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Chapter 4 - Make Your Cluster a Universal Control Plane with Crossplane

Crossplane is an open source project that lets you turn a Kubernetes cluster into a universal control plane. Crossplane allows you to create digital infrastructure resources from inside a Kubernetes cluster, allows you to setup multi-cloud infrastructure in one place and gives platform engineers a way to let application developers spin up and down cloud resources without requiring extensive knowledge of the cloud.

With Crossplane, all cloud resources are stored in the Kubernetes API as a Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), meaning that the resource can be defined through a yaml spec and stored in a code repository, unlocking the power of Infrastructure as Code and a GitOps workflow.

In this chapter we will install Crossplane in our cluster and create a DigitalOcean Droplet. Then, you will install another Crossplane provider that you chose and spin up a cloud resource from that provider.

Prerequisites

  • n/a

Instructions

Step 1 - Install Crossplane with Helm

Create a namespace called crossplane-system

kubectl create namespace crossplane-system

Add the crossplane-stable Helm repo and update it

helm repo add crossplane-stable https://charts.crossplane.io/stable
helm repo update crossplane-stable

Create a Helm release called crossplane in the crossplane-system namespace

helm install crossplane --namespace crossplane-system crossplane-stable/crossplane

Step 2 - Install the DigitalOcean Crossplane Provider

Inspect the install.yaml file and then run the command

kubectl apply -f crossplane/install.yaml

Make sure that the provider was installed correctly. Run the command

kubectl get provider

You should see output similar to this:

NAME           INSTALLED   HEALTHY   PACKAGE                                  AGE
provider-do    True        True      crossplane/provider-digitalocean:v0.1.0  3m

Step 3 - Configure the Secret and Create the ConfigProvider

Reveal the value of your DO_TOKEN and copy it to your clipboard.

echo $DO_TOKEN

Base64 encode the token

MacOS and Linux

echo '<YOUR_DO_TOKEN>' | base64

Windows Use a tool you have used in the past, or go to DuckDuckGo and enter base64 <YOUR_DO_TOKEN>. The encoded string will appear at the top of the page.

Copy the encoded token to your clipboard, and then replace the place holder (BASE64ENCODED_PROVIDER_CREDS) in line 9 of the config.yaml with your encoded token.

Note: It is easy to decode Base64-encoded data, so it is not safe to commit your token to a public git repo. This is a great opportunity to use sealed-secrets.

Create the Secret and ProviderConfig

kubectl apply -f crossplane/config.yaml

Check that the ProviderConfig was properly setup with the command

kubectl get providerconfig

You should see output like this:

NAME         AGE
do-example   2m

Step 4 - Create a DigitalOcean Droplet from your cluster

Inspect the droplet.yaml file and then create the droplet

k apply -f crossplane/droplet.yaml

Check that a droplet was created by looking at the DigitalOcean Cloud Console or run the command

doctl compute droplet list --format Name

You should see your Kubernetes cluster nodes and a VM named crossplane-droplet

Name
kubecon-node-cgyld
kubecon-node-cgyl0
kubecon-node-cgyl1
crossplane-droplet

Step 5 - Choose another provider to install

Take a look at Crossplane's official list of providers. Choose one that you'd like to explore. We recommend that choose a provider that you are already familiar with and you've got an account with so it's easy to generate credentials.

Step 6 - Install the Provider

Following the instructions from the provider's documentation, install the provider.

Step 7 - Configure the Secret and Create the ConfigProvider

Following the instructions from the provider's documentation, configure the Secret and create the provider config.

Step 8 - Create a new resource

Choose a new resource to create. Once you are done, celebrate because you have setup multi-cloud infrastruction with Crossplane! 🎉

Learn More