Forecastle

Problem(s)

• We would like to have a central place where we can easily look for and access our applications running on Kubernetes.
• We would like to have a tool which can dynamically discover and list the apps running on Kubernetes.
• A launchpad to access developer tools e.g. Jenkins, Nexus, Kibana, Grafana, etc.

Solution

Forecastle gives you access to a control panel where you can see your running applications and access them on Kubernetes.

Deploying to Kubernetes

You can deploy Forecastle both using vanilla k8s manifests or helm charts.

Vanilla Manifests

Step 1: You can apply vanilla manifests by running the following command

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stakater/Forecastle/master/deployments/kubernetes/forecastle.yaml

Step 2: Update configmap

In the Forecastle configmap modify the

namespaceSelector

And enjoy!

Helm Charts

If you configured

helm

deployments/kubernetes/chart/Forecastle

Configuration

Ingresses

Forecastle looks for a specific annotations on ingresses.

• Add the following annotations to your ingresses in order to be discovered by forecastle:

| Annotation | Description | Required | | -------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------- | |

forecastle.stakater.com/expose

true

true

forecastle.stakater.com/icon

false

forecastle.stakater.com/appName

false

forecastle.stakater.com/group

false

forecastle.stakater.com/instance

false

forecastle.stakater.com/url

http://

https://

false

forecastle.stakater.com/properties

key:value

false

forecastle.stakater.com/network-restricted

false

Forecastle

Forecastle supports the following configuration options that can be modified by either ConfigMap or

values.yaml

| Field | Description | Default | Type | | :---------------: | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :---------------------: | ----------------- | | namespaceSelector | A fine grained namespace selector which uses a combination of hardcoded namespaces well as label selectors | any: true | NamespaceSelector | | headerBackground | Background color of the header (Specified in the CSS way) | null | string | | headerForeground | Foreground color of the header (Specified in the CSS way) | null | string | | title | Title for the forecastle dashboard | "Forecastle - Stakater" | string | | instanceName | Name of the forecastle instance | "" | string | | customApps | A list of custom apps that you would like to add to the forecastle instance | {} | []CustomApp | | crdEnabled | Enables or disables

ForecastleApp

NamespaceSelector

It is a selector for selecting namespaces either selecting all namespaces or a list of namespaces, or filtering namespaces through labels.

| Field | Description | Default | Type | | :-----------: | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :-----: | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | any | Boolean describing whether all namespaces are selected in contrast to a list restricting them | false | bool | | labelSelector | Filter namespaces based on kubernetes metav1.LabelSelector type | null | metav1.LabelSelector | | matchNames | List of namespace names | null | []string |

Note: If you specify both

labelSelector

matchNames

Custom Apps

If you want to add any apps that are not exposed through ingresses or are external to the cluster, you can use the custom apps feature. You can pass an array of custom apps inside the config.

| Field | Description | Type | | ----------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ----------------- | | name | Name of the custom app | String | | icon | URL of the icon for the custom app | String | | url | URL of the custom app | String | | group | Group for the custom app | String | | properties | Additional Properties of the app as a map | map[string]string | | networkRestricted | Whether app is network restricted or not | bool |

ForecastleApp CRD

You can now create custom resources to add apps to forecastle dynamically. This decouples the application configuration from Ingresses as well as forecastle config. You can create the custom resource

ForecastleApp

apiVersion: forecastle.stakater.com/v1alpha1
kind: ForecastleApp
metadata:
  name: app-name
spec:
  name: My Awesome App
  group: dev
  icon: https://icon-url
  url: http://app-url
  networkRestricted: "false"
  properties:
    Version: 1.0
  instance: "" # Optional

Automatically discover URL's from Kubernetes Resources

Forecastle supports discovering URL's ForecastleApp CRD from the following resources:

• Ingress

The above type of resource that you want to discover URL from MUST exist in the same namespace as

ForecastleApp

apiVersion: forecastle.stakater.com/v1alpha1
kind: ForecastleApp
metadata:
  name: app-name
spec:
  name: My Awesome App
  group: dev
  icon: https://icon-url
  urlFrom: # This is new
    ingressRef:
      name: my-app-ingress

The above CR will be picked up by forecastle and it will generate the App in the UI. This lets you bundle this custom resource with the app's helm chart which will make it a part of the deployment process.

Note: You have to enable CRD feature first if you have disabled it. You can do that by applying the CRD and specifying

crdEnabled: true

Example Config

An example of a config can be seen below

namespaceSelector:
  labelSelector:
    matchLabels:
      component: redis
    matchExpressions:
      - {key: tier, operator: In, values: [cache]}
  matchNames:
  - test
title:
headerBackground:
headerForeground: "#ffffff"
instanceName: "Hello"
crdEnabled: false
customApps:
- name: Hello
  icon: http://hello
  url: http://helloicon
  group: Test
  properties:
    Version: 1.0

Features

• List apps found in all namespaces listed in the configmap
• Search apps
• Grouped apps per namespace
• Configurable header (Title and colors)
• Multiple instance support
• Provide Custom apps
• CRD

  ForecastleApp

  for adding custom apps
• Custom groups and URLs for the apps
• Details per app

Running multiple instances of forecastle

Yuou can run multiple instances of forecastle by just deploying them in a different namespace and provided a list of namespaces to look for ingresses. However, if you want flexibility over which applications to show in a specific instance regardless of the namespace, then you need to first configure forecastle instances to be a named instances. You can do that by setting

instanceName

forecastle.stakater.com/instance

dev-dashboard

prod-dashboard

dev-dashboard,prod-dashboard

Help

Got a question? File a GitHub issue, or send us an email.

Talk to us on Slack

Join and talk to us on the #tools-imc channel for discussing Forecastle

Contributing

Bug Reports & Feature Requests

Please use the issue tracker to report any bugs or file feature requests.

Developing

PRs are welcome. In general, we follow the "fork-and-pull" Git workflow.

1. Fork the repo on GitHub
2. Clone the project to your own machine
3. Commit changes to your own branch
4. Push your work back up to your fork
5. Submit a Pull request so that we can review your changes

NOTE: Be sure to merge the latest from "upstream" before making a pull request!

Changelog

View our closed Pull Requests.

License

Apache2 © Stakater

About

Why name Forecastle

Forecastle is the section of the upper deck of a ship located at the bow forward of the foremast. This Forecastle will act as a control panel and show all your running applications on Kubernetes having a particular annotation.

Forecastle

See our other projects or contact us in case of professional services and queries on [email protected]