gardener-resource-manager

Gardener Resource Manager

The gardener-resource-manager is a project similar to the kube-addon-manager. It manages Kubernetes resources in a target cluster which means that it creates, updates, and deletes them. Also, it makes sure that manual modifications to these resources are reconciled back to the desired state. Currently, it is doing this in a loop, however, the project might evolve to use smarter techniques like watches, etc.

In the Gardener project we were using the kube-addon-manager since more than two years. While we have progressed with our extensibility story (moving cloud providers out-of-tree) we had decided that the kube-addon-manager is no longer suitable for this use-case. The problem with it is that it needs to have its managed resources on its file system. This requires storing the resources in ConfigMaps or Secrets and mounting them to the kube-addon-manager pod during deployment time. The gardener-resource-manager uses CustomResourceDefinitions which allows to dynamically add, change, and remove resources with immediate action and without the need to reconfigure the volume mounts/restarting the pod.

How it works

The gardener-resource-manager watches custom objects called ManagedResources. These objects contain references to secrets which itself contain the resources to be managed. The reason why a Secret is used to store the resources is that they could contain confidential information like credentials.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: managedresource-example1
  namespace: default
type: Opaque
data:
  objects.yaml: YXBpVmVyc2lvbjogdjEKa2luZDogQ29uZmlnTWFwCm1ldGFkYXRhOgogIG5hbWU6IHRlc3QtMTIzNAogIG5hbWVzcGFjZTogZGVmYXVsdAotLS0KYXBpVmVyc2lvbjogdjEKa2luZDogQ29uZmlnTWFwCm1ldGFkYXRhOgogIG5hbWU6IHRlc3QtNTY3OAogIG5hbWVzcGFjZTogZGVmYXVsdAo=
    # apiVersion: v1
    # kind: ConfigMap
    # metadata:
    #   name: test-1234
    #   namespace: default
    # ---
    # apiVersion: v1
    # kind: ConfigMap
    # metadata:
    #   name: test-5678
    #   namespace: default
---
apiVersion: resources.gardener.cloud/v1alpha1
kind: ManagedResource
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: default
spec:
  secretRefs:
  - name: managedresource-example1

In the above example, the gardener-resource-manager creates two ConfigMaps in the default namespace. When a user is manually modifying them they will be reconciled back to the desired state stored in the managedresource-example secret.

It is also possible to inject labels into all the resources:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: managedresource-example2
  namespace: default
type: Opaque
data:
  other-objects.yaml: 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
    # apiVersion: apps/v1
    # kind: Deployment
    # metadata:
    #   name: nginx-deployment
    # spec:
    #   selector:
    #     matchLabels:
    #       app: nginx
    #   replicas: 2 # tells deployment to run 2 pods matching the template
    #   template:
    #     metadata:
    #       labels:
    #         app: nginx
    #     spec:
    #       containers:
    #       - name: nginx
    #         image: nginx:1.7.9
    #         ports:
    #         - containerPort: 80

---
apiVersion: resources.gardener.cloud/v1alpha1
kind: ManagedResource
metadata:
  name: example
  namespace: default
spec:
  secretRefs:
  - name: managedresource-example2
  injectLabels:
    foo: bar

In this example the label foo=bar will be injected into the Deployment as well as into all created ReplicaSets and Pods.

Feedback and Support

Feedback and contributions are always welcome!

All channels for getting in touch or learning about our project are listed under the community section. We are cordially inviting interested parties to join our weekly meetings.

Please report bugs or suggestions about our Kubernetes clusters as such or the Gardener itself as GitHub issues or join our Slack channel #gardener (please invite yourself to the Kubernetes workspace here).

Learn more!

Please find further resources about out project here:

• Our landing page gardener.cloud
• "Gardener, the Kubernetes Botanist" blog on kubernetes.io
• SAP news article about "Project Gardener"
• Introduction movie: "Gardener - Planting the Seeds of Success in the Cloud"
• "Thinking Cloud Native" talk at EclipseCon 2018
• Blog - "Showcase of Gardener at OSCON 2018"