Build, test, and deploy containers to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using GitHub Actions

Article
08/01/2024

GitHub Actions gives you the flexibility to build an automated software development lifecycle workflow. You can use multiple Kubernetes actions to deploy to containers from Azure Container Registry (ACR) to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with GitHub Actions.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't have one, create an account for free.
A GitHub account. If you don't have one, sign up for free.
- When using GitHub Actions, you need to configure the integration between Azure and your GitHub repository. To configure the integration, see Use GitHub Actions to connect to Azure.
An existing AKS cluster with an attached ACR. If you don't have one, see Authenticate with ACR from AKS.

GitHub Actions for AKS

With GiHub Actions, you can automate your software development workflows from within GitHub. For more information, see GitHub Actions for Azure.

The following table lists the available actions for AKS:

Name	Description	More details
`azure/aks-set-context`	Set the target AKS cluster context for other actions to use or run any kubectl commands.	azure/aks-set-context
`azure/k8s-set-context`	Set the target Kubernetes cluster context for other actions to use or run any kubectl commands.	azure/k8s-set-context
`azure/k8s-bake`	Bake manifest file to use for deployments using Helm, kustomize, or kompose.	azure/k8s-bake
`azure/k8s-create-secret`	Create a generic secret or docker-registry secret in the Kubernetes cluster.	azure/k8s-create-secret
`azure/k8s-deploy`	Deploy manifests to Kubernetes clusters.	azure/k8s-deploy
`azure/k8s-lint`	Validate/lint your manifest files.	azure/k8s-lint
`azure/setup-helm`	Install a specific version of Helm binary on the runner.	azure/setup-helm
`azure/setup-kubectl`	Install a specific version of kubectl on the runner.	azure/setup-kubectl
`azure/k8s-artifact-substitute`	Update the tag or digest for container images.	azure/k8s-artifact-substitute
`azure/aks-create-action`	Create an AKS cluster using Terraform.	azure/aks-create-action
`azure/aks-github-runner`	Set up self-hosted agents for GitHub Actions.	azure/aks-github-runner
`azure/acr-build`	Build containers using ACR.	azure/acr-build

Use GitHub Actions with AKS

As an example, you can use GitHub Actions to deploy an application to your AKS cluster every time a change is pushed to your GitHub repository. This example uses the Azure Vote application.

Note

This example uses a service principal for authentication with your ACR and AKS cluster. Alternatively, you can configure Open ID Connect (OIDC) and update the azure/login action to use OIDC. For more information, see Set up Azure Login with OpenID Connect authentication.

Fork and update the repository

Navigate to the Azure Vote repository and select Fork.
Update the azure-vote-all-in-one-redis.yaml to use your ACR for the azure-vote-front image. Replace <registryName> with the name of your registry.
```
...
      containers:
      - name: azure-vote-front
        image: <registryName>.azurecr.io/azuredocs/azure-vote-front:v1
...
```
Commit the updated azure-vote-all-in-one-redis.yaml to your repository.

Create secrets

Create a service principal to access your resource group with the Contributor role using the az ad sp create-for-rbac command. Replace <SUBSCRIPTION_ID> with the subscription ID of your Azure account and <RESOURCE_GROUP> with the name of the resource group containing your ACR.
```
az ad sp create-for-rbac \
    --name "ghActionAzureVote" \
    --scope /subscriptions/<SUBSCRIPTION_ID>/resourceGroups/<RESOURCE_GROUP> \
    --role Contributor \
    --json-auth
```
Your output should look similar to the following example output:
```
{
  "clientId": <clientId>,
  "clientSecret": <clientSecret>,
  "subscriptionId": <subscriptionId>,
  "tenantId": <tenantId>,
  ...
}
```
Navigate to your GitHub repository settings and select Security > Secrets and variables > Actions.

For each secret, select New Repository Secret and enter the name and value of the secret.

Secret name	Secret value
AZURE_CREDENTIALS	The entire JSON output from the `az ad sp create-for-rbac` command.
service_principal	The value of `<clientId>`.
service_principal_password	The value of `<clientSecret>`.
subscription	The value of `<subscriptionId>`.
tenant	The value of `<tenantId>`.
registry	The name of your registry.
repository	azuredocs
resource_group	The name of your resource group.
cluster_name	The name of your cluster.

For more information about creating secrets, see Encrypted Secrets.

Create actions file

In your repository, create a .github/workflows/main.yml and paste in the following contents:

name: build_deploy_aks
on:
  push:
    paths:
      - "azure-vote/**"
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout source code 
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: ACR build
        id: build-push-acr
        uses: azure/acr-build@v1
        with:
          service_principal: ${{ secrets.service_principal }}
          service_principal_password: ${{ secrets.service_principal_password }}
          tenant: ${{ secrets.tenant }}
          registry: ${{ secrets.registry }}
          repository: ${{ secrets.repository }}
          image:  azure-vote-front
          folder: azure-vote
          branch: master
          tag: ${{ github.sha }}
      - name: Azure login
        id: login
        uses: azure/login@v1.4.3
        with:
          creds: ${{ secrets.AZURE_CREDENTIALS }}
      - name: Set AKS context
        id: set-context
        uses: azure/aks-set-context@v3
        with:
          resource-group: '${{ secrets.resource_group }}' 
          cluster-name: '${{ secrets.cluster_name }}'
      - name: Setup kubectl
        id: install-kubectl
        uses: azure/setup-kubectl@v3
      - name: Deploy to AKS
        id: deploy-aks
        uses: Azure/k8s-deploy@v4
        with:
          namespace: 'default'
          manifests: |
             azure-vote-all-in-one-redis.yaml
          images: '${{ secrets.registry }}.azurecr.io/${{ secrets.repository }}/azure-vote-front:${{ github.sha }}'
          pull-images: false

The on section contains the event that triggers the action. In the example file, the action triggers when a change is pushed to the azure-vote directory.

The steps section contains each distinct action:

Checkout source code uses the GitHub Actions Checkout Action to clone the repository.
ACR build uses the Azure Container Registry Build Action to build the image and upload it to your registry.
Azure login uses the Azure Login Action to sign in to your Azure account.
Set AKS context uses the Azure AKS Set Context Action to set the context for your AKS cluster.
Setup kubectl uses the Azure AKS Setup Kubectl Action to install kubectl on your runner.
Deploy to AKS uses the Azure Kubernetes Deploy Action to deploy the application to your Kubernetes cluster.

Commit the .github/workflows/main.yml file to your repository.
To confirm the action is working, update the azure-vote/azure-vote/config_file.cfg with the following contents:
```
# UI Configurations
TITLE = 'Azure Voting App'
VOTE1VALUE = 'Fish'
VOTE2VALUE = 'Dogs'
SHOWHOST = 'false'
```
Commit the updated azure-vote/azure-vote/config_file.cfg to your repository.
In your repository, select Actions and confirm a workflow is running. Then, confirm the workflow has a green checkmark and the updated application is deployed to your cluster.

Next steps

Review the following starter workflows for AKS. For more information, see Using starter workflows.

Learn how to create multiple pipelines on GitHub Actions with AKS

Learn about Azure Kubernetes Service

Share via