Chapter 6. Installing and configuring the Topology plugin
6.1. Installation
The Topology plugin enables you to visualize the workloads such as Deployment, Job, Daemonset, Statefulset, CronJob, Pods and Virtual Machines powering any service on your Kubernetes cluster.
Prerequisites
- You have installed and configured the @backstage/plugin-kubernetes-backend dynamic plugins.
- You have configured the Kubernetes plugin to connect to the cluster using a ServiceAccount.
The
ClusterRole
must be granted to ServiceAccount accessing the cluster.NoteIf you have the Developer Hub Kubernetes plugin configured, then the
ClusterRole
is already granted.
Procedure
The Topology plugin is pre-loaded in Developer Hub with basic configuration properties. To enable it, set the disabled property to false as follows:
app-config.yaml
fragmentauth: global: dynamic: includes: - dynamic-plugins.default.yaml plugins: - package: ./dynamic-plugins/dist/janus-idp-backstage-plugin-topology disabled: false
6.2. Configuration
6.2.1. Viewing OpenShift routes
To view OpenShift routes, you must grant read access to the routes resource in the Cluster Role:
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: backstage-read-only rules: ... - apiGroups: - route.openshift.io resources: - routes verbs: - get - list
You must also add the following in kubernetes.customResources
property in your app-config.yaml
file:
kubernetes: ... customResources: - group: 'route.openshift.io' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'routes'
6.2.2. Viewing pod logs
To view pod logs, you must grant the following permission to the ClusterRole
:
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: backstage-read-only rules: ... - apiGroups: - '' resources: - pods - pods/log verbs: - get - list - watch
6.2.3. Viewing Tekton PipelineRuns
To view the Tekton PipelineRuns you must grant read access to the pipelines
, pipelinesruns
, and taskruns
resources in the ClusterRole
:
... apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: backstage-read-only rules: ... - apiGroups: - tekton.dev resources: - pipelines - pipelineruns - taskruns verbs: - get - list
To view the Tekton PipelineRuns list in the side panel and the latest PipelineRuns status in the Topology node decorator, you must add the following code to the kubernetes.customResources
property in your app-config.yaml
file:
kubernetes: ... customResources: - group: 'tekton.dev' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'pipelines' - group: 'tekton.dev' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'pipelineruns' - group: 'tekton.dev' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'taskruns'
6.2.4. Viewing virtual machines
To view virtual machines, the OpenShift Virtualization operator must be installed and configured on a Kubernetes cluster. You must also grant read access to the VirtualMachines
resource in the ClusterRole
:
... apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: backstage-read-only rules: ... - apiGroups: - kubevirt.io resources: - virtualmachines - virtualmachineinstances verbs: - get - list
To view the virtual machine nodes on the topology plugin, you must add the following code to the kubernetes.customResources
property in the app-config.yaml
file:
kubernetes: ... customResources: - group: 'kubevirt.io' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'virtualmachines' - group: 'kubevirt.io' apiVersion: 'v1' plural: 'virtualmachineinstances'
6.2.5. Enabling the source code editor
To enable the source code editor, you must grant read access to the CheClusters resource in the ClusterRole
as shown in the following example code:
... apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1 kind: ClusterRole metadata: name: backstage-read-only rules: ... - apiGroups: - org.eclipse.che resources: - checlusters verbs: - get - list
To use the source code editor, you must add the following configuration to the kubernetes.customResources
property in your app-config.yaml
file:
kubernetes: ... customResources: - group: 'org.eclipse.che' apiVersion: 'v2' plural: 'checlusters'
6.2.6. Labels and annotations
6.2.6.1. Linking to the source code editor or the source
Add the following annotations to workload resources, such as Deployments to navigate to the Git repository of the associated application using the source code editor:
annotations: app.openshift.io/vcs-uri: <GIT_REPO_URL>
Add the following annotation to navigate to a specific branch:
annotations: app.openshift.io/vcs-ref: <GIT_REPO_BRANCH>
If Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces is installed and configured and git URL annotations are also added to the workload YAML file, then clicking on the edit code decorator redirects you to the Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces instance.
When you deploy your application using the OCP Git import flows, then you do not need to add the labels as import flows do that. Otherwise, you need to add the labels manually to the workload YAML file.
You can also add the app.openshift.io/edit-url
annotation with the edit URL that you want to access using the decorator.
6.2.6.2. Entity annotation/label
For RHDH to detect that an entity has Kubernetes components, add the following annotation to the entity’s catalog-info.yaml
:
annotations: backstage.io/kubernetes-id: <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>
The following label is added to the resources so that the Kubernetes plugin gets the Kubernetes resources from the requested entity, add the following label to the resources:
labels: backstage.io/kubernetes-id: <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>`
When using the label selector, the mentioned labels must be present on the resource.
6.2.6.3. Namespace annotation
To identify the Kubernetes resources using the defined namespace, add the backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace
annotation:
annotations: backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace: <RESOURCE_NS>
The Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces instance is not accessible using the source code editor if the backstage.io/kubernetes-namespace
annotation is added to the catalog-info.yaml
file.
To retrieve the instance URL, you require the CheCluster Custom Resource (CR). As the CheCluster CR is created in the openshift-devspaces namespace, the instance URL is not retrieved if the namespace annotation value is not openshift-devspaces.
6.2.6.4. Label selector query annotation
You can write your own custom label, which RHDH uses to find the Kubernetes resources. The label selector takes precedence over the ID annotations:
annotations: backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector: 'app=my-app,component=front-end'
If you have multiple entities while Red Hat Dev Spaces is configured and want multiple entities to support the edit code decorator that redirects to the Red Hat Dev Spaces instance, you can add the backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector annotation to the catalog-info.yaml file for each entity.
annotations: backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector: 'component in (<BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME>,che)'
If you are using the previous label selector, you must add the following labels to your resources so that the Kubernetes plugin gets the Kubernetes resources from the requested entity:
labels: component: che # add this label to your che cluster instance labels: component: <BACKSTAGE_ENTITY_NAME> # add this label to the other resources associated with your entity
You can also write your own custom query for the label selector with unique labels to differentiate your entities. However, you need to ensure that you add those labels to the resources associated with your entities including your CheCluster instance.
6.2.6.5. Icon displayed in the node
To display a runtime icon in the topology nodes, add the following label to workload resources, such as Deployments:
labels: app.openshift.io/runtime: <RUNTIME_NAME>
Alternatively, you can include the following label to display the runtime icon:
labels: app.kubernetes.io/name: <RUNTIME_NAME>
Supported values of <RUNTIME_NAME>
include:
- django
- dotnet
- drupal
- go-gopher
- golang
- grails
- jboss
- jruby
- js
- nginx
- nodejs
- openjdk
- perl
- phalcon
- php
- python
- quarkus
- rails
- redis
- rh-spring-boot
- rust
- java
- rh-openjdk
- ruby
- spring
- spring-boot
Other values result in icons not being rendered for the node.
6.2.6.6. App grouping
To display workload resources such as deployments or pods in a visual group, add the following label:
labels: app.kubernetes.io/part-of: <GROUP_NAME>
6.2.6.7. Node connector
To display the workload resources such as deployments or pods with a visual connector, add the following annotation:
annotations: app.openshift.io/connects-to: '[{"apiVersion": <RESOURCE_APIVERSION>,"kind": <RESOURCE_KIND>,"name": <RESOURCE_NAME>}]'
For more information about the labels and annotations, see Guidelines for labels and annotations for OpenShift applications.