Getting Started with Cloud Foundry for Kubernetes

Ivan Tarin

CF-for-k8s brings Cloud Foundry to Kubernetes.

Cloud Foundry is an open-source, multi-cloud application platform as a service governed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation, a 501 organization.

Using Cloud Foundry developers only have to focus on writing and delivering code as CF takes care of the rest. Developers enter cf push into the command line and their app will be deployed immediately receiving an endpoint. The CF platform will take care of containerizing the source code into a working app with the required dependencies, can be configured to bind to a database, connect to a market place and much more.

The cf-for-k8s platform adds a higher level of abstraction to Kubernetes by removing the sharp learning curve required for teams, developers don’t have to know Kubernetes they only have to cf push. Kubernetes adds new possibilities to Cloud Foundry opening up the massive Kubernetes ecosystem.

In this guide you’ll deploy Cloud Foundry on Kubernetes locally.

Before you begin

Machine Requirements

Currently cf-for-k8s supports Kubernetes 1.15.x or 1.16.x, the config yaml file we are using to make our kind cluster will make a cluster with the following requirements, see that your computer can handle them:

• have a minimum of 1 node
• have a minimum of 6 CPU, 8GB memory per node

Tools required

You will need a few tools before beginning and once set up installation usually takes 10 minutes or less.

CF CLI version requirement changed to version 7+

• Cloud Foundry CLI (version 7+) to talk to Cloud Foundry

  • on mac

    brew install cloudfoundry/tap/cf-cli
    # verify install 
    cf version
    

• You will need kubectl to interact with your cluster kubectl install instructions

  • on mac

    brew install kubectl
    # verify install 
    kubectl version --client
    

• KinD (Kubernetes in Docker) to instantiate your local cluster Kind install instructions

  • on mac

    brew install kind
    # verify install 
    kind version
    

• Bosh CLI the ./hack/generate-values.sh script will use the Bosh CLI to generate certificates, keys, and passwords in the file ./cf-install-values.yml

  • on mac

    brew install cloudfoundry/tap/bosh-cli
    

• kapp (v0.21.0+) will aid you to deploy cf-for-k8s to your cluster

  • on mac

    brew tap k14s/tap
    brew install ytt kapp
    kapp --version
    

• ytt (v0.26.0+) will help create templates to deploy cf-for-k8s

  • on mac you should have this installed from the above command, to verify:

    ytt version
    

• DockerHub is the image registry used in this guide please make an account if you don’t have one they are free and quickly made.

Clone the CF for K8s repo

Clone the repo to preferred location and cd into it.

git clone https://github.com/cloudfoundry/cf-for-k8s.git && cd cf-for-k8s

Setup your local k8s cluster with KinD

Create your cluster using the config yaml from the cf-for-k8s repo obtained above.

kind create cluster --config=./deploy/kind/cluster.yml

Point your kubeconfig to your new cluster.

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-kind

Generate the yaml used to deploy CF for k8s

In this script you use vcap.me as your CF domain with the flag -d, this way you can avoid configuring DNS for a domain.

The ./hack/generate-values.sh script will generate certificates, keys, passwords, and configuration needed to deploy into `./cf-install-values.yml'.

./hack/generate-values.sh -d vcap.me > ./cf-install-values.yml

Append the app_registry credentials to your DockerHub registry to the bottom of the ./cf-install-values.yml replacing with your information. You can copy/paste or use the following command.

cat >> cf-install-values.yml << EOL
app_registry:
  hostname: https://index.docker.io/v1/
  repository_prefix: "<DockerHub-username>"
  username: "<DockerHub-username>"
  password: "<DockerHub-password>"
EOL

There are a few more lines to add to your cf-install-values.yml, like adding a metrics server because KinD doesn’t come with one.

cat >> cf-install-values.yml << EOL
add_metrics_server_components: true
enable_automount_service_account_token: true
metrics_server_prefer_internal_kubelet_address: true
remove_resource_requirements: true
use_first_party_jwt_tokens: true

load_balancer:
  enable: false
EOL

Now, use cf-install-values.yml to render the final Kubernetes template to raw Kubernetes configuration.

ytt -f config -f ./cf-install-values.yml > ./cf-for-k8s-rendered.yml

Deploy CF for k8s

You are ready to deploy cf-for-k8s using the ./cf-for-k8s-rendered.yml file created above. Once you deploy it should take around 10 minutes to finish.

kapp deploy -a cf -f ./cf-for-k8s-rendered.yml -y

Validate the deployment

Target your CF CLI to point to the new CF instance.

cf api --skip-ssl-validation https://api.vcap.me

Set the CF_ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable to the CF administrative password, stored in the cf_admin_password key in the configuration-values/deployment-values.yml file:

CF_ADMIN_PASSWORD="$(bosh interpolate ./cf-install-values.yml --path /cf_admin_password)"

Log into the installation as the admin user.

cf auth admin "$CF_ADMIN_PASSWORD"

Enable Docker

cf enable-feature-flag diego_docker

A powerful feature provided by CF is multi-tenancy, where you can create a space for a team, an app or whatever your workflow requires.

Create and target an organization and space.

cf create-org test-org
cf create-space -o test-org test-space
cf target -o test-org -s test-space

Deploy an application with cf push

At last you can push the included sample test-node-app.

cf push test-node-app -p ./tests/smoke/assets/test-node-app

Or you can push any app you wish just cd into the directory and push the app with the following command.

cf push APP-NAME

Once your app stages you can find it in Cloud Foundry with this command.

cf apps

The output in the terminal should look something as follows.

Getting apps in org test-org / space test-space as admin...
OK

name            requested state   instances   memory   disk   urls
test-node-app   started           1/1         1G       1G     test-node-app.vcap.me

To see the pods that have applications on your Cloud Foundry instance look in the cf-workloads namespace.

kubectl get pods -n cf-workloads

You can now play with cf for k8s and deploy other apps and observe how it affects the Kubernetes infrastructure. Try other cf commands like cf delete test-node-app and see what changes, enjoy you new cf for k8s instance.

Delete the cf-for-k8s deployment

You can delete the cf-for-k8s deployment from your cluster by running the following command.

kapp delete -a cf

Delete your Kind cluster

To delete your KinD cluster.

kind delete cluster

Next Steps

Learn more about Cloud Foundry with the links below:

• cf-for-k8s GitHub
• cloudfoundry.org
• Online CF Tutorial