Setting Up Argo CD with Kind: A Guide for Local GitOps Development

Argo CD is a declarative, GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. Running it locally on a kind (Kubernetes in Docker) cluster is a great way to experiment and learn. In this post, we’ll walk through the steps to set up a kind cluster, install Argo CD, and expose the Argo CD UI via NodePort.

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Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed:

• Docker

• kubectl

• kind

You can install them using the instructions below.

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Installing kind

If you haven't installed kind yet, follow these steps:

On Linux:

# For AMD64 / x86_64
[ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.29.0/kind-linux-amd64
# For ARM64
[ $(uname -m) = aarch64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.29.0/kind-linux-arm64
chmod +x ./kind
sudo mv ./kind /usr/local/bin/kind

On macOS:

# For Intel Macs
[ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.29.0/kind-darwin-amd64
# For M1 / ARM Macs
[ $(uname -m) = arm64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.29.0/kind-darwin-arm64
chmod +x ./kind
mv ./kind /some-dir-in-your-PATH/kind

On Windows in PowerShell:

curl.exe -Lo kind-windows-amd64.exe https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.29.0/kind-windows-amd64
Move-Item .\kind-windows-amd64.exe c:\some-dir-in-your-PATH\kind.exe

Verify installation with:

kind version

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Step 1: Create a Kind Cluster with Port Mappings

Create a file called config.yml to define the cluster configuration with port mappings for Argo CD:

# config.yml
kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
nodes:
  - role: control-plane
    extraPortMappings:
      - containerPort: 30380  # NodePort HTTP
        hostPort: 8081
        protocol: TCP
      - containerPort: 30485  # NodePort HTTPS
        hostPort: 8443
        protocol: TCP

Then, create the cluster:

kind create cluster --name argocd --config config.yml

You can check that it's running:

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-argocd

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Step 2: Install Argo CD

Add Argo CD to the argocd namespace:

kubectl create namespace argocd

Apply the official Argo CD manifests:

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

Wait a minute or two, then check the pods:

kubectl get pods -n argocd

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Step 3: Edit the Type of argocd-server

kubectl edit svc argocd-server -n argocd

# change the type from 
# type: ClusterIP -> type: NodePort

save the file after changing the type to NodePort

check it using the following command

kubectl get svc -n argocd

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Step 3: Expose the Argo CD Server

By default, the Argo CD API server is not exposed externally. We'll expose it using a NodePort.

Create a file called service.yaml:

# service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: argocd-server
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: argocd-server
  ports:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 8080
      nodePort: 30380
    - name: https
      port: 443
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 8080
      nodePort: 30485

Apply the service:

kubectl apply -f service.yaml -n argocd

Now, the Argo CD UI is available at:

http://localhost:8081

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Step 4: Accessing the Argo CD Dashboard

Get the initial admin password:

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

Note: The username is admin

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Clean Up

To delete the cluster:

kind delete cluster --name argocd

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Conclusion :

Argo CD on Kind is a great local setup for learning GitOps and CI/CD workflows. You can now explore managing applications declaratively using Git repositories!