Red Hat Developer Hub Deployment

Deploying Red Hat Developer Hub

Platform Engineers can deploy Red Hat Developer Hub on OpenShift using the Operator or Helm Chart. Both of these installation methods are outlined in the Red Hat Developer Hub documentation. In this lab you’ll use the Helm Chart to deploy and manage your instance of Red Hat Developer Hub. The source code for this Helm Chart can be found at openshift-helm-charts repository on GitHub.

Using GitOps to Manage Red Hat Developer Hub

The instance of OpenShift Container Platform used in this workshop environment has been preconfigured with OpenShift GitOps (Argo CD). Your deployment of Red Hat Developer Hub is kept up to date using a GitOps workflow, as illustrated below.

GitOps Architecture Overview

Since this isn’t a GitOps-focused workshop, we’ve setup the basic GitOps workflow ahead of time. Specifically we’ve pre-created a backstage-bootstrap Application in OpenShift GitOps - you can view this by clicking the link and logging in as the admin user with the password {openshift_gitops_password}.

The backstage-bootstrap ArgoCD Application creates Secrets, ConfigMaps, and another ArgoCD Application named backstage. The backstage ArgoCD Application deploys Red Hat Developer Hub using the Helm Chart. The configuration values passed to the Helm Chart are sourced from the rhdh/developer-hub-config/values.yaml file in GitLab. OpenShift GitOps will detect changes to this file and redeploy Red Hat Developer Hub in response. You can see these two sources in the Details tab of the backstage Application as shown.

GitOps Sources for the Backstage Application

Platform Engineer Activity: Verify GitOps is Working

Update the App Title of Red Hat Developer Hub

Let’s verify that changes to the values.yaml file in GitLab actually get rolled out by OpenShift GitOps.

  1. Open your values.yaml file.

  2. Select Edit > Edit single file. When prompted, login as a Platform Engineer with pe1/{common_password}

  3. Find the YAML surrounded by --- APP TITLE --- and uncomment it by highlighting it and pressing CMD + / or CTRL + /.

    Customizing the Title

  4. Scroll down and enter a commit message feat: change application title.

  5. Click the Commit changes button.

Verify update to Red Hat Developer Hub’s Custom Title

Let’s wait for the new deployment of Red Hat Developer Hub to complete to check if the custom title reflects as it should on Red Hat Developer Hub

  1. Return to the backstage Application in Argo CD. Depending on your timing, it might already be progressing the latest sync, but if not, click the Refresh button. When the sync is in progress, you’ll see a new Pod starting - this Pod will run the latest version of your configuration.

    Red Hat Developer Hub with a Custom Title

  2. Once the new Pod has started, visit your Red Hat Developer Hub instance. You should see the new title PE Developer Hub in the page header.

    Red Hat Developer Hub with a Custom Title