Recommended Way To Build Dev Cluster

Question

Hello I m currently building a dev cluster of sorts where I want myself a few others to be able to deploy their code to run in isolated namespaces I m pretty much done with everything but one problem I have is that some resources like `ExternalDNS` are not specific to a particular developer s namespace What would be the recommended way to manage deployments that are done at the cluster level vs deployments done for a particular namespace I know my wording is confusing i m not really sure the best way to phrase the question

hallowed-apartment-22484 · Answer

In short I have two deployments A deployment devs will run when they want to build + deploy their code into their dev cluster A deployment the dev cluster admin wants to run to manage resources like ExternalDNS How can I split these two ergonomically with garden io I currently have ExternalDNS deployed as part of the normal `garden deploy` step which has the unfortunate problem that if one dev runs `garden deploy` which deploys their code into their own namespace and ExternalDNS into the `default` namespace a second dev also deploys and then the first dev runs `garden delete environment ` then ExternalDNS will be taken down while the second dev s services are still up

quaint-dress-831 · Answer

Hi < hallowed apartment 22484> The Garden team has been on Easter vacation until today I m taking a looksee at this now

quaint-dress-831 · Answer

What I d do is split your Garden projects out whether by repo or folder within a monorepo You could have one `project garden yml` file declaring resources like ExternalDNS and cert manager should you use it in the `default` namespace Your devs would have their own `project garden yml` that creates per developer namespaces based on e g their local username https docs garden io reference template strings modules usd local username I m a big fan of our opinionated guide on namespaces if you want a reference for environments https docs garden io guides namespaces an opinionated guide on using namespaces Using it as a template your `project garden yml` for your globally installed services might look like this

quaint-dress-831 · Answer

```yaml kind Project name my project variables global env name default environments name global defaultNamespace $ var global env name providers name kubernetes namespace $ environment namespace < Ensure the K8s namespace matches the Garden namespace defaultHostname $ var hostname ```

quaint-dress-831 · Answer

And your dev `project garden yml` might look like ```yaml kind Project name my project variables dev env name my project $ local username environments name dev defaultNamespace $ var dev env name providers name kubernetes namespace $ environment namespace < Ensure the K8s namespace matches the Garden namespace defaultHostname $ var hostname ```

hallowed-apartment-22484 · Answer

So basically have two project garden yml files

quaint-dress-831 · Answer

Yep

bright-policeman-43626 · Answer

Hey < hallowed apartment 22484> where you able o solve this issue I would also like to recommend you to have different folders for critical components for example I don t think your service deployment should be affecting critical components like externalDNS so perhaps you can move all the Infrastructure Resources to a different Garden folder and deploy from there This will give you the ability that users only can affect the code services instead of the infrastructure components that are kind of delicate < gardenheart 1083685896169209926>

hallowed-apartment-22484 · Answer

Thanks It seems to work I ended up creating a separate repository for this which is not the solution I d have preferred but it works well enough

bright-policeman-43626 · Answer

Amazing you could also have separated them on a folder basis for example your repo structure could be externaldns garden project yml frontend garden project yml But your solution works as well and also allows you to have more granular rules in those repos which is great