Deploying UDS Core

1: Distribution Support
2: Deploy UDS Core

1 - Distribution Support

UDS Core is a versatile software baseline designed to operate effectively across a variety of Kubernetes distributions. While it is not specifically tailored to any single Kubernetes distribution, it is compatible with multiple environments. This documentation provides an overview of UDS Core’s compatibility with different distributions and the level of support provided.

Understanding Support Levels

Supported: The Kubernetes distributions listed under this category undergo testing and are officially supported by UDS Core. Users can expect a high level of reliability and compatibility when deploying UDS Core on these distributions.
Compatible: Kubernetes distributions listed under this category may not have undergone extensive testing in UDS Core’s CI environments. While UDS Core may be compatible on these distributions, users should exercise caution and be prepared for potential compatibility issues or limitations.

Distribution	Category	Support Level
K3d, Amazon EKS	Tested	Supported Kubernetes distributions undergoing testing in CI environments.
RKE2	Tested	Supported Kubernetes distribution tested in production environments other than CI.
Other	Untested/Unknown state	Compatible Kubernetes distributions that are not explicitly tested, documented, or supported by UDS Core.

2 - Deploy UDS Core

Prerequisites

Please ensure that the following prerequisites are on your machine prior to deploying UDS Core:

Docker, or as an open source alternative, you can use Colima.
- If using Colima, please declare the following resources after installing:

colima start --cpu 6 --memory 14 --disk 50

K3d for development and test environments or a CNCF Certified Kubernetes Cluster if deploying to production environments.
Dynamic load-balancer provisioning such as MetalLB.
Object storage of your choosing such as Minio or S3.

UDS Bundles

UDS Core provides published bundles that serve multiple purposes: you can utilize them for experimenting with UDS Core or for UDS Package development when you only require specific components of UDS Core. These bundles leverage UDS K3d to establish a local k3d cluster.

UDS Bundles deployed for development and testing purposes are comprised of a shared configuration that equips users with essential tools, emulating a development environment for convenience. If deploying to a production environment, users have the ability to modify variables and configurations to best fit specific mission needs by creating their own bundle.

Note

These UDS Bundles are designed specifically for development and testing environments and are not intended for production use. Additionally, they serve as examples for creating customized bundles.

Quickstart: Development and Test Environments

Step 1: Install the UDS CLI

It is recommended to update to the latest version, all releases can be found in the UDS CLI GitHub repository.

brew tap defenseunicorns/tap && brew install uds

Step 2: Deploy the UDS Bundle

The UDS Bundle being deployed in this example is the k3d-core-demo bundle which creates a local k3d cluster with UDS Core installed.

uds deploy k3d-core-demo:0.20.0

# deploy this bundle?
y

For additional information on UDS Bundles, please see the UDS Bundles documentation.

Optional:

Use the following command to visualize resources in the cluster via k9s:

uds zarf tools monitor

Step 3: Clean Up

Use the following command to tear down the k3d cluster:

k3d cluster delete uds

If you opted to use Colima, use the following command to tear down the virtual machine that the cluster was running on:

colima delete -f

UDS Bundle Development

In addition to the demo bundle, there is also a k3d-slim-dev bundle designed specifically for working with UDS Core with only Istio, Keycloak, and Pepr installed. To use it, execute the following command:

uds deploy k3d-core-slim-dev:0.20.0

Developing UDS Core

UDS Core development leverages the uds zarf dev deploy command. To simplify the setup process, a dedicated UDS Task is available. Please ensure you have NodeJS version 20 or later installed before proceeding.

Below is an example of the workflow developing the metrics-server package:

# Create the dev environment
uds run dev

# If developing the Pepr module:
npx pepr dev

# If not developing the Pepr module (can be run multiple times):
npx pepr deploy

# Deploy the package (can be run multiple times)
uds run dev-deploy --set PKG=metrics-server

Testing UDS Core

You can perform a complete test of UDS Core by running the following command:

uds run test-uds-core

This command initiates the creation of a local k3d cluster, installs UDS Core, and executes a set of tests identical to those performed in CI. If you wish to run tests targeting a specific package, you can utilize the PKG environment variable.

The example below runs tests against the metrics-server package:

UDS_PKG=metrics-server uds run test-single-package

Note

You can specify the --set FLAVOR=registry1 flag to test using Iron Bank images instead of the upstream images.