Getting Started on Crossplane

Crossplane Introduction

Crossplane connects your Kubernetes cluster to external, non-Kubernetes resources, and allows platform teams to build custom Kubernetes APIs to consume those resources.

Crossplane creates Kubernetes Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) to represent the external resources as native Kubernetes objects. As native Kubernetes objects, you can use standard commands like kubectl create and kubectl describe. The full Kubernetes API is available for every Crossplane resource.

Crossplane also acts as a Kubernetes Controller to watch the state of the external resources and provide state enforcement. If something modifies or deletes a resource outside of Kubernetes, Crossplane reverses the change or recreates the deleted resource.

AWS Quickstart

Connect Crossplane to AWS to create and manage cloud resources from Kubernetes with
provider-upjet-aws.

This guide is in two parts:

Part 1 walks through installing Crossplane, configuring the provider to authenticate to AWS and creating a Managed Resource in AWS directly from your Kubernetes cluster. This shows Crossplane can communicate with AWS.
Part 2 shows how to build and access a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

This quickstart requires:

Azure Quickstart

Connect Crossplane to Azure to create and manage cloud resources from Kubernetes with
provider-upjet-azure.

This guide is in two parts:

Part 1 walks through installing Crossplane, configuring the provider to authenticate to Azure and creating a Managed Resource in Azure directly from your Kubernetes cluster. This shows Crossplane can communicate with Azure.
Part 2 shows how to build and access a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

This quickstart requires:

AWS Quickstart Part 2

Important

This guide is part 2 of a series.

Part 1 covers to installing Crossplane and connect your Kubernetes cluster to AWS.

This guide walks you through building and accessing a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

Complete quickstart part 1 connecting Kubernetes to AWS.
an AWS account with permissions to create an AWS S3 storage bucket and a DynamoDB instance

Add the Crossplane Helm repository and install Crossplane

1helm repo add \
2crossplane-stable https://charts.crossplane.io/stable
3helm repo update
4
5helm install crossplane \
6crossplane-stable/crossplane \
7--namespace crossplane-system \
8--create-namespace

When the Crossplane pods finish installing and are ready, apply the AWS Provider

1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
2apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
3kind: Provider
4metadata:
5 name: provider-aws-s3
6spec:
7 package: xpkg.crossplane.io/crossplane-contrib/provider-aws-s3:v1.21.1
8EOF

Create a file with your AWS keys

1[default]
2aws_access_key_id = <aws_access_key>
3aws_secret_access_key = <aws_secret_key>

Create a Kubernetes secret from the AWS keys

1kubectl create secret \
2generic aws-secret \
3-n crossplane-system \
4--from-file=creds=./aws-credentials.txt

Create a ProviderConfig

 1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
 2apiVersion: aws.upbound.io/v1beta1
 3kind: ProviderConfig
 4metadata:
 5 name: default
 6spec:
 7 credentials:
 8 source: Secret
 9 secretRef:
10 namespace: crossplane-system
11 name: aws-secret
12 key: creds
13EOF

Install the DynamoDB Provider

Part 1 only installed the AWS S3 Provider. This section deploys an S3 bucket along with a DynamoDB Table. Deploying a DynamoDB Table requires the DynamoDB Provider as well.

Azure Quickstart Part 2

Important

This guide is part 2 of a series.

Part 1 covers to installing Crossplane and connect your Kubernetes cluster to Azure.

This guide walks you through building and accessing a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

Complete quickstart part 1 connecting Kubernetes to Azure.
an Azure account with permissions to create an Azure Virtual Machine, Resource Group and Virtual Networking.

Add the Crossplane Helm repository and install Crossplane

1helm repo add \
2crossplane-stable https://charts.crossplane.io/stable
3helm repo update
4&&
5helm install crossplane \
6crossplane-stable/crossplane \
7--namespace crossplane-system \
8--create-namespace

When the Crossplane pods finish installing and are ready, apply the Azure Provider

1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
2apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
3kind: Provider
4metadata:
5 name: provider-azure-network
6spec:
7 package: xpkg.crossplane.io/crossplane-contrib/provider-azure-network:v1.11.2
8EOF

Use the Azure CLI to create a service principal and save the JSON output as azure-crednetials.json

1az ad sp create-for-rbac \
2--sdk-auth \
3--role Owner \
4--scopes /subscriptions/

Create a Kubernetes secret from the Azure JSON file.

1kubectl create secret \
2generic azure-secret \
3-n crossplane-system \
4--from-file=creds=./azure-credentials.json

Create a ProviderConfig

 1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
 2apiVersion: azure.upbound.io/v1beta1
 3metadata:
 4 name: default
 5kind: ProviderConfig
 6spec:
 7 credentials:
 8 source: Secret
 9 secretRef:
10 namespace: crossplane-system
11 name: azure-secret
12 key: creds
13EOF

Create a custom API

Crossplane allows you to build your own custom APIs for your users, abstracting away details about the cloud provider and their resources. You can make your API as complex or simple as you wish.

GCP Quickstart Part 2

Important

This guide is part 2 of a series.

Part 1 covers to installing Crossplane and connect your Kubernetes cluster to GCP.

This guide walks you through building and accessing a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

Complete quickstart part 1 connecting Kubernetes to GCP.
a GCP account with permissions to create a GCP storage bucket and a Pub/Sub topic.

Add the Crossplane Helm repository and install Crossplane.

1helm repo add \
2crossplane-stable https://charts.crossplane.io/stable
3helm repo update
4&&
5helm install crossplane \
6crossplane-stable/crossplane \
7--namespace crossplane-system \
8--create-namespace

When the Crossplane pods finish installing and are ready, apply the GCP Provider.

1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
2apiVersion: pkg.crossplane.io/v1
3kind: Provider
4metadata:
5 name: provider-gcp-storage
6spec:
7 package: xpkg.crossplane.io/crossplane-contrib/provider-gcp-storage:v1.12.1
8EOF

Create a file called gcp-credentials.json with your GCP service account JSON file.

Tip

The GCP documentation provides information on how to generate a service account JSON file.

Create a Kubernetes secret from the GCP JSON file

1kubectl create secret \
2generic gcp-secret \
3-n crossplane-system \
4--from-file=creds=./gcp-credentials.json

Create a ProviderConfig Include your GCP project ID in the ProviderConfig settings.

Tip

Find your GCP project ID from the project_id field of the gcp-credentials.json file.

 1cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
 2apiVersion: gcp.upbound.io/v1beta1
 3kind: ProviderConfig
 4metadata:
 5 name: default
 6spec:
 7 projectID: 
 8 credentials:
 9 source: Secret
10 secretRef:
11 namespace: crossplane-system
12 name: gcp-secret
13 key: creds
14EOF

Install the PubSub Provider

Part 1 only installed the GCP Storage Provider. This section deploys a PubSub Topic along with a GCP storage bucket. First install the GCP PubSub Provider.

GCP Quickstart

Connect Crossplane to GCP to create and manage cloud resources from Kubernetes with
provider-upjet-gcp.

This guide is in two parts:

Part 1 walks through installing Crossplane, configuring the provider to authenticate to GCP and creating a Managed Resource in GCP directly from your Kubernetes cluster. This shows Crossplane can communicate with GCP.
Part 2 shows how to build and access a custom API with Crossplane.

Prerequisites

This quickstart requires:

Install Crossplane

Crossplane installs into an existing Kubernetes cluster.

Tip

If you don’t have a Kubernetes cluster create one locally with Kind.

Install the Crossplane Helm chart

Helm enables Crossplane to install all its Kubernetes components through a Helm Chart.

Enable the Crossplane Helm Chart repository:

1helm repo add \
2crossplane-stable https://charts.crossplane.io/stable
3helm repo update

Run the Helm dry-run to see all the Crossplane components Helm installs.

Getting Started on Crossplane

Crossplane Introduction

AWS Quickstart

Prerequisites

Azure Quickstart

Prerequisites

AWS Quickstart Part 2

Prerequisites

Skip part 1 and just get started

Install the DynamoDB Provider

Azure Quickstart Part 2

Prerequisites

Skip part 1 and just get started

Create a custom API

GCP Quickstart Part 2

Prerequisites

Skip part 1 and just get started

Install the PubSub Provider

GCP Quickstart

Prerequisites

Install Crossplane

Install the Crossplane Helm chart