ArgoCD Image Updater

Overview

ArgoCD Image Updater is a tool that automatically updates the container images of your Kubernetes applications managed by ArgoCD. It monitors the image repositories for new versions and updates the Kubernetes manifests accordingly. This is particularly useful in a development environment where developers frequently push changes with the latest tag. ArgoCD Image Updater detects the new version and updates the manifests, triggering an automatic deployment to the development environment.

Usage

Development Environment

In a development environment, developers can push changes to their container images with the latest tag. ArgoCD Image Updater will detect the new version of the latest tag, update the Kubernetes manifests, and deploy the changes to the development environment automatically. This ensures that the development environment is always running the latest version of the application.

Enabling ArgoCD Image Updater

ArgoCD Image Updater is defined in the app-of-apps/values.yaml file:

helm:
  argocd-image-updater:
    enabled: true
    repoURL: https://argoproj.github.io/argo-helm
    targetRevision: 0.11.1
    chart: argocd-image-updater
    namespace: argocd

To enable ArgoCD Image Updater for a platform cluster, follow these steps:

1. Enable ArgoCD Image Updater: Ensure that ArgoCD Image Updater is enabled in your cluster. You can enable it in the app-of-apps/values-PlatformName.yaml file:

helm:
  argocd-image-updater:
    enabled: true

2. Add Annotations to Applications: To enable ArgoCD Image Updater to update the images of an application, you need to add specific annotations to the application's manifest in app-of-apps/values-PlatformName.yaml. These annotations tell ArgoCD Image Updater which images to monitor and how to update them.

helm:
  show-env:
    enabled: true
    annotations:
      argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/image-list: ghcr.io/kuberise/show-env:latest
      argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/update-strategy: digest
      argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/write-back-method: git

• argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/image-list: Specifies the list of images to monitor. In this example, it monitors the latest tag of the ghcr.io/kuberise/show-env image.
• argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/update-strategy: Specifies the update strategy. The digest strategy updates the image to the latest digest.
• argocd-image-updater.argoproj.io/write-back-method: Specifies the method to write back the updated image tag. The git method updates the image tag in the Git repository. You need to provide the Git repository token for this method. It can be provided as an input parameter in Kuberise.io install.sh script or as a kubernetes docker-registry secret. ArgoCD Image Updater will add a new file to the repository with the updated image tag.

3. Change the Interval: You can change the interval at which ArgoCD Image Updater checks for new image versions by modifying the extraArgs in the argocd-image-updater/values.yaml file in values folder.

extraArgs:
  - --interval
  - 10s

This example sets the interval to 10 seconds.

ArgoCD Image Updater is a powerful tool that automates the process of updating container images in your Kubernetes applications. By enabling it in your cluster and adding the necessary annotations to your applications, you can ensure that your development environment is always running the latest version of your applications. Additionally, by providing a Git repository token and configuring the update interval, you can customize the behavior of ArgoCD Image Updater to suit your needs.

If you decide not using ArgoCD Image Updater, you can disable it by setting the enabled flag to false in the app-of-apps/values-PlatformName.yaml file and then after releasing a new version of your application, you can manually update the image tag in the application's values.yaml file and push the changes to the repository. ArgoCD will then deploy the new version of the application with the updated image tag.

For more details and further study, refer to the ArgoCD Image Updater documentation.