Install Infrastructure Visibility with Helm Charts

This page describes how to use the Cluster Agent Helm Charts to deploy Infrastructure Visibility (InfraViz).

Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes. Helm charts are a collection of files that describe a set of Kubernetes resources. The Cluster Agent Helm Chart is a convenient method to deploy the Appdynamics Operator and InfraViz. 

Windows Containers are not supported for this deployment.

Requirements 

• Machine Agent version >= 21.9.0 

• NetViz version >= 21.3.0 

• Controller version >= 20.6.0 

• Cluster Agent Helm charts are compatible with Helm 3.0

• Cluster Agent Helm Charts version should be >= 1.1.0 to install InfraViz using Cluster Agent Helm Charts. Older version (<=v0.1.19) of Cluster Agent Helm Charts does not work.

• For environments where Kubernetes >=1.25, PodSecurityPolicy is removed from K8s >= 1.25 (https://kubernetes.io/blog/2022/08/23/kubernetes-v1-25-release/#pod-security-changes). Pod security restrictions are now applied at the namespace level (https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/security/pod-security-admission/) using Pod Security Standard levels . Therefore, you require to set the level as Privileged for the namespace in which Infrastructure Visibility pod is running.
• For environments where Kubernetes <1.25, PodSecurityPolicies block certain pod security context configuration, such as privileged pods, you must deploy the infraviz-pod-security-policy.yaml before editing the infraviz.yaml file. You require to attach PodSecurityPolicy to the appdynamics-infraviz serviceaccount explicitly.
• For environments where OpenShift SecurityContextConstraints block certain pod security context configuration, such as privileged pods, you must deploy the infraviz-security-context-constraint-openshift.yaml before editing the infraviz.yaml file.

 Install Infrastructure Visibility in a Cluster 

1.  Delete all the previously installed CRDs related to Appdynamics Agent by using these commands: 
   

   $ kubectl get crds 
   $ kubectl delete crds <crd-names>

   CODE

2. Add the chart repository to Helm:
   

   $ helm repo add appdynamics-cloud-helmcharts https://appdynamics.jfrog.io/artifactory/appdynamics-cloud-helmcharts/

   CODE

3. Create a namespace for appdynamics in your cluster:
   

   $ kubectl create namespace appdynamics

   CODE

4. Create a Helm values file in this example of values-ca1.yaml. Update the controllerInfo properties with the credentials from the Controller.  

   Update the Infraviz and netviz properties. See InfraViz Configuration Settings for information about the available properties like enableMasters, enableContainerHostId, enableServerViz and so on.

   values-ca1.yaml

   # To install InfraViz  
   installInfraViz: true 
   
   
   # AppDynamics controller info 
   controllerInfo: 
   	url: https://<controller-url>:443 
   	account: <appdynamics-controller-account>  
   	username: <appdynamics-controller-username>  
   	password: <appdynamics-controller-password>  
   	accessKey: <appdynamics-controller-access-key>  
   	globalAccount: <appdynamics-controller-global-account>  
    
   
   # InfraViz config 
   infraViz: 
     nodeOS: "linux" 
     enableMasters: false 
     stdoutLogging: false 
     enableContainerHostId: true 
     enableServerViz: true 
     enableDockerViz: false 
     runAsUser: <UID of runAsUser>
     runAsGroup: 1001    # Netviz config 
   netViz: 
     enabled: true 
     netVizPort: 3892

   YML

   See Configuration Options for values.yaml for more information regarding the available options. Also, you can download a copy of values.yaml from the Helm Chart repository using this command:

   helm show values appdynamics-cloud-helmcharts/cluster-agent

   CODE

5. Deploy the InfraViz to the appdynamics namespace:
   

   $ helm install -f ./values-ca1.yaml "<my-cluster-agent-helm-release>" appdynamics-cloud-helmcharts/cluster-agent --namespace=appdynamics

   CODE

Configuration Options

Best Practices for Sensitive Data

We recommend using multiple values.yaml files to separate sensitive data in separate values.yaml files. Examples of these values are:

• controllerInfo.password
• controllerInfo.accessKey
• controllerInfo.customSSLCert
• controllerInfo.proxyPassword

Each values file follows the structure of the default values.yaml enabling you to easily share files with non-sensitive configuration properties yet keep sensitive values safe.

Default user-values.yaml File Example

# To install InfraViz 
installInfraViz: true 
 
imageInfo: 
 operatorImage: docker.io/appdynamics/cluster-agent-operator 
 operatorTag: 22.1.0 
 imagePullPolicy: Always            # Will be used for operator pod 
 machineAgentImage: docker.io/appdynamics/machine-agent 
 machineAgentTag: latest 
 netVizImage: docker.io/appdynamics/machine-agent-netviz
 netvizTag: latest   
 
controllerInfo: 
 url: https://<controller-url>:443 
 account: <appdynamics-controller-account>  
 username: <appdynamics-controller-username>  
 password: <appdynamics-controller-password>  
 accessKey: <appdynamics-controller-access-key> 
 
 infravizServiceAccount: appdynamics-infraviz-ssl # Can be any valid name 
 operatorServiceAccount: appdynamics-operator-ssl # Can be any valid name

controllerInfo:
  password: welcome
  accessKey: abc-def-ghi-1516

When installing the Helm Chart, use multiple -f parameters to reference the files:

helm install -f ./user-values.yaml -f ./user-values-sensitive.yaml "<my-cluster-agent-helm-release>" appdynamics-cloud-helmcharts/cluster-agent --namespace ca-appdynamics

Install Cluster Agent and Infrastructure Visibility in a Cluster

To install Cluster Agent and Infrastructure Visibility simultaneously, follow the same steps listed in Install Infrastructure Visibility in a Cluster along with the following updates:

1. Specify the following in the yaml file (for example, values.ca1):
   

   installClusterAgent: true 
   installInfraViz: true

   CODE

    

2. Update the controllerInfo properties with the credentials from the Controller.
   Update the clusterAgent properties to set the namespace and pods to monitor. See Configure the Cluster Agent for information about the available properties such as, nsToMonitor, nsToMonitorRegex, nsToExcludeRegex and so on. 
   Update the InfraViz and NetViz properties. See InfraViz Configuration Settings for information about the available properties such as enableMasters, enableContainerHostId, enableServerViz, and so on in values.yaml.