Installing Hasura on any Kubernetes Cluster

Installing Hasura on any Kubernetes cluster is as easy as writing the configuration required in a yaml file and using it to execute hasura cluster install.

Step 1: Write the configuration

Here is an example for a cluster configuration (particularly on GKE).

custom-cluster.yaml
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name: '<cluster-name>'
alias: '<cluster-alias>'
data:
  customKey1: customValue1 
kubeContext: '<kube-context>'
config:
  namespace: hasura
  configmap: controller-conf
infra:
  provider: custom
metadata:
  namespaces:
    hasura: hasura
    user: default
  registry:
    dockercfgSecret: '<docker-secret-name>'
    prefix: 'gcr.io/<gcp-project-name>'
  gateway:
    ports:
    - name: http
      port: 80
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 80
    - name: https
      port: 443
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 443
    - name: ssh
      port: 22
      protocol: TCP
      targetPort: 22
    selector:
      app: gateway
    type: LoadBalancer
  postgres:
    volume:
      gcePersistentDisk:
        pdName: '<gce-pd-name-for-postgres>'
      name: postgres-pv
  filestore:
    volume:
      gcePersistentDisk:
        pdName: '<gce-pd-name-for-filestore>'
      name: filestore-pv
  sessionStore:
    volume:
      gcePersistentDisk:
        pdName: '<gce-pd-name-for-redis>'
      name: redis-pv

Here’s an explanation for all the fields in this file:

name

Name of the cluster. This name is important as a git remote is created on the cluster with this name, to enable git-pushes. Before the configuration is applied, a remote has to be present on the cluster.

alias

This is used only when the cluster is added to a project. Alias is used for referring to the cluster later with CLI commands.

data

Arbitrary JSON objects can be inserted here and can be later used in templating the configuration (present in conf/ directory. Only used after cluster is added to a project.

kubeContext

The Kubernetes context used to contact the cluster while installing and later after adding to a project. The context should exist in the user’s machine.

config

Tells the Hasura CLI where it can find (or where it should create while installing) the cluster’s configuration, including infrastructure and metadata. This information is vital for Hasura CLI to talk to a Kubernetes cluster.

  • namespace

Namespace where the configuration can be found.

  • configmap

Name of the configmap where configuration is stored.

infra

Infrastructure identifier for this cluster. Since we are installing Hasura on the cluster manually, we set this to provider: custrom (mandatory).

metadata

Metadata about the cluster and how the cluster should behave. Only used while installing. Later stored in the configmap mentioned above.

  • namespaces

Indicates the namespaces to be used by the Hasura platform.

hasura indicates name of the namespace in which platform components should be created. This namespace should not exist already.

user indicates the namespace where all user components, like conf, secrets, microservices etc. should be created. This namespace should already exist.

  • registry

Docker registry to push images built on the cluster. In a multi-node environment, this is required for a smooth working. dockercfgSecret is the name of Kubernetes secret object to be used. prefix indicates the registry url. For a docker hub repo, this will be docker.io/<username>.

  • gateway

Kubernetes ServiceSpec to be used for Hausra API Gateway. The port configuration should not be changed, apart from the port values. selector should also be left as is (app: gateway).

type can be set depending on the environment.

  • postgres

volume indicates the Kubernetes Volume to be used for storing Hasura Postgres data.

  • filestore

volume indicates the Kubernetes Volume to be used for storing Hasura Filestore data.

  • sessionStore

volume indicates the Kubernetes Volume to be used for storing Hasura Redis data.

If disks like GCEPersistentDisk or AWSElasticBlockStorage are used, they should already be created. Hasura makes no attempt in creating these disks. If Persistent Volume Claims are used, the user should make sure that required PVC objects and storage classes are present.

Note

Since PVC objects are namespaced, creating them before installing Hasura is not possible, as hasura namespace will not be available. So, if PVC is being used for volumes, add their names in the cluster spec, but only create the PVC objects after executing the hasura cluster install command and when the command waits at Initializing the Hasura platform.

Step 2: Create required resources

Create all the required resources including the Kubernetes cluster, disk and static IPs. Make sure that the names are as it is written in the yaml file. Also ensure that the given kubeContext is pointing to the desired cluster.

Step 3: Setup a domain for the cluster

If you already have a static IP address created for the cluster, associate a domain with that. If you are using a dynamic cloud provider provisioned load balancer (type: LoadBalancer), you can use any random domain (like example.com) while creating the cluster and later change it.

Note

If you don’t own a domain and still want to get a domain for an IP address, you can use xip.io. Any IP address given as subdomain to xip.io will map to the IP address. For e.g. 101.202.111.222.xip.io resolves to 101.202.111.222.

Note that SSL won’t be available for these domains as LetsEncrypt rate limits will be hit.

Step 4: Install Hasura platform

Now, you can use Hasura CLI to install Hasura platform on this cluster.

hasura cluster install \
  --file custom-cluster.yaml \
  --domain=<your-domain>

This could take around 5 minutes depending on your internet connection bandwidth.

Step 5: Add this cluster to a project

Clone a new Hasura project using hasura clone or cd into an existing project. You can then use hasura cluster add command to add this cluster to the project.

hasura cluster add --file custom-cluster.yaml

This command will add the cluster defined in custom-cluster.yaml to your project. The name, alias and all other configuration will be taken from the yaml file.

Step 6: Configure domains in the project

Your current Hasura project is most likely to have the domain configured as "{{ cluster.name }}.hasura-app.io" in conf/domains.yaml. This domain will only work for clusters provisioned through Hasura, not for user provisioned ones. Hence, you need to edit this file and change the domain configuration.

Edit conf/domains.yaml to make the following change:

- domain: "<insert-your-domain-here>"
  ssl:
    type: LetsEncrypt
    conf: {}

Note

If you’re using xip.io domain, use ssl: null as certificates cannot be issued for this domain.

Advanced: Handling multiple clusters in the same project

If you have multiple clusters in the same project, you will need the following template to handle domain configuration for this cluster as well as Hasura provisioned clusters.

{% if cluster.infra.provider == "custom" %}
- domain: "<insert-your-domain-here>"
  ssl: null
{% else %}
- domain: "{{ cluster.name }}.hasura-app.io"
  ssl:
    type: LetsEncrypt
    conf: {}
{% endif %}

Note

You can also use conditionals like cluster.name == "my-custom-cluster" in the if-clauses.

If you want to add more conditions, you can make use of {% elif <condition> %} statements.

More documentation on the templates are available at Project conf files templating.

Step 7: Commit and push to the new cluster

Commit the files and push to the newly added minikube cluster:

git add clusters.yaml conf/domains.yaml
git commit -m "add new custom cluster"
git push minikube master

That’s it! Your Hasura project is now deployed on the cluster. You can see the microservices and their URLs by executing:

hasura microservices list -c <cluster-alias>

Tearing down

You can delete all the resources Hasura created by executing the following commands:

kubectl delete namespace hasura
kubectl delete configmap hasura-conf hasura-status ssh-authorized-keys
kubectl delete secret hasura-secrets
kubectl delete clusterrolebinding hasura-cluster-admin-binding

# Next, delete all the infrastructure components like disks, ip address etc.

Note

The Hasura Kubernetes Platform is available under these Terms of Service.