Stackspin Outwards - Stackspout

This repository extends Stackspin with extra applications and overrides focused on business use. Once stabilized, the aim is to contribute as much upstream as possible.

Stackspout is used in day-to-day business with a double-digit user number, so all experiments happen carefully. Still, it is an experimental offering.

Customizations

Overrides

• Adds many Nextcloud extensions and some configuration -> most notably external to add Applications into Nextcloud as hub
• Allow iFraming of applications into Nextcloud

New Applications

Following are the applications Stackspout adds beyond Stackspin. Unlike Stackspin, there is currently no mechanism to add those individually, they come in one package with the repository.

Below list is formatted as:

subdomain: Service (helmrepo, if not by the application authors themselves)

Stable including Single-Sign-On

• forge: Forgejo
• do: Vikunja [needs upgrade]
• status: Gatus (minicloudlabs)

No SSO

• ninja: InvoiceNinja
• support: Zammad [needs PVC fixed]
• flow: n8n (8gears)
• meet: cal.com (pyrrha)

Planned

• design: penpot (truecharts, waiting on PR)
• sprint: taiga (nemonik)
• video: Peertube (LecygneNoir )
• call: Jitsi Meet / OpenTalk / Element Call
• wiki: Wiki (maybe wikijs, but I'd like something that integrates with Nextcloud and Markdown/Orgdown)

Ideas

• link: URL Shortener
• connect: Bonfire

Stale

• people: SuiteCRM (bitnami repo)
• time: Kimai (robjuz repo)

Functionally

• Nextcloud too slow - add Redis?
• Preconfigure user settings in Nextcloud, Vikunja and more

Setup

Warning: Lots of experiments happening here!

First install Stackspin. Then apply the configuration to your cluster:

./install.sh

Done! Note that the added applications are currently only toggled via repository changes and integration with Stackspin mechanisms is very rudimentary. To list the central resource related to this repo:

kubectl get gitrepositories -A
kubectl get kustomization -A -o=jsonpath='{.items[?(@.spec.sourceRef.name=="stackspout")].metadata.name}'
kubectl -n stackspout get helmreleases
kubectl -n stackspout get pods

But there are also ConfigMaps, Secrets, StatefulSets, PVCs, Helmrepos and more...

Tools

Useful tools for administration:

• my stack CLI helper, currently part of my dotfiles: https://git.jfischer.org/xeruf/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.config/shell/server#L11
• stackspin docs: https://docs.stackspin.net/en/v2/system_administration/customizing.html

Guide: Creating OAuth Credentials for an external service

• push an OAuth2Client definition like for the apps, adjusting metadata.name and spec.secretName as well as spec.redirectUris

• obtain the generated client_secret for your application from kubernetes:

  kubectl get secret -n flux-system stackspin-APP-oauth-variables --template '{{.data.client_secret}}' | base64 -d
  

  with client_id:

  kubectl get secret -n flux-system stackspin-APP-oauth-variables --template '{{.data.client_id}}{{"\n"}}{{.data.client_secret}}{{"\n"}}' | while read in; do echo $in | base64 -d; echo; done
  

Explanation - Typical App Deployment in Stackspout with Flux on Kubernetes

The diagram illustrates generically how continuous app deployment works in our Kubernetes cluster from Infrastructure-as-Code using flux. Not every app has database, backend and frontend, but in the end the deployments all work very similarly so there is no point showing it for each individual app. Except for the Single-Sign On, apps also do not really depend on each other.

Explanations:

• deploy :: creates a resource on the cluster from a file in the GitRepository
• create :: creates a resource on the cluster using Kubernetes logic
• ... all :: creates multiple independent resources

All Flux Kustomizations refer to a directory in the GitRepository, but for clarity I omitted it beyond the initial one.

Clouds are created not via Flux GitOps, but through one-time scripts.

See also https://about.ftt.gmbh/projects/polygon.html#state-of-stackspout-2022