140 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
140 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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stage: none
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group: unassigned
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info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
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---
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# Canary Deployments **(FREE)**
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> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/1659) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 9.1.
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> - [Moved](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/212320) to GitLab Free in 13.8.
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A popular [Continuous Deployment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_deployment)
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strategy, where a small portion of the fleet is updated to the new version of
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your application.
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## Overview
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When embracing [Continuous Delivery](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2016/08/05/continuous-integration-delivery-and-deployment-with-gitlab/), a company needs to decide what
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type of deployment strategy to use. One of the most popular strategies is canary
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deployments, where a small portion of the fleet is updated to the new version
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first. This subset, the canaries, then serve as the proverbial
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[canary in the coal mine](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/canary_in_a_coal_mine).
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If there is a problem with the new version of the application, only a small
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percentage of users are affected and the change can either be fixed or quickly
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reverted.
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Leveraging [Kubernetes' Canary deployments](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/manage-deployment/#canary-deployments), visualize your canary
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deployments right inside the [Deploy Board](deploy_boards.md), without the need to leave GitLab.
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## Use cases
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Canary deployments can be used when you want to ship features to only a portion of
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your pods fleet and watch their behavior as a percentage of your user base
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visits the temporarily deployed feature. If all works well, you can deploy the
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feature to production knowing that it shouldn't cause any problems.
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Canary deployments are also especially useful for backend refactors, performance
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improvements, or other changes where the user interface doesn't change, but you
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want to make sure the performance stays the same, or improves. Developers need
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to be careful when using canaries with user-facing changes, because by default,
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requests from the same user are randomly distributed between canary and
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non-canary pods, which could result in confusion or even errors. If needed, you
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may want to consider [setting `service.spec.sessionAffinity` to `ClientIP` in
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your Kubernetes service definitions](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/service/#virtual-ips-and-service-proxies), but that is beyond the scope of
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this document.
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## Enabling Canary Deployments
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Canary deployments require that you properly configure Deploy Boards:
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1. Follow the steps to [enable Deploy Boards](deploy_boards.md#enabling-deploy-boards).
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1. To track canary deployments you need to label your Kubernetes deployments and
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pods with `track: canary`. To get started quickly, you can use the [Auto Deploy](../../topics/autodevops/stages.md#auto-deploy)
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template for canary deployments that GitLab provides.
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Depending on the deploy, the label should be either `stable` or `canary`.
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GitLab assumes the track label is `stable` if the label is blank or missing.
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Any other track label is considered `canary` (temporary).
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This allows GitLab to discover whether a deployment is stable or canary (temporary).
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Once all of the above are set up and the pipeline has run at least once,
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navigate to the environments page under **Pipelines > Environments**.
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As the pipeline executes, Deploy Boards clearly mark canary pods, enabling
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quick and easy insight into the status of each environment and deployment.
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Canary deployments are marked with a yellow dot in the Deploy Board so that you
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can easily notice them.
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### Advanced traffic control with Canary Ingress
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> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/215501) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 13.6.
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> - [Moved](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/212320) to Free in GitLab 13.8.
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Canary deployments can be more strategic with [Canary Ingress](https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx/user-guide/nginx-configuration/annotations/#canary),
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which is an advanced traffic routing service that controls incoming HTTP
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requests between stable and canary deployments based on factors such as weight, sessions, cookies,
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and others. GitLab uses this service in its [Auto Deploy architecture](../../topics/autodevops/upgrading_auto_deploy_dependencies.md#v2-chart-resource-architecture)
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to let users easily and safely roll out their new deployments.
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#### How to set up a Canary Ingress in a canary deployment
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A Canary Ingress is installed by default if your Auto DevOps pipeline uses
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[`v2.0.0+` of `auto-deploy-image`](../../topics/autodevops/upgrading_auto_deploy_dependencies.md#verify-dependency-versions).
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A Canary Ingress becomes available when you create a new canary deployment and is destroyed when the
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canary deployment is promoted to production.
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Here's an example setup flow from scratch:
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1. Prepare an [Auto DevOps-enabled](../../topics/autodevops/index.md) project.
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1. Set up a [Kubernetes Cluster](../../user/project/clusters/index.md) in your project.
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1. Install [NGINX Ingress](https://github.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/tree/master/charts/ingress-nginx) in your cluster.
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1. Set up [the base domain](../../user/project/clusters/index.md#base-domain) based on the Ingress
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Endpoint assigned above.
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1. Check if [`v2.0.0+` of `auto-deploy-image` is used in your Auto DevOps pipelines](../../topics/autodevops/upgrading_auto_deploy_dependencies.md#verify-dependency-versions).
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If it isn't, follow the documentation to specify the image version.
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1. [Run a new Auto DevOps pipeline](../../ci/pipelines/index.md#run-a-pipeline-manually)
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and make sure that the `production` job succeeds and creates a production environment.
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1. Configure a [`canary` deployment job for Auto DevOps pipelines](../../topics/autodevops/customize.md#deploy-policy-for-canary-environments).
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1. [Run a new Auto DevOps pipeline](../../ci/pipelines/index.md#run-a-pipeline-manually)
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and make sure that the `canary` job succeeds and creates a canary deployment with Canary Ingress.
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#### How to check the current traffic weight on a Canary Ingress
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1. Visit the [Deploy Board](../../user/project/deploy_boards.md).
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1. View the current weights on the right.
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#### How to change the traffic weight on a Canary Ingress
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You can change the traffic weight within your environment's Deploy Board by using [GraphiQL](../../api/graphql/getting_started.md#graphiql),
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or by sending requests to the [GraphQL API](../../api/graphql/getting_started.md#command-line).
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To use your [Deploy Board](../../user/project/deploy_boards.md):
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1. Navigate to **Operations > Environments** for your project.
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1. Set the new weight with the dropdown on the right side.
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1. Confirm your selection.
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Here's an example using [GraphiQL](../../api/graphql/getting_started.md#graphiql):
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1. Visit [GraphiQL Explorer](https://gitlab.com/-/graphql-explorer).
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1. Execute the `environmentsCanaryIngressUpdate` GraphQL mutation:
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```shell
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mutation {
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environmentsCanaryIngressUpdate(input:{
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id: "gid://gitlab/Environment/29", # Your Environment ID. You can get the ID from the URL of the environment page.
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weight: 45 # The new traffic weight. e.g. If you set `45`, 45% of traffic goes to a canary deployment and 55% of traffic goes to a stable deployment.
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}) {
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errors
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}
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}
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```
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1. If the request succeeds, the `errors` response contains an empty array. GitLab sends a `PATCH`
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request to your Kubernetes cluster for updating the weight parameter on a Canary Ingress.
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