Kubernetes/Deployment, ReplicaSet and Pod

Deployment

Deployment kind provides all required application life-cycle for your applications. This is achieved by managing objects like ReplicaSet and Pod.

Example YAMLs below compare Deployment, ReplicaSet and Pod

Deployment manages ReplicaSets and Pods

Deployment	ReplicaSet (individual manifest)	Pod (manifest)
apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: kubeapp-deployment # labels: <lines to verify> # app: kubeapp # tier: frontend spec: replicas: 3 selector: matchLabels: app: kubeapp template: metadata: name: kubeapp labels: app: kubeapp spec: containers: - image: nginx:1.16.0 name: app	apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: ReplicaSet metadata: name: kubeapp-replicaset labels: app: kubeapp tier: frontend spec: replicas: 3 selector: matchLabels: tier: frontend template: metadata: labels: tier: frontend spec: containers: - image: nginx:1.16.0 name: main	apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: kuebapp-pod1 labels: app: kubeapp tier: frontend spec: containers: - image: nginx:1.16.0 name: main command: ['echo'] args: ['Nginx pod'] - containerPort: 80

containerPort is important to enable other services or pods to connect to the pod. By default nginx container listens on port 80, but if we will not specify in the pod spec, no other pods or services will be able to connect to it.

Create Deployment

Pod hash

Pod hash

Pod template hash	sample-app.yaml
hash value is 6c5948bf66 picture is not accurate	apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: sample-deployment spec: replicas: 3 selector: matchLabels: app: sample-app template: #hash value is 6c5948bf66 metadata: labels: app: sample-app spec: containers: - name: nginx-container image: nginx:1.12 ports: - containerPort: 80

Note ReplicaSet, SELECTOR label pod-template-hash=6c5948bf66 that also matches pod's names

$ kubectl get all -owide -n sample-app
NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE    IP            NODE            NOMINATED NODE   READINESS GATES
pod/sample-deployment-6c5948bf66-5bqhw   1/1     Running   0          114s   10.244.2.10   ip-10-0-1-102   <none>           <none>
pod/sample-deployment-6c5948bf66-t5vg5   1/1     Running   0          114s   10.244.1.11   ip-10-0-1-103   <none>           <none>
pod/sample-deployment-6c5948bf66-xv6cb   1/1     Running   0          114s   10.244.1.10   ip-10-0-1-103   <none>           <none>

NAME                                READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE    CONTAINERS        IMAGES       SELECTOR
deployment.apps/sample-deployment   3/3     3            3           114s   nginx-container   nginx:1.12   app=sample-app

NAME                                           DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE    CONTAINERS        IMAGES       SELECTOR
replicaset.apps/sample-deployment-6c5948bf66   3         3         3       114s   nginx-container   nginx:1.12   app=sample-app,pod-template-hash=6c5948bf66

Create a Deployment and ReplicaSets

Create a deployment with a record (for rollbacks). Deployment appends a string of numbers to the end of the name, that is a hash of Pod template and the deployment. Deployment creates a ReplicaSet, that manages a number of Pods.

Using cli

# create a pod
kubectl run --generator=run-pod/v1         <pod_name>        --image=<image_of_the_container_of_the_pod>

# default generator 'deployment' and other than 'run-pod' generators are deprecated in v1.15
kubectl run --generator=deployment/apps.v1 <deployment_name> --image=<image_to_use_in_the_container_of_the_deployment_pod>

# advised way to create deployment is using create, then scale replica as by default it is '1'
kubectl create deployment webapp --image=nginx --dry-run --output=yaml > webapp-deployment.yaml # create manifest
kubectl -n web create deployment webapp --image=nginx
kubectl -n web scale  deployment webapp --replicas=3

Using manifests

kubectl create -f kubeapp-deployment.yaml --record # records in a revision history, so it's easy to rollback
kubectl rollout status deployments kubeapp         # check the status of the rollout
deployment "kubeapp" successfully rolled out

kubectl get replicasets # name is <deploymentName> with appended <PodTemplateHash>
NAME                            DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd              3         3         3       93s

kubectl get pods        # name is <ReplicaSetName> with appended <generated-podID>
NAME                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-f2rk8   1/1     Running   0          3m36s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-gnq7v   1/1     Running   0          5m51s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-kc6lt   1/1     Running   0          3m37s

Deployment operations

Scale up your deployment by adding more replicas:

kubectl scale deployment kubeapp --replicas=5
kubectl get pods #notice ReplicaSet has different hash than Pods, as it's different object
NAME                       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-f2rk8   1/1     Running   0          3m36s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-gnq7v   1/1     Running   0          5m51s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-kc6lt   1/1     Running   0          3m37s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-n5wnp   1/1     Running   0          5m51s
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd-ptt26   1/1     Running   0          3m36s

#Expose the deployment and provide it a service
kubectl expose deployment kubeapp --port 80 --target-port 80 --type NodePort 
service/kubeapp exposed

kubectl get service
NAME         TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
kubeapp      NodePort    10.111.72.150   <none>        80:31472/TCP   11m
kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.96.0.1       <none>        443/TCP        18d

#Set the minReadySeconds attribute to your deployment, slows down deployment, so can see changes in realtime
kubectl patch deployment kubeapp -p '{"spec": {"minReadySeconds": 10}}'
kubectl edit deployments.apps kubeapp #see the change above

#Use kubectl apply to update a deployment. It modifies an existing object to align to the new YAML, or creates if does not exists
kubectl describe deployments.apps kubeapp | grep Image #Before
    Image:        nginx:1.16.0
kubectl apply -f kubeapp-deployment.yaml #update the deployment file image from - image: nginx:1.16.0 -> 1.17.1
kubectl describe deployments.apps kubeapp | grep Image #After
    Image:        nginx:1.17.1

#Use kubectl replace to replace an existing deployment. It updates existing object, the object must exist before hand
kubectl replace -f kubeapp-deployment.yaml

Rolling update and undo

Rolling update to prevent application downtime

#Run this curl look while the update happens:
while true; do curl http://<NodeIP>; done

#Perform the rolling update:
kubectl set image deployments/kubeapp app=nginx:1.17.1 --v 6 #--v verbose output

#Find that new ReplicaSet has been created
kubectl describe replicasets kubeapp-[hash]

kubectl get replicasets
NAME                 DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd   0         0         0       43m
kubeapp-99c897449    0         0         0       6m19s
kubeapp-d79844ffd    3         3         3       14m   #new deployment

#Look at the rollout history
kubectl rollout history deployment kubeapp
deployment.extensions/kubeapp 
REVISION  CHANGE-CAUSE
3         kubectl create --filename=kubeapp-deployment.yaml --record=true
4         <none>  #this is empty because no --record was set during kubectl execution
5         kubectl create --filename=kubeapp-deployment.yaml --record=true

Note, without --record, file applied will be empty. All deployments are being recorded.

$ kubectl rollout history -n sock-shop deployment 
deployment.extensions/carts 
...
deployment.extensions/catalogue-db 
REVISION  CHANGE-CAUSE
1         kubectl apply --filename=. --record=true

deployment.extensions/front-end 
REVISION  CHANGE-CAUSE
2         kubectl apply --filename=front-end-dep.yaml --record=true
3         kubectl apply --filename=front-end-dep.yaml --record=true

Undo the rollout and roll back to the previous version. This is possible because deployment keeps a revision-history. The history is stored with underlying RelicaSet.

kubectl rollout undo deployment kubeapp --to-revision=2 #specific version if needed
kubectl rollout undo deployments kubeapp                #this has been applied

kubectl get replicasets
NAME                 DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
kubeapp-674dd4d9cd   0         0         0       46m
kubeapp-99c897449    3         3         3       8m52s  #rolled back to previous replicaset
kubeapp-d79844ffd    0         0         0       16m

#Pause the rollout in the middle of a rolling update (canary release)
kubectl rollout pause deployment kubeapp

#Resume the rollout after the rolling update looks good
kubectl rollout resume deployment kubeapp

Statefulset

When each pod is important

Statefulset vs ReplicaSet

Statefulset

ReplicaSet

apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: StatefulSet metadata: name: kubeweb spec: serviceName: "nginx" replicas: 2 selector: matchLabels: app: kubenginx template: metadata: labels: app: kubenginx spec: containers: - name: nginx image: nginx ports: - containerPort: 80 name: web volumeMounts: - name: www mountPath: /usr/share/nginx/html volumeClaimTemplates: - metadata: name: www spec: accessModes: [ "ReadWriteOnce" ] resources: requests: storage: 0.5Gi

apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: ReplicaSet metadata: name: kubeapp-replicaset labels: app: kubeapp tier: frontend spec: replicas: 3 selector: matchLabels: tier: frontend template: metadata: labels: tier: frontend spec: containers: - name: main image: nginx:1.16.0

References

• Deployments
• Rolling Update
• ReplicaSet
• StatefulSets