Work with Git repositories in air-gapped environments with Namespace Provisioner

This topic provides instructions for configuring Namespace Provisioner to use air-gapped Git repositories. This allows you to store GitOps-based installation files and platform operator-templated resources intended for creation in your developer namespace in Tanzu Application Platform (TAP).

Git authentication

Authentication is established through a secret in the tap-namespace-provisioning namespace or an existing secret in another namespace referenced in the secretRef in additional_sources. For more details, refer to Customize Installation of Namespace Provisioner.

Create the Git authentication secret in tap-namespace-provisioning namespace

The Git authentication secrets support the following keys: ssh-privatekey, ssh-knownhosts, username, and password. If ssh-knownhosts is not specified, Git does not perform strict host checking.

Important

In air-gapped environments or other scenarios where external services are secured by a Custom CA certificate, configure kapp-controller with the CA certificate data to prevent X.509 certificate errors. For more information, see Deploy onto Cluster in the Cluster Essentials for VMware Tanzu documentation.

  1. Create the Git secret:

    Using HTTP(s) based authentication
    If you are using user name and password for authentication: 
    cat << EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: git-auth
  namespace: tap-namespace-provisioning
type: Opaque
stringData:
  username: GIT-USERNAME
  password: GIT-PASSWORD
EOF
    Using SSH based authentication
    If you are using SSH private key for authentication: 
    cat << EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: git-auth
  namespace: tap-namespace-provisioning
type: Opaque
stringData:
  ssh-privatekey: |
      -----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
      ...
      -----END OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
EOF

  2. Add the secretRef section to the additional_sources and the gitops_install section of your tap-values.yaml file:

    Using Namespace Provisioner Controller
    Description 
    namespace_provisioner:
  controller: true
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: sources
      # This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
      url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
      secretRef:
        name: git-auth
    Using GitOps
    Description

    Caution In kapp-controller v0.46.0 and earlier, there is a limitation that prevents the reuse of the same Git secret multiple times. If you have multiple additional sources using repositories with identical credentials, you must create distinct secrets, each with the same authentication details.

    In this example, the list of namespaces resides in a repository. Therefore, you must create a secret named git-auth-install with the same authentication details for this location.

    namespace_provisioner:
  controller: false
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: tekton-pipelines
      # This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
      url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
      secretRef:
        name: git-auth
  gitops_install:
    ref: origin/main
    subPath: gitops-install
    # This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
    url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
    secretRef:
      name: git-auth-install


Import from another namespace

If you already have a Git secret created in a namespace other than the tap-namespace-provisioning namespace and you want to refer to it, the secretRef section must include the namespace and the create_export flag. The default value for create_export is false, assuming the secret is already exported for the tap-namespace-provisioning namespace. However, you can specify if you want Namespace Provisioner to create a Carvel SecretExport for that secret.

In this example, the secretRef section refers to the git-auth secret from the tap-install namespace.

Using Namespace Provisioner Controller
Description 
namespace_provisioner:
  controller: true
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: sources
      #! This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
      url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
      secretRef:
          name: git-auth
          namespace: tap-install
          #! If this secret is already exported for this namespace, you can ignore the create_export key as it defaults to false
          create_export: true
Using GitOps
Description 
namespace_provisioner:
  controller: false
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: tekton-pipelines
      #! This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
      url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
      secretRef:
          name: git-auth
          namespace: tap-install
          #! If this secret is already exported for this namespace, you can ignore the create_export key as it defaults to false
          create_export: true
  gitops_install:
    ref: origin/main
    subPath: gitops-install
    #! This example URL is for SSH auth. Use https:// path if using HTTPS auth
    url: git@git-airgap-server:private-repo-org/repo.git
    secretRef:
      name: git-auth-install
      namespace: tap-install
      #! If this secret is already exported for this namespace, you can ignore the create_export key as it defaults to false
      create_export: true

After reconciliation, Namespace Provisioner creates:

  • SecretExport for the secret in the provided namespace, exporting it to the Namespace Provisioner namespace, for example, tap-install
  • SecretImport for the secret in the tap-namespace-provisioning namespace. This enables Carvel secretgen-controller to create the required secret, allowing Namespace Provisioner to connect to the Git repository.

Git authentication for workloads and supply chain

When fetching or pushing source code to a repository that requires credentials, it’s essential to provide those credentials through a Kubernetes secret object referenced by the corresponding Kubernetes object created for the action. The following sections describe setting up Kubernetes secrets to securely pass these credentials to the relevant resources. This procedure provides the steps to configure the default service account to interact with Git repositories for workloads and supply chain using Namespace Provisioner.

Set up the service account to interact with Git repositories:

  1. Create a secret in the tap-install namespace or any preferred namespace, containing Git credentials in YAML format.

    • host, username, caFile and password or personal access token values for HTTP-based Git authentication.
    • ssh-privatekey, identity, identity_pub, and known_hosts for SSH-based Git authentication.
    Note

    The stringData key of the secret must end with either the .yaml or .yml suffix.

    Using HTTP(s) based authentication
    If using user name and password for authentication.

    In this configuration for an air-gapped environment, the Git repository server has a custom certificate of authority that cannot be verified against public issuers, so you must provide the caFile content to log in against it.

    cat << EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: workload-git-auth
  namespace: tap-install
type: Opaque
stringData:
  content.yaml: |
    git:
      #! For HTTP Auth. Recommend using https:// for the git server.
      host: GIT-SERVER
      username: GIT-USERNAME
      password: GIT-PASSWORD
      caFile: |
        -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        ...
        -----END CERTIFICATE-----
EOF
    Using SSH based authentication
    To use an SSH private key for authentication, create the Git secret with the authentication details as follows: 
    cat << EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: workload-git-auth
  namespace: tap-install
type: Opaque
stringData:
  content.yaml: |
    git:
      host: GIT-SERVER
      #! For SSH Auth
      ssh_privatekey: SSH-PRIVATE-KEY
      identity: SSH-PRIVATE-KEY
      identity_pub: SSH-PUBLIC-KEY
      known_hosts: GIT-SERVER-PUBLIC-KEYS
EOF

  2. To create a secret to be added to the service account in the developer namespace in the GitOps repository, use this example for HTTP-based or this example for setings.xml-based, or follow the example below.

    Rather than directly including the actual user name and password in the Git repository secret, use the data.values.imported keys to add references to the values from the git-auth secret created in the previous step.

    This secret represents the Git secret that is created by the Namespace Provisioner in each managed namespace. It must be included in your Git repository linked in the additional_sources section of tap-values.yaml mentioned in the next step.

    Using HTTP(s) based authentication
    If using user name and password for authentication.

    In this configuration for an air-gapped environment, the Git repository server has a custom certificate of authority that cannot be verified against public issuers, so you must provide the caFile content to log in against it.

    #@ load("@ytt:data", "data")
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
 name: git
 annotations:
   tekton.dev/git-0: #@ data.values.imported.git.host
type: kubernetes.io/basic-auth
stringData:
 username: #@ data.values.imported.git.username
 password: #@ data.values.imported.git.token
 caFile: #@ data.values.imported.git.caFile
    Using settings.xml based authentication for Java applications
    If using user name and password for authentication. 
    #@ load("@ytt:data", "data")

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
 name: settings-xml
type: service.binding/maven
stringData:
 type: maven
 provider: sample
 #@yaml/text-templated-strings
 settings.xml: |
   <settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
       <mirrors>
           <mirror>
               <id>reposilite</id>
               <name>Accelerator samples</name>
               <url>(@= data.values.imported.git.host @)/vmware-tanzu/application-accelerator-samples</url>
               <mirrorOf>*</mirrorOf>
           </mirror>
       </mirrors>
       <servers>
           <server>
               <id>reposilite</id>
               <username>(@= data.values.imported.git.username @)</username>
               <password>(@= data.values.imported.git.password @)</password>
           </server>
       </servers>
   </settings>
    Using SSH based authentication
    If using SSH private key for authentication: 
    #@ load("@ytt:data", "data")
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: git
  annotations:
    tekton.dev/git-0: #@ data.values.imported.git.host
type: kubernetes.io/basic-auth
stringData:
  identity: #@ data.values.imported.git.identity
  identity.pub: #@ data.values.imported.git.identity_pub
  known_hosts: #@ data.values.imported.git.known_hosts
  ssh-privatekey: #@ data.values.imported.git.ssh_privatekey

  3. Combine this tap-values.yaml:

    Using Namespace Provisioner Controller
    Add the following configuration to tap-values.yaml: 
    namespace_provisioner:
  controller: true
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: ns-provisioner-samples/credentials
      url: https://git-airgap-server/application-accelerator-samples.git
  import_data_values_secrets:
  - name: workload-git-auth
    namespace: tap-install
    create_export: true
  default_parameters:
    supply_chain_service_account:
      secrets:
      - git

    Where https://git-airgap-server/application-accelerator-samples.git is a fork of the application-accelerator-samples repository.

    Using GitOps
    Add the following configuration to tap-values.yaml: 
    namespace_provisioner:
  controller: false
  additional_sources:
  - git:
      ref: origin/main
      subPath: ns-provisioner-samples/credentials
      url: https://git-airgap-server/vmware-tanzu/application-accelerator-samples.git
  gitops_install:
    ref: origin/main
    subPath: ns-provisioner-samples/gitops-install
    url: https://git-airgap-server/vmware-tanzu/application-accelerator-samples.git
  import_data_values_secrets:
  - name: workload-git-auth
    namespace: tap-install
    create_export: true
  default_parameters:
    supply_chain_service_account:
      secrets:
      - git

    Where https://git-airgap-server/application-accelerator-samples.git is a fork of the application-accelerator-samples repository.

    • additional sources points to the location where the templated Git secret resides, which is created in all developer namespaces.
    • Import the newly created workload-git-auth secret into Namespace Provisioner to use in data.values.imported by adding the secret to import_data_values_secrets.
    • Add the secret to be included in the ServiceAccount in the default_parameters. For more information, see Customize service accounts.
    Note

    create_export is set to true in import_data_values_secrets. As a result, a SecretExport is automatically created for the workload-git-auth secret in the tap-install namespace by Namespace Provisioner. After the changes are reconciled, the secret named git is present in all provisioned namespaces and is also added to the default service account of those namespaces.

  4. In your tap-values.yaml file, in the ootb_supply_chain_*.gitops.ssh_secret section, specify the name of the Git secret containing the credentials. This is necessary for the supply chain to include the secretRef when creating the Flux GitRepository resource. For example:

    ootb_supply_chain_testing_scanning:
  gitops:
    ssh_secret: git  # Replace with the actual name of your Git secret for the workload, if different

    By providing this configuration, the supply chain associates the created GitRepository resource with the specified Git secret managed by Namespace Provisioner.

  5. Create the workload:

    Using HTTP/HTTPS or SSH-based
    If using user name and password for authentication. 
    tanzu apps workload apply APP-NAME \
--git-repo GIT-REPO \
--git-branch BRANCH \
--type web \
--app APP-NAME \
--label apps.tanzu.vmware.com/has-tests="true" \
--namespace DEV-NAMESPACE \
--tail \
--yes
    Using settings.xml based authentication for Java applications
    If using user name and password for authentication. 
    tanzu apps workload apply APP-NAME \
--git-repo GIT_REPO \
--git-branch BRANCH \
--type web \
--app APP-NAME \
--label apps.tanzu.vmware.com/has-tests="true" \
--namespace DEV-NAMESPACE \
--param-yaml buildServiceBindings='[{"name": "settings-xml", "kind": "Secret"}]'
--tail \
--yes
check-circle-line exclamation-circle-line close-line
Scroll to top icon