Keel - automated Kubernetes deployments for the rest of us

• Website https://keel.sh
• User Guide https://keel.sh/docs/

Keel is a tool for automating Kubernetes deployment updates. Keel is stateless, robust and lightweight.

Keel provides several key features:

• Kubernetes and Helm providers - Keel has direct integrations with Kubernetes and Helm.

• No CLI/API - tired of ***ctl for everything? Keel doesn't have one. Gets job done through labels, annotations, charts.

• Semver policies - specify update policy for each deployment/Helm release individually.

• Automatic Google Container Registry configuration - Keel automatically sets up topic and subscriptions for your deployment images by periodically scanning your environment.

• Native, DockerHub and Quay webhooks support - once webhook is received impacted deployments will be identified and updated.

• Polling - when webhooks and pubsub aren't available - Keel can still be useful by checking Docker Registry for new tags (if current tag is semver) or same tag SHA digest change (ie: latest).

• Notifications - out of the box Keel has Slack, HipChat, Mattermost, Teams and standard webhook notifications, more info here

Installing

Docker image polling, Kubernetes provider and Helm provider support are set by default, then Kubernetes deployments can be upgraded when new Docker image is available:

$ helm upgrade --install keel --namespace keel keel/keel

Setting up Helm release to be automatically updated by Keel

Add the following to your app's values.yaml file and do helm upgrade ...:

keel:
  # keel policy (all/major/minor/patch/force)
  policy: all
  # trigger type, defaults to events such as pubsub, webhooks
  trigger: poll
  # polling schedule
  pollSchedule: "@every 3m"
  # images to track and update
  images:
    - repository: image.repository # it must be the same names as your app's values
      tag: image.tag # it must be the same names as your app's values

The same can be applied with --set flag without using values.yaml file:

$ helm upgrade --install whd webhookdemo --namespace keel --reuse-values \
  --set keel.policy="all",keel.trigger="poll",keel.pollSchedule="@every 3m" \
  --set keel.images[0].repository="image.repository" \
  --set keel.images[0].tag="image.tag"

You can read in more details about supported policies, triggers and etc in the User Guide.

Also you should check the Webhooh demo app and it's chart to have more clear idea how to set automatic updates.

Uninstalling the Chart

To uninstall/delete the keel deployment:

$ helm delete --purge keel

The command removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.

Configuration

The following table lists has the main configurable parameters (polling, triggers, notifications, service) of the Keel chart and they apply to both Kubernetes and Helm providers:

Parameter	Description	Default
polling.enabled	Docker registries polling	true
helmProvider.enabled	Enable/disable Helm provider	true
helmProvider.helmDriver	Set driver for Helm3	``
helmProvider.helmDriverSqlConnectionString	Set SQL connection string for Helm3	``
gcr.enabled	Enable/disable GCR Registry	false
gcr.projectId	GCP Project ID GCR belongs to
gcr.pubsub.enabled	Enable/disable GCP Pub/Sub trigger	false
ecr.enabled	Enable/disable AWS ECR Registry	false
ecr.roleArn	Service Account IAM Role ARN for EKS
ecr.accessKeyId	AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID for ECR Registry
ecr.secretAccessKey	AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY for ECR Registry
ecr.region	AWS_REGION for ECR Registry
insecureRegistry	Enable/disable insecure registries	false
webhook.enabled	Enable/disable Webhook Notification	false
webhook.endpoint	Remote webhook endpoint
slack.enabled	Enable/disable Slack Notification	false
slack.botName	Name of the Slack bot
slack.token	Slack token
slack.channel	Slack channel
slack.approvalsChannel	Slack channel for approvals
teams.enabled	Enable/disable MS Teams Notification	false
teams.webhookUrl	MS Teams Connector's webhook url
service.enabled	Enable/disable Keel service	false
service.type	Keel service type	LoadBalancer
service.externalIP	Keel static IP
service.externalPort	Keel service port	9300
service.clusterIP	Keel service clusterIP
webhookRelay.enabled	Enable/disable WebhookRelay integration	false
webhookRelay.key	WebhookRelay key
webhookRelay.secret	WebhookRelay secret
webhookRelay.bucket	WebhookRelay bucket
rbac.enabled	Enable/disable RBAC installation	true
hipchat.enabled	Enable/disable Hipchat integration	false
hipchat.token	Hipchat token
hipchat.channel	Hipchat channel
hipchat.approvalsChannel	Hipchat channel for approvals
hipchat.botName	Name of the Hipchat bot
hipchat.userName	Hipchat username in Jabber format
hipchat.password	Hipchat password for approvals user
mail.enabled	Enable/disable mail notifications	false
mail.from	Mail sender address
mail.to	Mail destination address
mail.smtp.server	Mail SMTP server address
mail.smtp.port	Mail SMTP server port	25
mail.smtp.user	Mail SMTP server user (optional)
mail.smtp.pass	Mail SMTP server password (optional)
mattermost.enabled	Enable/disable Mattermost integration	false
mattermost.endpoint	Mattermost API endpoint
googleApplicationCredentials	GCP Service account key configurable
hipchat.password	Hipchat password for approvals user
gcloud.managedCertificates.enabled	Enable/Disable managed ssl on Gcloud	false
gcloud.managedCertificates.domains	List of managed certificate domains	[]
ingress.enabled	Enables Ingress	false
ingress.annotations	Ingress annotations	{}
ingress.labels	Ingress labels	{}
ingress.hosts	Ingress accepted hosts	[]
ingress.tls	Ingress TLS configuration	[]
basicauth.enabled	Enable/disable Basic Auth on approvals	false
basicauth.user	Basic Auth username
basicauth.password	Basic Auth password
dockerRegistry.enabled	Docker registry secret enabled.	false
dockerRegistry.name	Docker registry secret name
dockerRegistry.key	Docker registry secret key
secret.name	Secret name
secret.create	Create secret	true
persistence.enabled	Enable/disable audit log persistence	true
persistence.storageClass	Storage Class for the Persistent Volume	true
persistence.size	Persistent Volume size	true

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install.

Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the above parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,

$ helm install --name keel --namespace keel -f values.yaml keel/keel

Tip: You can use the default values.yaml