Introduction
In this blog post, we will explore how to set up your Kubeconfig file in GitHub Action secrets. This is essential for automating deployments to Kubernetes clusters using GitHub Actions.
Normally, people would use kubectl commands directly in their GitHub Actions workflows instead of using GitOps tools like ArgoCD or FluxCD. This is called push-based deployment.
When using kubectl commands, you need to authenticate to your Kubernetes cluster. The most common way to do this is by using a Kubeconfig file. But, when you try to setup Kubeconfig file in GitHub Action secrets, you might encounter some issues due to the base64 encoding issue.
Steps to Set Up Kubeconfig File in GitHub Action Secrets
Find your Kubeconfig file
The Kubeconfig file is usually located at ~/.kube/config on your local machine.
Here is an example of a Kubeconfig file:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Config
clusters:
- name: production
cluster:
server: https://<cluster-ip>:<port>
certificate-authority: |
<base64-encoded-ca-certificate>
contexts:
- name: prod@production
context:
cluster: production
user: prod
users:
- name: prod
user:
token: |
<access-token>Take a look at line 7 and 17. These two lines contain the | character, which indicates that the following lines are part of a multi-line string. This will cause issues as base64 encoding will convert the new line characters into \n, which will break the Kubeconfig file when it is decoded.
To avoid this issue, we need to convert the multi-line strings into single-line strings or use stripping version |-.
Fix Kubeconfig file
Here is the fixed version of the Kubeconfig file:
single-line strings
Make sure to replace all the new line characters with no spaces in between for the base64-encoded-ca-certificate and access-token values.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Config
clusters:
- name: production
cluster:
server: https://<cluster-ip>:<port>
certificate-authority: <base64-encoded-ca-certificate>
contexts:
- name: prod@production
context:
cluster: production
user: prod
users:
- name: prod
user:
token: <access-token>Copy the fixed Kubeconfig file content
Now, you can copy the content of the fixed kubeconfig file to the GitHub Action secrets.