Installing Dispatch into a non-Konvoy Cluster

Prerequisites

Before you install Dispatch, be sure you have completed the Prerequisites.

Configure kubectl to point to the correct Kubernetes cluster.
Install the Dispatch CLI.
Set up credentials.
Install Helm v3.

Install Dispatch into a Cluster via Dispatch CLI

To install Dispatch with the default configuration, run:

dispatch init

It is possible to customize the install location with the --namespace flag. By default, the Dispatch instance will watch all namespaces for Dispatch repository configurations. However, if you specify the --watch-namespace flag it is possible to customize which namespaces Dispatch can see:

dispatch init --watch-namespace dispatch-tasks --watch-namespace dispatch-work

Configure Ingress

By default, Dispatch creates ingress records under the /dispatch/ path. However, you may want to configure this if: there are multiple Dispatch instances, you want to specify a hostname, use a different ingress controller or otherwise customize the Dispatch ingress.

The default Helm values for ingress are:

argo-cd:
  server:
    ingress:
      enabled: true
      annotations:
        kubernetes.io/ingress.class: traefik
        # Set `traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: ""` to disable traefik-forward-auth.
        traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: "forward"
        traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-response-headers: "X-Forwarded-User"
        traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: "http://traefik-forward-auth-kubeaddons.kubeaddons.svc.cluster.local:4181/"
        traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/rule-type: PathPrefixStrip
        traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/priority: "1"
      hosts: [""]
      paths:
        - "/dispatch/argo-cd"
argocdWebhookIngress:
  enabled: true
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/request-modifier: "ReplacePathRegex: ^(.*) /api/webhook"
  hosts:
    - paths: [/dispatch/hook/argo-cd]
      host: ""
ingress:
  enabled: true
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/rule-type: PathPrefixStrip
  hosts:
    - paths: [/dispatch/hook]
      host: ""
gitopsIngress:
  enabled: true
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: traefik
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/rule-type: PathPrefixStrip
  hosts:
    - paths: [/dispatch/gitops-hook]
      host: ""
tekton-dashboard:
  ingress:
    enabled: true
    annotations:
      kubernetes.io/ingress.class: traefik
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-response-headers: "X-Forwarded-User"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: "forward"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: "http://traefik-forward-auth-kubeaddons.kubeaddons.svc.cluster.local:4181/"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/rule-type: PathPrefixStrip
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/priority: "1"
    hosts:
      - paths: [/dispatch/tekton]
        host: ""
kommander-ui:
  ingress:
    enabled: true
    traefikFrontendRuleType: PathPrefixStrip
    path: /dispatch/dashboard
    extraAnnotations:
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/priority: "1"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: "forward"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url: "http://traefik-forward-auth-kubeaddons.kubeaddons.svc.cluster.local:4181/"
      traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-response-headers: "X-Forwarded-User"

Each ingress setting has the option to edit the hosts, paths, and annotations used so that they can be customized.

Namespaces

Unless otherwise specified, the Dispatch CLI commands create repositories, secrets, pipelines and tasks in the default namespace. For production installations, we suggest you create a new namespace dedicated to your CI workloads. For example, dispatch-work or dispatch-ci. You will then specify that namespace when using the CLI.

Examples:

dispatch -n dispatch-ci login docker --serviceaccount=team1

dispatch -n dispatch-work create repository

To install Dispatch into a Kubernetes cluster:

Execute the command dispatch init, which will use Helm v3 to perform the installation in a release called “dispatch”:
```
dispatch init
```
Set --namespace to install Dispatch into a namespace other than dispatch.
If you want to restrict the namespaces to which Dispatch has access, set the --watch-namespace flag for each namespace to which Dispatch should have access.
Run helm test dispatch to verify that the Dispatch components are set up correctly.

This will take several minutes, but your Dispatch cluster will be fully ready for use once it is completed.

Buildkit

Buildkit is not enabled by default as it requires cert-manager to be installed into your cluster. However, it can be enabled by setting buildkit.enabled.

It is also possible to override the buildkit image used, the number of replicas, and the resources allocated to each replica. The default configuration is:

buildkit:
  enabled: false
  image: "moby/buildkit:v0.7.1"
  resources:
    requests:
      memory: 4Gi
      cpu: 4000m
    limits:
      memory: 4Gi
      cpu: 4000m

In Konvoy, set the following:

apiVersion: konvoy.mesosphere.io/v1beta1
kind: ClusterConfiguration
spec:
  addons:
  - addonsList:
    - enabled: true
      name: dispatch
      values: |
        ---
        buildkit:
          enabled: true

Otherwise, run:

dispatch init --set buildkit.enabled=true

Install Dispatch into a Cluster via Helm

Dispatch can be installed using Helm v3 directly.

Add the Dispatch Helm repository:

helm repo add dispatch https://mesosphere.github.io/dispatch
helm repo update

Install via Helm:

helm install --name dispatch --namespace dispatch dispatch/dispatch

Run helm test dispatch to verify that the Dispatch components are set up correctly.

Next steps

At this point, you’ve successfully installed Dispatch. Next, you will add a new application to Dispatch CI. To do so, follow the steps at Setting up a repository to use Dispatch.

Additionally, your installation of Dispatch may require customization of ArgoCD or MinIO to meet the requirements.

Install on non-Konvoy Kubernetes

Install and Configure Dispatch on non-Konvoy Kubernetes clusters.