Voozh

🚀 Phase 1: The Manual Foundation

Goal: Set up the cluster and deploy a "Hello World" app the old-fashioned way to understand what we are automating.

🛠️ Step 1: Install Tools

# Install the Big Three (macOS example)
brew install minikube kubectl fluxcd/tap/flux

🏗️ Step 2: Start Minikube

minikube start --cpus 2 --memory 4096 --driver=docker
minikube addons enable ingress

📂 Step 3: Directory Layout

Create this structure on your local machine:

flux-lab/
└── base/
 ├── kustomization.yaml
 └── web-server.yaml

📄 Step 4: The Manifests

flux-lab/base/web-server.yaml

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
 name: web-server
 namespace: engineering
spec:
 replicas: 2
 selector:
 matchLabels:
 app: nginx
 template:
 metadata:
 labels:
 app: nginx
 spec:
 containers:
 - name: nginx
 image: nginx:1.25
 ports:
 - containerPort: 80

flux-lab/base/kustomization.yaml

resources:
 - web-server.yaml

🚀 Step 5: Deploy Manually

kubectl create namespace engineering
kubectl apply -k flux-lab/base/
kubectl get pods -n engineering

🤖 Phase 2: The Great Automation (FluxCD)

Goal: Connect GitHub to Minikube. From this point on, we never use kubectl apply again.

🛠️ Step 1: Environment Setup

export GITHUB_TOKEN=your_personal_access_token
export GITHUB_USER=your_github_username

🏗️ Step 2: Bootstrap Flux

flux bootstrap github \
 --owner=$GITHUB_USER \
 --repository=flux-minikube-lab \
 --branch=main \
 --path=clusters/my-cluster \
 --personal

📂 Step 3: Final Git Directory Layout

Clone your new repo and organize it exactly like this:

flux-minikube-lab/
├── apps/
│ └── web-server/
│ ├── kustomization.yaml
│ └── web-server.yaml
└── clusters/
 └── my-cluster/
 ├── flux-system/ # (Auto-generated)
 └── web-server-sync.yaml

📄 Step 4: Create the "Sync" Instruction

clusters/my-cluster/web-server-sync.yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
 name: web-server-sync
 namespace: flux-system
spec:
 interval: 1m
 path: ./apps/web-server
 prune: true
 sourceRef:
 kind: GitRepository
 name: flux-system
 targetNamespace: engineering

🚀 Step 5: Push and Pray (The GitOps Way)

git add .
git commit -m "Onboard web-server to GitOps"
git push origin main

# Force immediate sync
flux reconcile kustomization flux-system --with-source

🔐 Phase 3: The Secret Sauce (Sealed Secrets)

Goal: Store passwords in GitHub securely using encryption.

🏗️ Step 1: Install Infrastructure

Place these files in infrastructure/sources/ and infrastructure/controllers/.

clusters/my-cluster/infra-sync.yaml

apiVersion: kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1
kind: Kustomization
metadata:
 name: infra-sync
 namespace: flux-system
spec:
 interval: 1h
 path: ./infrastructure
 prune: true
 sourceRef:
 kind: GitRepository
 name: flux-system

📂 Step 2: Final Phase 3 Directory Layout

flux-minikube-lab/
├── apps/
│ └── web-server/
│ ├── kustomization.yaml # (Update to include sealed-db-pass.yaml)
│ ├── web-server.yaml
│ └── sealed-db-pass.yaml # (Generated)
├── clusters/
│ └── my-cluster/
│ ├── infra-sync.yaml
│ └── web-server-sync.yaml
└── infrastructure/
 ├── controllers/
 │ └── sealed-secrets.yaml
 └── sources/
 └── sealed-secrets.yaml

🔐 Step 3: Create an Encrypted Secret

# 1. Create a raw secret (DO NOT PUSH TO GIT)
kubectl create secret generic mwd-db-pass \
 --from-literal=password=SuperSecret123 \
 --namespace engineering \
 --dry-run=client -o yaml > temp.yaml

# 2. Encrypt it using the cluster's key
kubeseal \
 --controller-name sealed-secrets \
 --controller-namespace flux-system \
 --format yaml < temp.yaml > apps/web-server/sealed-db-pass.yaml

# 3. Clean up
rm temp.yaml

🚀 Step 4: Deploy

git add .
git commit -m "Add sealed secret"
git push origin main
flux reconcile kustomization infra-sync --with-source
flux reconcile kustomization web-server-sync --with-source

🧠 Summary of Progress

Phase 1: Learned Kubernetes resources.
Phase 2: Learned FluxCD automation and the "Pull Model."
Phase 3: Learned Security and encryption in Git.

URL: https://dev.to/pilgrim2go/fluxcd-journey-with-minikube-16pg

⇱ FluxCD journey with Minikube - DEV Community