Kubernetes install

StackState for Kubernetes troubleshooting Self-hosted

Before you start

Extra notes for installing on:

• Kubernetes clusters with limited permissions: Read the required permissions.

• OpenShift: Refer to the OpenShift installation instructions.

Before you start the installation of StackState:

• Check the requirements to make sure that your Kubernetes environment fits the setup that you will use (recommended, minimal or non- high availability).

• Check that you have the required permissions.

• Request access credentials to pull the StackState Docker images from StackState support.

• Add the StackState helm repository to the local helm client:

helm repo add stackstate https://helm.stackstate.io
helm repo update

Install StackState

For environments without internet access, also known as air-gapped environments, first follow these extra instructions.

Also make sure to follow the air-gapped instalaltion instructions whenever those are present for a step.

1. Create the namespace where StackState will be installed

2. Generate the values.yaml file

3. Deploy StackState with Helm

4. Access the StackState UI

Create namespace

Start by creating the namespace where you want to install StackState and deploy the secret in that namespace. In our walkthrough we will use the namespace stackstate:

kubectl create namespace stackstate

Generate values.yaml

The values.yaml file is required to deploy StackState with Helm. It contains your StackState license key, StackState Receiver API key and other important information.

Before you continue: Make sure you have the latest version of the Helm charts with helm repo update.

The StackState values.yaml file can be generated by running a separate Helm Chart, the stackstate/stackstate-values chart. A sample command line is:

> helm template \
  --set license='<your license>' \
  --set baseUrl='<stackstate-base-url>' \
  --set pullSecret.username='<your-registry-username>' \
  --set pullSecret.password='<your-registry-password>' \
  sts-values \
  stackstate/stackstate-values > values.yaml

This command will generate a values.yaml file which contains the necessary configuration for installing the StackState Helm Chart.

The StackState administrator passwords will be autogenerated by the above command and are output as comments in the generated values.yaml file. The actual values contain the bcrypt hashes of those passwords so that they're securely stored in the Helm release in the cluster.

The values that can be passed to this chart are:

Configuration	Value	Description
Receiver API Key	receiverApiKey	The API key used by StackState to receive data from agents. This is a secret key that should be kept private. If you omit this, a random key will be generated for you.
Base URL	baseUrl	The <STACKSTATE_BASE_URL>. The external URL for StackState that users and agents will use to connect. For example https://stackstate.internal. If you haven't decided on an Ingress configuration yet, use http://localhost:8080. This can be updated later in the generated file.
Username and password**	-u -p	The username and password used by StackState to pull images from quay.io/stackstate repositories. For air-gapped environments these need to be the username and password for the local docker registry.
License key	license	The StackState license key.
Admin API password	adminApiPassword	The password for the admin API. Note that this API contains system maintenance functionality and should only be accessible by the maintainers of the StackState installation. If you omit this, a random password will be generated for you. If you do pass this value and it's not bcrypt hashed, the chart will hash it for you.
Default password	adminPassword	The password for the default user (admin) to access StackState's UI. If you omit this, a random password will be generated for you. If you do pass this value and it's not bcrypt hashed, the chart will hash it for you.
Image Registry	imageRegistry	The registry where the StackState images are hosted. If not provided, the default value will be 'quay.io'
Pull Secret Username	pullSecret.username	The username used to pull images from the Docker registry where the StackState images are hosted.
Pull Secret Password	pullSecret.password	The password used to pull images from the Docker registry where the StackState images are hosted.

Store the generated values.yaml file somewhere safe. You can reuse this file for upgrades, which will save time and (more importantly) will ensure that StackState continues to use the same API key. This is desirable as it means Agents and other data providers for StackState won't need to be updated.

Deploy StackState with Helm

The recommended deployment of StackState is a production ready, high availability setup with many services running redundantly. If required, it's also possible to run StackState in a non-redundant setup, where each service has only a single replica. This setup is only recommended for a test environment.

For air-gapped environments follow the instructions for the air-gapped installations.

High availability setup

To deploy StackState in a high availability setup on Kubernetes:

1. Before you deploy:

   • Create the namespace where StackState will be installed

   • Generate values.yaml

2. (Optionally) Create a small_values.yaml if you want to deploy a small profile setup. Add the --values small_values.yaml flag to the command below.

3. Deploy the latest StackState version to the stackstate namespace with the following command:

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  --namespace stackstate \
  --values values.yaml \
stackstate \
stackstate/stackstate-k8s

Non-high availability setup

To deploy StackState in a non-high availability setup on Kubernetes:

1. Before you deploy:

   • Create the namespace where StackState will be installed

   • Generate values.yaml

   • Create nonha_values.yaml

2. Deploy the latest StackState version to the stackstate namespace with the following command:

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  --namespace stackstate \
  --values values.yaml \
  --values nonha_values.yaml \
stackstate \
stackstate/stackstate-k8s

Air-gapped, high availability setup

To deploy StackState in a air-gapped, high availability setup on Kubernetes:

1. Before you deploy:

   • Follow these extra instructions for air-gapped installations.

   • Create the namespace where StackState will be installed

   • Generate values.yaml

2. (Optionally) Create a small_values.yaml if you want to deploy a small profile setup. Add the --values small_values.yaml flag to the command below.

3. Deploy the latest StackState version to the stackstate namespace with the following command:

If you've created a small_values.yaml file, add --values small_values.yaml to the command below.

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  --namespace stackstate \
  --values local-docker-registry.yaml \
  --values values.yaml \
stackstate \
stackstate/stackstate-k8s

Air-gapped, non-high availability setup

To deploy StackState in a air-gapped, non-high availability setup on Kubernetes:

1. Before you deploy:

   • Follow these extra instructions for air-gapped installations.

   • Create the namespace where StackState will be installed

   • Generate values.yaml

   • Create nonha_values.yaml

2. Deploy the latest StackState version to the stackstate namespace with the following command:

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  --namespace stackstate \
  --values local-docker-registry.yaml \
  --values values.yaml \
  --values nonha_values.yaml \
stackstate \
stackstate/stackstate-k8s

After the install, the StackState release should be listed in the StackState namespace and all pods should be running:

# Check the release is listed
helm list --namespace stackstate

# Check pods are running
# It may take some time for all pods to be installed or available
kubectl get pods --namespace stackstate

Access the StackState UI

After StackState has been deployed you can check if all pods are up and running:

kubectl get pods --namespace stackstate

When all pods are up, you can enable a port-forward:

kubectl port-forward service/<helm-release-name>-stackstate-k8s-router 8080:8080 --namespace stackstate

StackState will now be available in your browser at https://localhost:8080. Log in with the username admin and the default password provided in the values.yaml file.

Next steps are

• Expose StackState outside of the cluster

• Start monitoring your Kubernetes clusters

• Give your co-workers access.