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Blue/Green Deployments
This guide shows you how to automate Blue/Green deployments with Flagger and Kubernetes.
For applications that are not deployed on a service mesh, Flagger can orchestrate Blue/Green style deployments with Kubernetes L4 networking. When using a service mesh blue/green can be used as specified here.
Flagger Blue/Green Stages
Prerequisites
Flagger requires a Kubernetes cluster v1.16 or newer.
Install Flagger and the Prometheus add-on:
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helm repo add flagger https://flagger.app
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helm upgrade -i flagger flagger/flagger \
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--namespace flagger \
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--set prometheus.install=true \
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--set meshProvider=kubernetes
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If you already have a Prometheus instance running in your cluster, you can point Flagger to the ClusterIP service with:
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helm upgrade -i flagger flagger/flagger \
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--namespace flagger \
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--set metricsServer=http://prometheus.monitoring:9090
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Optionally you can enable Slack notifications:
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helm upgrade -i flagger flagger/flagger \
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--reuse-values \
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--namespace flagger \
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--set slack.url=https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR/SLACK/WEBHOOK \
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--set slack.channel=general \
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--set slack.user=flagger
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Bootstrap
Flagger takes a Kubernetes deployment and optionally a horizontal pod autoscaler (HPA), then creates a series of objects (Kubernetes deployment and ClusterIP services). These objects expose the application inside the cluster and drive the canary analysis and Blue/Green promotion.
Create a test namespace:
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kubectl create ns test
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Create a deployment and a horizontal pod autoscaler:
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kubectl apply -k https://github.com/fluxcd/flagger//kustomize/podinfo?ref=main
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Deploy the load testing service to generate traffic during the analysis:
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kubectl apply -k https://github.com/fluxcd/flagger//kustomize/tester?ref=main
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Create a canary custom resource:
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apiVersion: flagger.app/v1beta1
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kind: Canary
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metadata:
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name: podinfo
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namespace: test
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spec:
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# service mesh provider can be: kubernetes, istio, appmesh, nginx, gloo
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provider: kubernetes
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# deployment reference
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targetRef:
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apiVersion: apps/v1
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kind: Deployment
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name: podinfo
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# the maximum time in seconds for the canary deployment
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# to make progress before rollback (default 600s)
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progressDeadlineSeconds: 60
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# HPA reference (optional)
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autoscalerRef:
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apiVersion: autoscaling/v2beta2
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kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
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name: podinfo
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service:
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port: 9898
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portDiscovery: true
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analysis:
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# schedule interval (default 60s)
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interval: 30s
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# max number of failed checks before rollback
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threshold: 2
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# number of checks to run before rollback
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iterations: 10
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# Prometheus checks based on
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# http_request_duration_seconds histogram
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metrics:
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- name: request-success-rate
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# minimum req success rate (non 5xx responses)
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# percentage (0-100)
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thresholdRange:
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min: 99
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interval: 1m
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- name: request-duration
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# maximum req duration P99
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# milliseconds
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thresholdRange:
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max: 500
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interval: 30s
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# acceptance/load testing hooks
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webhooks:
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- name: smoke-test
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type: pre-rollout
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url: http://flagger-loadtester.test/
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timeout: 15s
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metadata:
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type: bash
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cmd: "curl -sd 'anon' http://podinfo-canary.test:9898/token | grep token"
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- name: load-test
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url: http://flagger-loadtester.test/
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timeout: 5s
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metadata:
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type: cmd
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cmd: "hey -z 1m -q 10 -c 2 http://podinfo-canary.test:9898/"
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The above configuration will run an analysis for five minutes.
Save the above resource as podinfo-canary.yaml and then apply it:
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kubectl apply -f ./podinfo-canary.yaml
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After a couple of seconds Flagger will create the canary objects:
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# applied
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deployment.apps/podinfo
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horizontalpodautoscaler.autoscaling/podinfo
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canary.flagger.app/podinfo
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​
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# generated
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deployment.apps/podinfo-primary
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horizontalpodautoscaler.autoscaling/podinfo-primary
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service/podinfo
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service/podinfo-canary
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service/podinfo-primary
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Blue/Green scenario:
- on bootstrap, Flagger will create three ClusterIP services (
app-primary,app-canary,app)and a shadow deployment namedapp-primarythat represents the blue version - when a new version is detected, Flagger would scale up the green version and run the conformance tests(the tests should target the
app-canaryClusterIP service to reach the green version) - if the conformance tests are passing, Flagger would start the load tests and validate them with custom Prometheus queries
- if the load test analysis is successful, Flagger will promote the new version to
app-primaryand scale down the green version
Automated Blue/Green promotion
Trigger a deployment by updating the container image:
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kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
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podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.1
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Flagger detects that the deployment revision changed and starts a new rollout:
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kubectl -n test describe canary/podinfo
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​
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Events:
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​
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New revision detected podinfo.test
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Waiting for podinfo.test rollout to finish: 0 of 1 updated replicas are available
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Pre-rollout check acceptance-test passed
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 1/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 2/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 3/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 4/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 5/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 6/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 7/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 8/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 9/10
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 10/10
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Copying podinfo.test template spec to podinfo-primary.test
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Waiting for podinfo-primary.test rollout to finish: 1 of 2 updated replicas are available
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Promotion completed! Scaling down podinfo.test
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Note that if you apply new changes to the deployment during the canary analysis, Flagger will restart the analysis.
You can monitor all canaries with:
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watch kubectl get canaries --all-namespaces
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NAMESPACE NAME STATUS WEIGHT LASTTRANSITIONTIME
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test podinfo Progressing 100 2019-06-16T14:05:07Z
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prod frontend Succeeded 0 2019-06-15T16:15:07Z
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prod backend Failed 0 2019-06-14T17:05:07Z
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Automated rollback
During the analysis you can generate HTTP 500 errors and high latency to test Flagger's rollback.
Exec into the load tester pod with:
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kubectl -n test exec -it flagger-loadtester-xx-xx sh
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Generate HTTP 500 errors:
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watch curl http://podinfo-canary.test:9898/status/500
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Generate latency:
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watch curl http://podinfo-canary.test:9898/delay/1
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When the number of failed checks reaches the analysis threshold, the green version is scaled to zero and the rollout is marked as failed.
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kubectl -n test describe canary/podinfo
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Status:
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Failed Checks: 2
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Phase: Failed
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Events:
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Type Reason Age From Message
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---- ------ ---- ---- -------
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Normal Synced 3m flagger New revision detected podinfo.test
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Normal Synced 3m flagger Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 1/10
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Normal Synced 3m flagger Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 2/10
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Normal Synced 3m flagger Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 3/10
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Normal Synced 3m flagger Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 69.17% < 99%
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Normal Synced 2m flagger Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 61.39% < 99%
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Warning Synced 2m flagger Rolling back podinfo.test failed checks threshold reached 2
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Warning Synced 1m flagger Canary failed! Scaling down podinfo.test
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Custom metrics
The analysis can be extended with Prometheus queries. The demo app is instrumented with Prometheus so you can create a custom check that will use the HTTP request duration histogram to validate the canary (green version).
Create a metric template and apply it on the cluster:
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apiVersion: flagger.app/v1beta1
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kind: MetricTemplate
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metadata:
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name: not-found-percentage
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namespace: test
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spec:
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provider:
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type: prometheus
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address: http://flagger-prometheus.flagger:9090
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query: |
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100 - sum(
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rate(
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http_request_duration_seconds_count{
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kubernetes_namespace="{{ namespace }}",
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kubernetes_pod_name=~"{{ target }}-[0-9a-zA-Z]+(-[0-9a-zA-Z]+)"
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status!="{{ interval }}"
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}[1m]
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)
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)
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/
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sum(
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rate(
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http_request_duration_seconds_count{
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kubernetes_namespace="{{ namespace }}",
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kubernetes_pod_name=~"{{ target }}-[0-9a-zA-Z]+(-[0-9a-zA-Z]+)"
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}[{{ interval }}]
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)
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) * 100
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Edit the canary analysis and add the following metric:
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analysis:
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metrics:
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- name: "404s percentage"
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templateRef:
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name: not-found-percentage
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thresholdRange:
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max: 5
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interval: 1m
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The above configuration validates the canary (green version) by checking if the HTTP 404 req/sec percentage is below 5 percent of the total traffic. If the 404s rate reaches the 5% threshold, then the rollout is rolled back.
Trigger a deployment by updating the container image:
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kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
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podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.3
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Generate 404s:
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watch curl http://podinfo-canary.test:9898/status/400
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Watch Flagger logs:
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kubectl -n flagger logs deployment/flagger -f | jq .msg
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New revision detected podinfo.test
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Scaling up podinfo.test
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Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 1/10
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Halt podinfo.test advancement 404s percentage 6.20 > 5
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Halt podinfo.test advancement 404s percentage 6.45 > 5
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Rolling back podinfo.test failed checks threshold reached 2
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Canary failed! Scaling down podinfo.test
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If you have alerting configured, Flagger will send a notification with the reason why the canary failed.
Conformance Testing with Helm
Flagger comes with a testing service that can run Helm tests when configured as a pre-rollout webhook.
Deploy the Helm test runner in the
kube-system namespace using the tiller service account:1
helm repo add flagger https://flagger.app
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helm upgrade -i flagger-helmtester flagger/loadtester \
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--namespace=kube-system \
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--set serviceAccountName=tiller
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When deployed the Helm tester API will be available at
http://flagger-helmtester.kube-system/.Add a helm test pre-rollout hook to your chart:
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analysis:
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webhooks:
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- name: "conformance testing"
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type: pre-rollout
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url: http://flagger-helmtester.kube-system/
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timeout: 3m
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metadata:
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type: "helm"
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cmd: "test {{ .Release.Name }} --cleanup"
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When the canary analysis starts, Flagger will call the pre-rollout webhooks. If the helm test fails, Flagger will retry until the analysis threshold is reached and the canary is rolled back.