In this installation guide, you install Gloo Gateway in a Kubernetes cluster by using Argo CD. Argo CD is a declarative continuous delivery tool that is especially popular for large, production-level installations at scale. This approach incorporates Helm configuration files.

Before you begin

  1. Create or use an existing Kubernetes cluster.
  2. Install the following command-line tools.
    • kubectl, the Kubernetes command line tool. Download the kubectl version that is within one minor version of the Kubernetes clusters you plan to use.
    • argo, the Argo CD command line tool.
  3. Install Argo CD in your cluster.
      kubectl create namespace argocd
until kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/v2.12.3/manifests/install.yaml > /dev/null 2>&1; do sleep 2; done
# wait for deployment to complete
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-applicationset-controller
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-dex-server
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-notifications-controller
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-redis
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-repo-server
kubectl -n argocd rollout status deploy/argocd-server
  4. Update the default Argo CD password for the admin user to solo.io.
      # bcrypt(password)=$2a$10$79yaoOg9dL5MO8pn8hGqtO4xQDejSEVNWAGQR268JHLdrCw6UCYmy
# password: solo.io
kubectl -n argocd patch secret argocd-secret \
  -p '{"stringData": {
    "admin.password": "$2a$10$79yaoOg9dL5MO8pn8hGqtO4xQDejSEVNWAGQR268JHLdrCw6UCYmy",
    "admin.passwordMtime": "'$(date +%FT%T%Z)'"
}}'

Install

Install Gloo Gateway by using Argo CD.

  1. Install the custom resources of the Kubernetes Gateway API version 1.4.0.

      kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api/releases/download/v1.4.0/standard-install.yaml

    Example output:

      customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/gatewayclasses.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/httproutes.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/referencegrants.gateway.networking.k8s.io created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/grpcroutes.gateway.networking.k8s.io created

  2. Port-forward the Argo CD server on port 9999.

      kubectl port-forward svc/argocd-server -n argocd 9999:443

  3. Open the Argo CD UI.

  4. Log in with the admin username and solo.io password.

  5. Set your Gloo Gateway license key as an environment variable. If you do not have one, contact an account representative. If you want to use the capabilities of agentgateway enterprise, you need an additional agentgateway enterprise license.

      export GLOO_GATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY=<gloo-gateway-license-key>
export AGENTGATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY=<agentgateway-license-key>

  6. Create an Argo CD application to deploy the Gloo Gateway CRD Helm chart.

      kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: gloo-gateway-crds-helm
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  destination:
    namespace: gloo-system
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
  project: default
  source:
    chart: gloo-gateway-crds
    helm:
      skipCrds: false
    repoURL: us-docker.pkg.dev/solo-public/gloo-gateway/charts
    targetRevision: 2.0.1
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      # Prune resources during auto-syncing (default is false)
      prune: true
     # Sync the app in part when resources are changed only in the target Kubernetes cluster
      # but not in the git source (default is false).
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
    - CreateNamespace=true
    - ServerSideApply=true
EOF

  7. Create an Argo CD application to install the Gloo Gateway Helm chart.

      kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: argoproj.io/v1alpha1
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: gloo-gateway-helm
  namespace: argocd
spec:
  destination:
    namespace: gloo-system
    server: https://kubernetes.default.svc
  project: default
  source:
    chart: gloo-gateway
    helm:
      skipCrds: false
      parameters:
      - name: controller.image.pullPolicy
        value: "Always"
      - name: licensing.glooGatewayLicenseKey
        value: "$GLOO_GATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY"
        forceString: true
      - name: licensing.agentgatewayLicenseKey
        value: "$AGENTGATEWAY_LICENSE_KEY"
        forceString: true
    repoURL: us-docker.pkg.dev/solo-public/gloo-gateway/charts
    targetRevision: 2.0.1
  syncPolicy:
    automated:
      # Prune resources during auto-syncing (default is false)
      prune: true
      # Sync the app in part when resources are changed only in the target Kubernetes cluster
      # but not in the git source (default is false).
      selfHeal: true
    syncOptions:
    - CreateNamespace=true    
    - ServerSideApply=true
EOF

  8. Verify that the control plane is up and running.

      kubectl get pods -n gloo-system

    Example output:

      NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
gloo-gateway-6b5bb4db6b-c2pkq   1/1     Running   0          4m4s

  9. Verify that the gloo-gateway-v2 GatewayClass is created. You can optionally take a look at how the gateway class is configured by adding the -o yaml option to your command.

      kubectl get gatewayclass

  10. Open the Argo CD UI and verify that you see the Argo CD application with a Healthy and Synced status.

Next steps

Now that you have Gloo Gateway set up and running, check out the following guides to expand your API gateway capabilities.

Cleanup

You can remove the resources that you created in this guide.

Follow the Uninstall with Argo CD guide.