Set up Argo CD

Warning

DLS users: Diamond runs a managed ArgoCD (Argus) — do not install your own. See the internal developer guide. This page targets self-hosted, non-DLS clusters only.

Argo CD is the GitOps continuous delivery tool used by the Deploy an IOC with ArgoCD tutorial. Earlier cluster tutorials deploy with plain Helm; ArgoCD adds the GitOps layer on top. This short page installs ArgoCD into the cluster from Set up a Kubernetes Cluster, reaches its web UI, retrieves the admin password and installs the argocd CLI.

Install the Argo CD server

Install ArgoCD into its own argocd namespace, using the upstream stable install manifest:

kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Wait for the pods to come up:

kubectl -n argocd get pods --watch

Reach the web UI

The ArgoCD server is not exposed outside the cluster by default. Port-forward it to your workstation, then open https://localhost:8081/ in a browser (accept the self-signed certificate):

kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 8081:443

Retrieve the admin password

The web UI and the CLI both log in as admin. The initial password is stored in a Kubernetes secret — print it with:

kubectl -n argocd get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode ; echo

Install the argocd CLI

Finally install the argocd command-line client (used by ec and by Deploy an IOC with ArgoCD):

curl -sSL -o argocd-linux-amd64 https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/releases/latest/download/argocd-linux-amd64
sudo install -m 555 argocd-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/argocd
rm argocd-linux-amd64

With the port-forward running, log in to check everything works:

argocd login localhost:8081

Next steps

ArgoCD is now installed and reachable. Continue with Deploy an IOC with ArgoCD to put a services repo under GitOps control.