May 2023 Update

Flux v2.0.0-rc5 is out with lots of improvements, please test and give us feedback. We went to GitOpsCon / Open Source Summit - check out our talks from these events. That plus lots of news from our contributors and ecosystem.
By somtochiama |
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May was packed with exciting stories from Flux users, newly updated Flux adopters, contributors, contributions and a new GA release candidate! Also, don’t miss future Flux Bug Scrubs using ChatGPT.

Flux technology things to know

Three more Flux release candidates! Many improvements - Please test

On our path to GA, we released v2.0.0-rc5, the fifth release candidate for the 2.0.0 release. It includes many fixes, so you are very much encouraged to upgrade to this latest version - even though it carries “RC” in its version number, it is the most stable Flux release to date. Users are advised to upgrade from v0.41 and older versions to v2.0.0-rc.5 as soon as possible.

Fixes and improvements

  • Starting with this version, source-controller, kustomize-controller and helm-controller pods are marked as system-cluster-critical.
  • The Alert v1beta2 API has two new optional fields. .spec.inclusionList for fine-grained control over events filtering (notification-controller) and .spec.metadata that allows users to enrich the alerts with information about the cluster name, region, environment, etc.
  • New command flux reconcile source chart for pulling Helm OCI charts on-demand from container registries (CLI).
  • Support annotated Git tags with .spec.ref.name in GitRepository (source-controller).
  • The deprecated field .status.url was removed from the Receiver v1 API (notification-controller).
  • Add support for commit signing using OpenPGP keys with passphrases (image-automation-controller).
  • Fix bootstrap for BitBucket Server (CLI).
  • Fix secrets decryption when using Azure Key Vault (kustomize-controller).
  • Fix drift detection for renamed HelmReleases (helm-controller).
  • Improve performance when handling webhook receivers (notification-controller).
  • Improve the detection of values changes for HelmReleases by stable sorting them by key (helm-controller)
  • Update cosign to v2 (source-controller)
  • Support for Helm 3.12.0 and Kustomize v5.0.3.

To upgrade from v0.x to v2.0.0-rc.5, please see the procedure documented in RC.1.

⚠️ Note that Kubernetes 1.27.0 contains a regression bug that affects Flux, it is recommended to upgrade Kubernetes to 1.27.1 or newer. The upgrade to Kustomize v5 also contains breaking changes, please consult their CHANGELOG for more details.

Big thanks to all the Flux contributors that helped us with this release!

Security news

All components have been updated to patch vulnerabilities in Docker (CVE-2023-28840, CVE-2023-28841, CVE-2023-28842) and Sigstore (CVE-2023-30551, CVE-2023-33199).

Flagger 1.31.0

This release adds support for Linkerd 2.13. Furthermore, a bug which led the confirm-rollout webhook to be executed at every step of the Canary instead of only being executed before the canary deployment is scaled up, has been fixed.

⚠️ This release contains some breaking changes for the Linkerd integration. Please see the CHANGELOG on how to upgrade.

News from Flux users & the Community!

Newly posted Flux adopters!

  • Blablacar: a long distance carpooling platform that connects drivers with empty seats and passengers to share travel costs.
  • Nuvme: a consulting firm specializing in cloud application modernization.
  • TTMzero: a RegTech company that assists financial players with pre and post-trade digitization.

Thanks to Horacio Granillo ( @hgranillo), Peter König ( @konigpeter), and Julien Haumont ( @jhaumont) for taking the time to make these additions to the Flux adopters list!

If you have not already done so, use the instructions here or give us a ping and we will help to add you. Not only is it great for us to get to know and welcome you to our community, it also gives the team a big boost in morale to see Flux being used across the world.

Flux members, contributors, and maintainers!

Priyanka Ravi joins as Flux Project Member

We are very happy that Priyanka “Pinky” Ravi joined us as a Flux Project Member.

Over the past years, Pinky spoke at conferences, meetups and elsewhere, demoing Flux, discussing use-cases and discussing what’s new. If you want to have a look at some of her talks, check out our resources section.

Thanks a lot for everything you have done - we are happy to have you in our team!

Matheus Pimenta joins as a Flux Project Member

We are very happy to have Matheus Pimenta as a Flux Project Member. Matheus has been very active in the Flux community. He has been opening issues, participating in discussions and raising pull requests especially in the notification-controller.

Thanks a lot for everything you have done - we are happy to have you in our team!

Tamao Nakahara joins as Flux Project Member

Tamao has been actively assisting with managing the Flux community and organizing efforts around getting Flux represented at various conferences. She is the lead organizer of GitOps Days.

Tamao has done so much for the Flux project. We are happy to welcome her to the team.

Sanskar Jaiswal becomes a Core Maintainer

Sanskar has been making major code contributions to Flux for a while and is already a Flagger maintainer. He has been instrumental in getting the improving the git implementation in Flux and a host of other features.

Thanks for all your contributions to Flux! This is well-deserved.

Mehak Saeed selected for Flux’s Season of Docs

We are excited to welcome Mehak Saheed who would be working to improve Flux’s documentation during this year’s Google Season of Docs. Mehak is a technical writer with over six years of experience and has worked on documentation for projects such as cert-manager and Unfurl.

We look forward to the great work she’ll do!

Share your story at KubeCon NA in Chicago this year! 📆

If you wish to speak at KubCon NA, reach out to us to collaborate on proposals on a range of topics related to Kuberentes. We are happy to provide our writing expertise to your proposal and to collaborate on ideas. The CFP deadline is June 18, so kindly contact tamao@weave.works ASAP if you’re interested. The conference is from 6th-9th November in Chicago.

Use Cases from Flux users at GitOpsCon / Open Source Summit 2023 in May!

Flux users, contributors, and maintainers spoke at the 2-day co-located event, GitOpsCon-CDCon, as well as at the 3-day core conference, Open Source Summit NA 2023, during the week of May 8-12, 2023 in Vancouver, Canada. See below for more talks from the conference from contributors and maintainers. Here are highlighted talks from Flux users:

DevOps Days Medellin, Colombia

David Caballero gave a talk this month on Flux and shared slides and other resources in the CNCF Flux slack. Check it out!

Talks on Flux+GitLab, Flux+ARM64, Flux+Terraform, Flux+VS Code, Flux+WASM and more from GitOpsCon-CDCon / Open Source Summit 2023

Here are additional talks from GitOpsCon-CDCon and Open Source Summit NA 2023, during the week of May 8-12, 2023 in Vancouver, Canada.

Talk summaries in The New Stack:

Talks by Flux contributors and maintainers include:

Upcoming Events

Flux project meetings and Flux Bug Scrub+ChatGPT!

Our June 27 and 28 bug scrubs will involve using ChatGPT Experiment with us and we’ll learn together! Join the Weave Online User Group for updates.

The next dates are going to be:

Our Flux Bug Scrubs still are happening on a weekly basis and remain one of the best ways to get involved in Flux. They are a friendly and welcoming way to learn more about contributing and how Flux is organised as a project.

We are flexible with subjects and often go with the interests of the group or of the presenter. If you want to come and join us in either capacity, just show up or if you have questions, reach out to Kingdon on Slack.

Flux Fun Fact!

Did you know … 🔩 Flux works with your existing tools: Flux works with your Git providers (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, can even use s3-compatible buckets as a source), all major container registries, and all CI workflow providers. GitLab also announced that Flux is their GitOps tool of choice, so you’ll see even more synergy this year!

Over and out

If you like what you read and would like to get involved, here are a few good ways to do that:

❤️ Your Flux maintainer, Somtochi Onyekwere, and project member, Tamao Nakahara.