re using the system:masters
group here because it’s still in development and I’m not setting up RBAC yet. But see User-defined cluster role binding should not include system:masters group as subject.
Deploy, and check the aws-auth
ConfigMap, where we now have a new object in the mapRoles
:
Workflow: Deploy Dev manually
Now, having roles, we can create Workflows.
We’ll start with manual deployment to the Dev because it’s the easiest. And then, having a working build and processes, we will do the rest.
Triggers
What are the conditions to launch a build?
workflow_dispatch
:- from any branch or tag
on
push
to master: in the Backend repository, the master branch has a push restriction only from Pull Requests, so there will be no other pushes here
You can also do an additional check in jobs, for example:
- name: Build if: github.event_name == 'pull_request' && github.event.action == 'closed' && github.event.pull_request.merged == true
See Trigger workflow only on pull request MERGE.
Environments and Variables
At the repository level, add variables – go to Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions:
ECR_REPOSITORY
AWS_REGION
Create a new GitHub Environment “dev” and set it up:
AWS_IAM_ROLE
: arn is taken from the outputs of the EKS deploy with TerraformAWS_EKS_CLUSTER
: the name is taken from the outputs of the EKS deploy with TerraformENVIRONMENT
: “dev“
Job: Docker Build
We will test with a minimal Dockerfile – create it in the root of the repository:
FROM alpine
Create a .github/workflows
directory:
$ mkdir -p .github/workflows
And a file in it – .github/workflows/deploy-dev.yml
:
name: Deploy to EKS
on: workflow_dispatch: push: branches: [ master ]
permissions: id-token: write contents: read
jobs:
build-docker:
name: Build Docker image runs-on: ubuntu-latest environment: dev
steps:
- name: "Setup: checkout code" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Setup: Configure AWS credentials" uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2 with: role-to-assume: ${{ vars.AWS_IAM_ROLE }} role-session-name: github-actions-test aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
- name: "Setup: Login to Amazon ECR" id: login-ecr uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1 with: mask-password: 'true'
- name: "Setup: create commit_sha" id: set_sha run: echo "sha_short=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
- name: "Build: create image, set tag, push to Amazon ECR" env: ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }} ECR_REPOSITORY: ${{ vars.ECR_REPOSITORY }} IMAGE_TAG: ${{ steps.set_sha.outputs.sha_short }} run: | docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG -f Dockerfile . docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
Here, we have a job that runs from the GitHub Environment == dev
, and:
with the
actions/checkout
check out the code on GitHub Runnerwith the
aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials
log in to AWS by executing the AssumeRole of the role we created earlierwith the
aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login
log in to AWS ECR (I was wondering how it works, but – 54,000 lines of JS code!)will generate
output sha_short
, which will include the Commit IDand will perform
docker build
anddocker push
Push it to the repository, merge it to the master, and run the build:
Check the image in the ECR:
Job: Helm deploy
The next step is to deploy the Helm chart with EKS.
Let’s quickly make a test chart:
$ mkdir -p helm/templates
In the helm
directory, create a Chart.yaml
file:
apiVersion: v2 name: test-chart description: A Helm chart type: application version: 0.1.0 appVersion: "1.16.0"
And templates/deployment.yaml
:
apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: test-deployment spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: test-app template: metadata: labels: app: test-app spec: containers: - name: test-container image: {{ .Values.image.repo}}:{{ .Values.image.tag }} imagePullPolicy: Always
And file values.yaml
:
image: repo: 492***148.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/atlas-test tag: latest
Passing variables between GitHub Action Jobs
Next, there is a question about the Workflow itself, namely – how to pass the Docker tag that we created in the build-docker job?
We can create a deployment with Helm in the same job and thus will be able to use the same IMAGE_TAG
variable.
Or we can create a separate job
, and pass the tag value between jobs.
It doesn’t make much sense to split it into two separate jobs, but first, it looks more logical in the build, and secondly, I want to try all sorts of things in GitHub Actions, so let’s pass the variable value between the jobs.
To do this, add the outputs
in the first job:
... jobs:
build-docker:
name: Build Docker image runs-on: ubuntu-latest environment: dev
outputs: image_tag: ${{ steps.set_sha.outputs.sha_short }} ...
And then we’ll use it in a new Helm job, where we pass it as values: image.tag
:
...
deploy-helm:
name: Deploy Helm chart runs-on: ubuntu-latest environment: dev needs: build-docker
steps:
- name: "Setup: checkout code" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Setup: Configure AWS credentials" uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2 with: role-to-assume: ${{ vars.AWS_IAM_ROLE }} role-session-name: github-actions-test aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
- name: "Setup: Login to Amazon ECR" id: login-ecr uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1 with: mask-password: 'true'
- name: Deploy Helm uses: bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm@v1.2.6 with: cluster-name: ${{ vars.AWS_EKS_CLUSTER }} namespace: ${{ vars.ENVIRONMENT }}-testing-ns name: test-release # may enable roll-back on fail #atomic: true values: image.tag=${{ needs.build-docker.outputs.image_tag }} timeout: 60s helm-extra-args: --debug
We push the changes and check the deploy:
Job: creating Git Tag
The next step is to create a Git Tag. Here we can use the github-tag-action Action, which under the hood checks the commit header and, depending on it, increments the major, minor, or patch version of the tag.
So let’s take a look at the Commit Message Format first, although this is actually a topic that could be covered in a separate post.
Git commit message format
See Understanding Semantic Commit Messages Using Git and Angular.
So, in short, the header is written in the format “type(scope): subject“, that is, for example – git commit -m "ci(actions): add new workflow"
.
At the same time, the type
can be conditionally divided into development and production, that is, changes that relate to development/developers, or changes that relate to the production environment and end-users:
development:
build
(formerlychore
): changes that are related to the build and packages (npm build
,npm install
, etc.)ci
: CI/CD changes (workflow files,terraform apply
, etc.)docs
: changes in project documentationrefactor
: code refactoring – new variable names, code simplificationstyle
: code changes in indentation, commas, quotation marks, etc.test
: зміни в тестах коду – юніт-тести, інтеграційні, etc
production:
feat
: new features, functionalityfix
: bug fixesperf
: changes related to performance
So add a new job
:
...
create_tag: name: "Create Git version tag" runs-on: ubuntu-latest timeout-minutes: 5 needs: deploy-helm permissions: contents: write outputs: new_tag: ${{ steps.tag_version.outputs.new_tag }}
steps: - name: "Checkout" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Misc: Bump version and push tag" id: tag_version uses: mathieudutour/github-tag-action@v6.1 with: github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} tag_prefix: eks-
In the job, we specify the needs
to run only after Helm deploys, add permissions
so that github-tag-action
can add tags to the repository, and add tag_prefix
, because the Backend repository, where all this will work later, already has standard tags with the “v
” prefix. And the token in secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN
is present by default in the Action itself.
Push with the git add -A && git commit -m "ci(actions): add git tag job" && git push
, and we have a new tag:
Workflow: Deploy Feature Environment
Okay – we have a Docker build, and we have a Helm-chart deployment. Everything is deployed to the Dev environment, and everything works.
Let’s add one more workflow – for deploying to EKS Dev, but not as a Dev environment, but to a temporary Kubernetes Namespace so that developers can test their features independently of the dev environment.
To do this, we need:
trigger a workflow when creating a Pull Request with the “deploy” label
create a custom name for the new Namespace – use Pull Request ID
build Docker
deploy the Helm chart in a new Namespace
Create a new file – create-feature-env-on-pr.yml
.
There will be three jobs in it:
Docker build
Deploy feature-env
Destroy feature-env
Conditions for running Jobs with if
and github.event
context
The “Docker build” and “Deploy” jobs should run when a Pull Request is created and labeled “deploy”, and the “Destroy” job should run when a Pull Request labeled “deploy” is closed.
For the workflow trigger, we set the condition on.pull_request
– then we will have a PullRequestEvent with a set of fields that we can check.
For some reason, the documentation has no the label
field and that was discussed back in 2017 (!), but in fact, we have that label there.
Here, an additional step
can help a lot, where you can display the entire payload.
Create a branch for tests, and add the first job in the file create-feature-env-on-pr.yml
:
name: "Create feature environment on PR"
on: pull_request: types: [ opened, edited, closed, reopened, labeled, unlabeled, synchronize ]
permissions: id-token: write contents: read
concurrency: group: deploy-${{ github.event.number }} cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
print-event:
name: Print event runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Dump GitHub context env: GITHUB_CONTEXT: ${{ toJson(github.event) }} run: | echo "$GITHUB_CONTEXT"
Push to the repository, open a Pull Request, and create a new label:
And our workflow started:
And it gave us all the data from the event
:
Now that we have the data, we can think about how we will check the conditions for the jobs
:
Create an Environment if a Pull Request:
opened
,edited
,reopened
,synchronize
(if a new commit is added to the source-branch)but Pull Request can be without a label – then we don’t need to deploy it
or a label can be added to an existing Pull Request – then the event will be
labeled
, and we need to deploy
Delete an Environment if a Pull Request:
closed
but it can be without a label – then we don’t need to run the uninstall job
or the “deploy” label can be removed from an existing Pull Request – then the event will be
unlabeled
, and we need to remove the Environment
The conditions for launching Workflow now look like this:
on: pull_request: types: [opened, edited, closed, reopened, labeled, unlabeled, synchronize]
Job: Deploy when creating a Pull Request with the “deploy” label
So, we have already seen above that when creating a Pull Request with the “deploy” label, we have "action": "open"
and pull_request.labels[].name: "deploy"
:
Then we can check the condition as:
if: contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy')
See contains
.
But if the event was for the closing of a Pull Request, it will still have the “deploy” label and will trigger our job.
Therefore, add one more condition:
if: contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed'
So a test job that will run the “deploy” may look like this:
...
jobs:
print-event:
name: Print event runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Dump GitHub context env: GITHUB_CONTEXT: ${{ toJson(github.event) }} run: | echo "$GITHUB_CONTEXT"
deploy: name: Deploy if: contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed' runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Run deploy run: echo "This is deploy"
Push it, create a PR, check it, and see that the job has launched twice:
Because when creating a PR with a label, we have two events: the actual creation of the PR, that is, the “opened
” event, and the addition of a label, the “labeled
” event.
It looks a bit weird to me, but apparently, GitHub couldn’t do with just one event in this case.
Therefore, we can simply remove the opened
from the on.pull_request
triggers – and when creating a PR with a label, the job will be started only by the “labeled
” event.
Another thing that looks kinky, although we don’t use it here, but:
to check a string in the
contains()
we use the formcontains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy')
– first, we specify the object in which to search, then the string we are looking forbut to check several strings in the
contains()
– the format iscontains('["labeled", "closed"]', github.event.action)
– that is, first a list of strings to check, then the object in which we are looking for them
Okay, anywhere, let’s move on: we can have another condition for launching – when the “deploy” label was added to an already created PR, that was created without the “deploy” label, and therefore did not trigger ed our job – and then we need to launch the job.
We can test this with the following conditions:
github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy'
And to select only one from all our conditions – the first or this one – we can use the “or” operator – “||
“, that is, our if
will look like this:
if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy')'
Then, for the test, create a PR without a label – and only the “Print event” job will work:
Then add the “deploy” label, and both jobs were run together:
Job: Destroy on closing a Pull Request with the “deploy” label
The only thing left to do is to make a job
to delete the feature-env – when the Pull Request with the “deploy” label is closed.
The conditions here are similar to those we used for the deployments:
...
destroy: name: Destroy if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action == 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'unlabeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy') runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Run destroy
run: echo "This is dstroy"
run a job if
action == 'closed' and labels.*.name == 'deploy'
ORrun a job if
action == 'unlabeled' and event.label.name == 'deploy'
Let’s check – create a PR with the label “deploy” – the Deploy job is launched, merge this PR – and we have a Destroy job run:
So the full workflow file now looks like this:
name: "Create feature environment on PR"
on: pull_request: types: [ opened, edited, closed, reopened, labeled, unlabeled, synchronize ]
permissions: id-token: write contents: read
concurrency: group: deploy-${{ github.event.number }} cancel-in-progress: false
jobs:
print-event:
name: Print event runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Dump GitHub context env: GITHUB_CONTEXT: ${{ toJson(github.event) }} run: | echo "$GITHUB_CONTEXT"
deploy: name: Deploy if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy')
runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Run deploy run: echo "This is deploy"
destroy: name: Destroy if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action == 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'unlabeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy') runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Run destroy
run: echo "This is dstroy"
Well, everything seems to be working.
Creating Feature Environment
Actually, everything here is already familiar for us – we’ll use the jobs that we made for the Deploy Dev Workflow, but just change a couple of parameters.
In the same create-feature-env-on-pr.yml
file describe the jobs.
In the first, Docker build, nothing changes – just add if
:
...
build-docker:
name: Build Docker image if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy') runs-on: ubuntu-latest timeout-minutes: 30 environment: dev
outputs: image_tag: ${{ steps.set_sha.outputs.sha_short }}
steps:
- name: "Setup: checkout code" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Setup: Configure AWS credentials" uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2 with: role-to-assume: ${{ vars.AWS_IAM_ROLE }} role-session-name: github-actions-test aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
- name: "Setup: Login to Amazon ECR" id: login-ecr uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1 with: mask-password: 'true'
- name: "Setup: create commit_sha" id: set_sha run: echo "sha_short=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
- name: "Build: create image, set tag, push to Amazon ECR" env: ECR_REGISTRY: ${{ steps.login-ecr.outputs.registry }} ECR_REPOSITORY: ${{ vars.ECR_REPOSITORY }} IMAGE_TAG: ${{ steps.set_sha.outputs.sha_short }} run: | docker build -t $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG -f Dockerfile . docker push $ECR_REGISTRY/$ECR_REPOSITORY:$IMAGE_TAG
And in the Helm-deploy job, we will also add an if
, and a new step
– “Misc: Set ENVIRONMENT variable“, where from the github.event.number
we will create a new value for the ENVIRONMENT
variable, and ENVIRONMENT
we will pass to a Kubernetes Namespace where the chart will be deployed:
...
deploy-helm:
name: Deploy Helm chart if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy')
runs-on: ubuntu-latest timeout-minutes: 15 environment: dev needs: build-docker
steps:
- name: "Setup: checkout code" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Setup: Configure AWS credentials" uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2 with: role-to-assume: ${{ vars.AWS_IAM_ROLE }} role-session-name: github-actions-test aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
- name: "Setup: Login to Amazon ECR" id: login-ecr uses: aws-actions/amazon-ecr-login@v1 with: mask-password: 'true'
- name: "Misc: Set ENVIRONMENT variable" id: set_stage run: echo "ENVIRONMENT=pr-${{ github.event.number }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
- name: "Deploy: Helm" uses: bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm@v1.2.6 with: cluster-name: ${{ vars.AWS_EKS_CLUSTER }} namespace: ${{ env.ENVIRONMENT }}-testing-ns name: test-release #atomic: true values: image.tag=${{ needs.build-docker.outputs.image_tag }} timeout: 60s helm-extra-args: --debug
And lastly, we add a new job that will uninstall the Helm release, and a separate step
to remove the namespace because Helm itself cannot do this during uninstall
, see Add option to delete the namespace created during install. To do this, use ianbelcher/eks-kubectl-action
:
...
destroy-helm:
name: Uninstall Helm chart if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action == 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'unlabeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy') runs-on: ubuntu-latest timeout-minutes: 15 environment: dev
steps:
- name: "Setup: checkout code" uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: "Setup: Configure AWS credentials" uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v2 with: role-to-assume: ${{ vars.AWS_IAM_ROLE }} role-session-name: github-actions-test aws-region: ${{ vars.AWS_REGION }}
- name: "Misc: Set ENVIRONMENT variable" id: set_stage run: echo "ENVIRONMENT=pr-${{ github.event.number }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
- name: "Destroy: Helm" uses: bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm@v1.2.6 with: cluster-name: ${{ vars.AWS_EKS_CLUSTER }} namespace: ${{ env.ENVIRONMENT }}-testing-ns action: uninstall name: test-release #atomic: true timeout: 60s helm-extra-args: --debug
- name: "Destroy: namespace" uses: ianbelcher/eks-kubectl-action@master with: cluster_name: ${{ vars.AWS_EKS_CLUSTER }} args: delete ns ${{ env.ENVIRONMENT }}-testing-ns
Let’s push, create a Pull Request, and we have a new deploy:
Check the Namespace:
$ kk get ns pr-5-testing-ns NAME STATUS AGE pr-5-testing-ns Active 95s
$ kk -n pr-5-testing-ns get pod NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE test-deployment-77f6dcbd95-cg2gf 0/1 CrashLoopBackOff 3 (35s ago) 78s
Merge the Pull Request, and Helm release with the Namespace were deleted:
Check it:
$ kk get ns pr-5-testing-ns Error from server (NotFound): namespaces "pr-5-testing-ns" not found
Bonus: GitHub Deployments
GitHub has a new feature called Deployments, which is still in Beta, but you can already use it:
The idea behind the Deployments is that for each GitHub Environments, you can see a list of all deployments to it, with statuses and commits:
To work with Deployments, we’ll use the bobheadxi/deployments
Action, which accepts an input
called env
. If in the env
we’ll pass an Environment that does not exist in the repository’s Settings, it will be created.
In addition, here we have a set of steps – start
, finish
, deactivate-env
, and delete-env
.
During the deployment, we need to call the start
and pass a name of the environment. When the deployment is completed, call finish
to pass the status of the deployment. And when deleting the environment, call delete-env
.
In the deploy-helm
job in the create-feature-env-on-pr.yml
workflow, add permissions
and new steps.
The step “Misc: Create a GitHub deployment” before calling “Deploy: Helm“, and the “Misc: Update the GitHub deployment status” – after the Helm install:
... permissions: id-token: write contents: read deployments: write
... deploy-helm:
name: Deploy Helm chart if: | (contains(github.event.pull_request.labels.*.name, 'deploy') && github.event.action != 'closed') || (github.event.action == 'labeled' && github.event.label.name == 'deploy')
runs-on: ubuntu-latest timeout-minutes: 15 needs: build-docker ...
- name: "Misc: Set ENVIRONMENT variable" id: set_stage run: echo "ENVIRONMENT=pr-${{ github.event.number }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
- name: "Misc: Create a GitHub deployment" uses: bobheadxi/deployments@v1 id: deployment with: step: start token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} env: ${{ env.ENVIRONMENT }}
- name: "Deploy: Helm" uses: bitovi/github-actions-deploy-eks-helm@v1.2.6 with: cluster-name: ${{ vars.AWS_EKS_CLUSTER }} namespace: ${{ env.ENVIRONMENT }}-testing-ns name: test-release #atomic: true values: image.tag=${{ needs.build-docker.outputs.image_tag }} timeout: 60s helm-extra-args: --debug
- name: "Misc: Update the GitHub deployment status" uses: bobheadxi/deployments@v1 if: always() with: step: finish token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} status: ${{ job.status }} env: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.env }} deployment_id: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.deployment_id }} ...
Push the changes to the repository, create a PR, and we have a new environment “pr-7
“:
And that’s all for now.
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Written by
Arseny Zinchenko
Arseny Zinchenko
DevOps, Cloud infrastructure engineer. In love Linux, Open Source, and AWS.