Chapter 1. Provisioning and using your custom Red Hat Developer Hub configuration

Procedure

1. For security, store your secrets as environment variables values in an OpenShift Container Platform secret, rather than in clear text in your configuration files. Collect all your secrets in the secrets.txt file, with one secret per line in KEY=value form.

   • Enter your authentication secrets.

2. Author your custom app-config.yaml file. This is the main Developer Hub configuration file. You need a custom app-config.yaml file to avoid the Developer Hub installer to revert user edits during upgrades. When your custom app-config.yaml file is empty, Developer Hub is using default values.

   • To prepare a deployment with the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator on OpenShift Container Platform, you can start with an empty file.

   • To prepare a deployment with the Red Hat Developer Hub Helm chart, or on Kubernetes, enter the Developer Hub base URL in the relevant fields in your app-config.yaml file to ensure proper functionality of Developer Hub. The base URL is what a Developer Hub user sees in their browser when accessing Developer Hub. The relevant fields are baseUrl in the app and backend sections, and origin in the backend.cors subsection:

     Example 1.1. Configuring the baseUrl in app-config.yaml

     app:
       title: Red Hat Developer Hub
       baseUrl: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>
     
     backend:
       auth:
         externalAccess:
           - type: legacy
             options:
               subject: legacy-default-config
               secret: "${BACKEND_SECRET}"
       baseUrl: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>
       cors:
         origin: https://<my_developer_hub_domain>

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   • Optionally, enter your configuration such as:

     • Authentication in Red Hat Developer Hub.
     • Authorization in Red Hat Developer Hub.
     • Customization.
     • Configure your OpenShift Container Platform integration.

3. Author your custom dynamic-plugins.yaml file to enable plugins. By default, Developer Hub enables a minimal plugin set, and disables plugins that require configuration or secrets, such as the GitHub repository discovery plugin and the Role-based access control (RBAC) plugin.

   Enable the GitHub repository discovery and the RBAC features:

   dynamic.plugins.yaml

   includes:
     - dynamic-plugins.default.yaml
   plugins:
     - package: ./dynamic-plugins/dist/backstage-plugin-catalog-backend-module-github
       disabled: false
     - package: ./dynamic-plugins/dist/backstage-community-plugin-rbac
       disabled: false

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4. Provision your custom configuration files to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

   1. Create the <my-rhdh-project> {namespace} aimed at containing your Developer Hub instance.

      $ oc create namespace my-rhdh-project

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   2. Provision your app-config.yaml and dynamic-plugins.yaml files respectively to the my-rhdh-app-config, and dynamic-plugins-rhdh config maps in the <my-rhdh-project> project.

      $ oc create configmap my-rhdh-app-config --from-file=app-config.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project
      $ oc create configmap dynamic-plugins-rhdh --from-file=dynamic-plugins.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project

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      Alternatively, create the config maps by using the web console.

   3. Provision your secrets.txt file to the my-rhdh-secrets secret in the <my-rhdh-project> project.

      $ oc create secret generic my-rhdh-secrets --from-file=secrets.txt --namespace=my-rhdh-project

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      Alternatively, create the secret by using the web console.

Procedure

1. Author your Backstage CR in a my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml file to use your custom config maps and secrets.

   Minimal my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml custom resource example:

   apiVersion: rhdh.redhat.com/v1alpha3
   kind: Backstage
   metadata:
     name: my-rhdh-custom-resource
   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
       route:
         enabled: true
     database:
       enableLocalDb: true

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   my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml custom resource example with dynamic plugins and RBAC policies config maps, and external PostgreSQL database secrets:

   apiVersion: rhdh.redhat.com/v1alpha3
   kind: Backstage
   metadata:
     name: <my-rhdh-custom-resource>
   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
            - name: rbac-policies
       dynamicPluginsConfigMapName: dynamic-plugins-rhdh
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
            - name: my-rhdh-database-secrets
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         secrets:
           - name: my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets
             key: postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, postgres-key.key
       route:
         enabled: true
     database:
       enableLocalDb: false

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   Mandatory fields

   No fields are mandatory. You can create an empty Backstage CR and run Developer Hub with the default configuration.

   Optional fields

   spec.application.appConfig.configMaps

   Enter your config map name list.

   Mount files in the my-rhdh-app-config config map:

   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config

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   Mount files in the my-rhdh-app-config and rbac-policies config maps:

   spec:
     application:
       appConfig:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         configMaps:
            - name: my-rhdh-app-config
            - name: rbac-policies

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   spec.application.extraEnvs.envs

   Optionally, enter your additional environment variables that are not secrets, such as your proxy environment variables.

   Inject your HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and NO_PROXY environment variables:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         envs:
           - name: HTTP_PROXY
             value: 'http://10.10.10.105:3128'
           - name: HTTPS_PROXY
             value: 'http://10.10.10.106:3128'
           - name: NO_PROXY
             value: 'localhost,example.org'

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   spec.application.extraEnvs.secrets

   Enter your environment variables secret name list.

   Inject the environment variables in your Red Hat Developer Hub secret:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>

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   Inject the environment variables in the Red Hat Developer Hub and my-rhdh-database-secrets secrets:

   spec:
     application:
       extraEnvs:
         secrets:
            - name: <my_product_secrets>
            - name: my-rhdh-database-secrets

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   Note

   <my_product_secrets> is your preferred Developer Hub secret name, specifying the identifier for your secret configuration within Developer Hub.

   spec.application.extraFiles.secrets

   Enter your certificates files secret name and files list.

   Mount the postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, and postgres-key.key files contained in the my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets secret:

   spec:
     application:
       extraFiles:
         mountPath: /opt/app-root/src
         secrets:
           - name: my-rhdh-database-certificates-secrets
             key: postgres-crt.pem, postgres-ca.pem, postgres-key.key

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   spec.database.enableLocalDb

   Enable or disable the local PostgreSQL database.

   Disable the local PostgreSQL database generation to use an external postgreSQL database:

   spec:
     database:
       enableLocalDb: false

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   On a development environment, use the local PostgreSQL database:

   spec:
     database:
       enableLocalDb: true

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   spec.deployment

   Optionally, enter your deployment configuration.

2. Apply your Backstage CR to start or update your Developer Hub instance:

   $ oc apply --filename=my-rhdh-custom-resource.yaml --namespace=my-rhdh-project

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Procedure

1. Configure Helm to use your custom configuration files in Developer Hub.

   1. Go to the Helm tab to see the list of Helm releases.
   2. Click the overflow menu on the Helm release that you want to use and select Upgrade.
   3. Use the YAML view to edit the Helm configuration.

   4. Set the value of the upstream.backstage.extraAppConfig.configMapRef and upstream.backstage.extraAppConfig.filename parameters as follows:

      Helm configuration excerpt

      upstream:
        backstage:
          extraAppConfig:
            - configMapRef: my-rhdh-app-config
              filename: app-config.yaml

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   5. Click Upgrade.