Getting Started¶

Installation methods¶

It is recommended to run Argo CD Image Updater in the same Kubernetes namespace cluster that Argo CD is running in, however, this is not a requirement. In fact, it is not even a requirement to run Argo CD Image Updater within a Kubernetes cluster or with access to any Kubernetes cluster at all.

However, some features might not work without accessing Kubernetes, and it is strongly advised to use the first installation method.

Method 1: Installing as Kubernetes workload in Argo CD namespace¶

The most straightforward way to run the image updater is to install it as a Kubernetes workload into the namespace where Argo CD is running. Don't worry, without any configuration, it will not start messing with your workloads yet.

Note

We also provide a Kustomize base in addition to the plain Kubernetes YAML manifests. You can use it as remote base and create overlays with your configuration on top of it. The remote base's URL is https://github.com/argoproj-labs/argocd-image-updater/manifests/base. You can view the manifests here

Apply the installation manifests¶

kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj-labs/argocd-image-updater/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Warning

The installation manifests include ClusterRoleBinding resources that reference argocd namespace. If you are installing Argo CD into a different namespace then make sure to update the namespace reference.

A word on high availability

It is not advised to run multiple replicas of the same Argo CD Image Updater instance. Just leave the number of replicas at 1, otherwise weird side effects could occur.

Configure the desired log level¶

While this step is optional, we recommend to set the log level explicitly. During your first steps with the Argo CD Image Updater, a more verbose logging can help greatly in troubleshooting things.

Edit the argocd-image-updater-config ConfigMap and add the following keys (the values are dependent upon your environment)

data:
  # log.level can be one of trace, debug, info, warn or error
  log.level: debug

If you omit the log.level setting, the default info level will be used.

Method 2: Connect using Argo CD API Server¶

If you are unable to install Argo CD Image Updater into the same Kubernetes cluster you can configure it to use the API of your Argo CD installation.

If you chose to install the Argo CD Image Updater outside of the cluster where Argo CD is running in, the API must be exposed externally (i.e. using Ingress). If you have network policies in place, make sure that Argo CD Image Updater will be allowed to communicate with the Argo CD API, which is usually the service argocd-server in namespace argocd on port 443 and port 80.

Apply the manifests¶

First, create a namespace and apply the manifests to your cluster

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

Warning

The installation manifests include ClusterRoleBinding resources that reference argocd namespace. If you are installing Argo CD into a different namespace then make sure to update the namespace reference.

A word on high availability

It is not advised to run multiple replicas of the same Argo CD Image Updater instance. Just leave the number of replicas at 1, otherwise weird side effects could occur.

Create a local user within Argo CD¶

Argo CD Image Updater needs credential for accessing the Argo CD API. Using a local user is recommended, but a project token will work as well (although, this will limit updating to the applications of the given project obviously).

Let's use an account named image-updater with appropriate API permissions.

Add the following user definition to argocd-cm:

data:
  # ...
  accounts.image-updater: apiKey

Now, you will need to create an access token for this user, which can be either done using the CLI or the Web UI. The following CLI command will create a named token for the user and print it to the console:

argocd account generate-token --account image-updater --id image-updater

Copy the token's value somewhere, you will need it later on.

Granting RBAC permissions in Argo CD¶

The technical user image-updater we have configured in the previous step now needs appropriate RBAC permissions within Argo CD. Argo CD Image Updater needs the update and get permissions on the applications you want to manage.

A most basic version that grants get and update permissions on all of the applications managed by Argo CD might look as follows:

p, role:image-updater, applications, get, */*, allow
p, role:image-updater, applications, update, */*, allow
g, image-updater, role:image-updater

You might want to strip that down to apps in a specific project, or to specific apps, however.

Put the RBAC permissions to Argo CD's argocd-rbac-cm ConfigMap and Argo CD will pick them up automatically.

Configure Argo CD endpoint¶

If you run Argo CD Image Updater in another cluster than Argo CD, or if your Argo CD installation is not in namespace argocd or if you use a default or otherwise self-signed TLS certificate for Argo CD API endpoint, you probably need to divert from the default connection values.

Edit the argocd-image-updater-config ConfigMap and add the following keys (the values are dependent upon your environment)

data:
  applications_api: argocd
  # The address of Argo CD API endpoint - defaults to argocd-server.argocd
  argocd.server_addr: <FQDN or IP of your Argo CD server>
  # Whether to use GRPC-web protocol instead of GRPC over HTTP/2
  argocd.grpc_web: "true"
  # Whether to ignore invalid TLS cert from Argo CD API endpoint
  argocd.insecure: "false"
  # Whether to use plain text connection (http) instead of TLS (https)
  argocd.plaintext: "false"

After changing values in the ConfigMap, Argo CD Image Updater needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect, i.e.

kubectl -n argocd-image-updater rollout restart deployment argocd-image-updater

Configure API access token secret¶

When installed from the manifests into a Kubernetes cluster, the Argo CD Image Updater reads the token required for accessing Argo CD API from an environment variable named ARGOCD_TOKEN, which is set from a a field named argocd.token in a secret named argocd-image-updater-secret.

The value for argocd.token should be set to the base64 encoded value of the access token you have generated above. As a short-cut, you can use generate the secret with kubectl and apply it over the existing resource:

kubectl create secret generic argocd-image-updater-secret \
  --from-literal argocd.token=$YOUR_TOKEN --dry-run -o yaml |
  kubectl -n argocd-image-updater apply -f -

You must restart the argocd-image-updater pod after such a change, i.e run

kubectl -n argocd-image-updater rollout restart deployment argocd-image-updater

Or alternatively, simply delete the running pod to have it recreated by Kubernetes automatically.

Running locally¶

As long as you have access to the Argo CD API and your Kubernetes cluster from your workstation, running Argo CD Image Updater is simple. Make sure that you have your API token noted and that your Kubernetes client configuration points to the correct K8s cluster.

Grab the binary (it does not have any external dependencies) and run:

export ARGOCD_TOKEN=<yourtoken>
./argocd-image-updater run \
  --kubeconfig ~/.kube/config
  --once

or use --applications-api flag if you prefer to connect using Argo CD API

export ARGOCD_TOKEN=<yourtoken>
./argocd-image-updater run \
  --kubeconfig ~/.kube/config
  --applications-api argocd
  --argocd-server-addr argo-cd.example.com
  --once

Note: The --once flag disables the health server and the check interval, so the tool will not regularly check for updates but exit after the first run.

Check argocd-image-updater --help for a list of valid command line flags, or consult the appropriate section of the documentation.

Running multiple instances¶

Generally, multiple instances of Argo CD Image Updater can be run within the same Kubernetes cluster, however they should not operate on the same set of applications. This allows for multiple application teams to manage their own set of applications.

If opting for such an approach, you should make sure that:

Each instance of Argo CD Image Updater runs in its own namespace
Each instance has a dedicated user in Argo CD, with dedicated RBAC permissions
RBAC permissions are set-up so that instances cannot interfere with each others managed resources

Metrics¶

Starting with v0.8.0, Argo CD Image Updater exports Prometheus-compatible metrics on a dedicated endpoint, which by default listens on TCP port 8081 and serves data from /metrics path. This endpoint is exposed by a service named argocd-image-updater on a port named metrics.

The following metrics are being made available:

Number of applications processed (i.e. those with an annotation)
- argocd_image_updater_applications_watched_total
Number of images watched for new tags
- argocd_image_updater_images_watched_total
Number of images updated (successful and failed)
- argocd_image_updater_images_updated_total
- argocd_image_updater_images_errors_total
Number of requests to Argo CD API (successful and failed)
- argocd_image_updater_argocd_api_requests_total
- argocd_image_updater_argocd_api_errors_total
Number of requests to K8s API (successful and failed)
- argocd_image_updater_k8s_api_requests_total
- argocd_image_updater_k8s_api_errors_total
Number of requests to the container registries (successful and failed)
- argocd_image_updater_registry_requests_total
- argocd_image_updater_registry_requests_failed_total

A (very) rudimentary example dashboard definition for Grafana is provided here