This project takes a real-world voting app—built with Node.JS, Python, .NET, Redis, and PostgreSQL—and launches it into the cloud with full Git-Ops automation. Running on AWS EC2 with Docker, Kind, and Kubernetes, it's powered by Argo CD for seamless CI/CD. Every commit to GitHub triggers live, production-ready deployments. Fast. Scalable. Reliable.

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Infrastructure Setup

AWS EC2 Instance

• Instance Type: t2.medium

• Operating System: Ubuntu

Installation Steps

1. Docker: Installed to facilitate containerization.

2. Kind (Kubernetes in Docker): Used to create a local Kubernetes cluster.

3. kubectl: Installed for cluster management.

Shell scripts were utilized to automate the installation of these components, ensuring a reproducible setup process.

Kubernetes Cluster Configuration

A Kubernetes cluster was established using Kind with the following node configuration:Medium+1Medium+1

• Control Plane: 1 node

• Worker Nodes: 2 nodesMedium+11LinkedIn+11ougabriel.medium.com+11Argo CD+1ougabriel.medium.com+1

This configuration ensures a balanced distribution of workloads and high availability.

Argo CD Deployment

Argo CD, a declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes, was deployed within the cluster:Spacelift+4Stack Overflow+4Argo CD+4

1. Namespace Creation: A dedicated namespace argocd was created.

2. Installation: Argo CD was installed using the official manifests.

3. Access: Port forwarding was configured to access the Argo CD dashboard securely.Argo CD

Let’s start with the setup now

Installing Docker, K8s on our EC2 Server

sudo ssh -i "t2medium.pem" ubuntu@ec2-34-226-212-50.compute-1.amazonaws.com
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker
mkdir k8s-install
cd k8s-install

vim kind_install.sh
#!/bin/bash

# For AMD64 / x86_64

[ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind <https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.20.0/kind-linux-amd64>
chmod +x ./kind
sudo cp ./kind /usr/local/bin/kind
rm -rf kind

##################################
chmod +x kind_install.sh
./kind_install.sh

vim config.yml

kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4

nodes:
- role: control-plane
  image: kindest/node:v1.30.0
- role: worker
  image: kindest/node:v1.30.0
- role: worker
  image: kindest/node:v1.30.0

 kind create cluster --config=config.yml --name=my-cluster

 vim install_kubectl.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Variables
VERSION="v1.30.0"
URL="<https://dl.k8s.io/release/${VERSION}/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl>"
INSTALL_DIR="/usr/local/bin"

# Download and install kubectl
curl -LO "$URL"
chmod +x kubectl
sudo mv kubectl $INSTALL_DIR/
kubectl version --client

# Clean up
rm -f kubectl

echo "kubectl installation complete."

chmod +x ./install_kubectl.sh

To check our k8s nodes

kubectl get nodes

Argo CD installation and configuration

kubectl create namespace argocd

kubectl apply -n argocd -f <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml>

Now when we get the nodes with the namespace “argocd”

kubectl patch svc argocd-server -n argocd -p '{"spec": {"type": "NodePort"}}'

Now we changed the argocd-server’s type from ClusterIP to NodePort

Let’s do PORT FORWARDING

kubectl port-forward -n argocd service/argocd-server 8443:443 --address=0.0.0.0 &

We also need to add PORT RANGE in aws instance under Security groups

We have successfully started ArgoCD in our server.

It will ask for username=admin and password, We need to retrieve the password from the argocd itself

kubectl get secret -n argocd argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 -d && echo

We need to create a New Application and attach our Github repository here (voting app)

After the filling the form, You will see your deployment

Gitops also done

Now we need to check if our applications are running or not, so let’s take the services: ‘vote’ & ‘result’

Let’s do port forwarding so that we can see the outputs on our browser

Port Forwarding of our services

 kubectl port-forward svc/vote 5000:5000 --address=0.0.0.0 &
 kubectl port-forward svc/result 5001:5001 --address=0.0.0.0 &

Let’s create a Kubernetes Dashboard now

kubectl apply -f <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/dashboard/v2.7.0/aio/deploy/recommended.yaml>

vim dashboard.yml

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: admin-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: admin-user
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: cluster-admin
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
  name: admin-user
  namespace: kubernetes-dashboard

kubectl apply -f dashboard.yml

Therefore, we have successfully deployed our multi node app to our k8s cluster using Argo CD for deployment and GitOps for CI (Continous Integration).

Thanks for reading uptil now !

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