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All the Bootstrapping

··3 mins
post building bootstrapping
Table of Contents

One of the biggest challenges right now during the building out all the infrastructure is bootstrapping of the various components to got to a point at which they are all minimally operational and self-supporting. Things such as the GitHub repositories for code, and managing templates and protections, to Terraform Cloud for running the first Infrastructure as Code to deploy other resources, to the physical servers which will run the different clusters and Kubernetes are all in scope here.

GitHub #

To more effectively group the code and configuration, I’ve created a dedicated Organisation in GitHub to host all the standard code, applications, and credentials needed. This has been nice as there are more options available compared just a standard user account. However, this needs lots of work.

I’ve been working on:

  • A pair of GitHub Actions, with the first to manage checks on pull requests to look for anything missing, as well as a second for automating the synchronisation of changes from an upstream template repository with downstream implementations. Both of these include full integration workflows and validation testing.
  • Template repositories for Terraform modules and configurations using CookieCutter to both standardise their layouts, but facilitate future changes and improvements.
  • Reusable GitHub Workflows which can provide standard integration patterns for different components, although right now this is focused on just Terraform (either as a configuration or a module).

Once the template repositories are created they can be used to create the Terraform modules for thing like new GitHub repositories, and modules and configurations to deploy the resources for Terraform modules (i.e. repository and the entry in Terraform Cloud Private Module Registry). From there the bootstrapping resources can be imported.

I’m also working on a GitHub Action to facilitate the running of terraform-docs as part the integration of Terraform changes. Unfortunately, the existing GitHub Action for terraform-docs has stagnated in its development and this will hopefully provide a good replacement option more generally.

Terraform Cloud #

Terraform Cloud will provide the initial facilitation of the deployment of the Infrastructure as Code, especially the initial Terraform modules, configurations to manage GitHub and Terraform Cloud. Also some of the initial general resources, like Cloudflare DNS and preparations for Cloudflare Tunnels in the early stages of this build.

Once the first configurations are built they can be imported and self-managed.

Documentation #

Documentation is an important part of any system and it’s been good to work again with Hugo to play with deploying static sites for maximum performance. The last few days have been spent:

  • Preparing some standard sections along with some placeholder documents which need to be started during the early stages of this build out.
  • Work with Cloudflare Pages to facilitate the build and deployment of the site though automation.
There is also a bootstrapping process too, being important to gather the documentation and runbooks as components and services are built, deployed, and configured.
Once the above work on GitHub and Terraform Cloud is completed, then the Infrastructure as Code for these services can be build and imported

This has been good to validate some themes and make a choice (congo) as well as make some customisations and local enhancements.

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