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Install Harness delegates on Azure

A delegate is a Harness service that performs the tasks of a pipeline. Delegates run on your local network and work in parallel with Harness Manager. The creation of a delegate requires infrastructure that supports computational tasks. This is typically a Kubernetes cluster.

This tutorial explains how to create a Kubernetes cluster on a free Microsoft Azure account. The cluster you create is the foundation of your CI/CD pipeline infrastructure. After you prepare the infrastructure, you can install a delegate.

For additional information about delegates, see Delegate overview.

Requirements​

To complete this tutorial, you'll need the following cluster resources and permissions.

Permissions​

For information about access and permissions, see Permissions.

Cluster resources​

For information about delegate memory requirements, see Compute Resources.

To sign up for a free Azure account, go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/free/.

To sign up for a student account, go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/free/students/.

Create a cluster​

The cluster you'll create has the following requirements:

  • Number of nodes: A minimum of 3 nodes.
  • Machine type: 4vCPU
  • Memory: 12GB RAM and 6GB disk space. The delegate requires 8GB RAM. The remaining memory supports Kubernetes and containers.
  • Networking: Outbound HTTPS for the Harness connection, and to connect to any container image repository. Allow TCP port 22 for SSH.

To create your cluster, follow the steps in the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) documentation.

Modify the delegate YAML file​

For purposes of this tutorial, modify the harness-delegate.yaml file to create one replica pod.

  1. Open a terminal window and navigate to the folder that contains the delegate file.

  2. Open the YAML file in your editor. Locate and set the replicas field to 1.

  3. Save the YAML file.

Authenticate to the cluster​

Use terminal to connect and login to your cluster:

  1. From terminal, connect to your cluster.

  2. Login to your Kubernetes cluster.

    Most cloud platforms provide a cluster access command. To copy this command, select your cluster and click Connect.

Install the delegate​

Use the kubectl apply command to add the delegate to your cluster:

  1. To install the delegate, apply the harness-delegate.yaml file. In the terminal that is connected to your cluster, run:

    kubectl apply -f harness-delegate.yaml

    The successful output is something like this:

    namespace/harness-delegate unchanged
    clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/harness-delegate-cluster-admin unchanged
    secret/k8s-quickstart-proxy unchanged
    statefulset.apps/k8s-quickstart-sngxpn created
    service/delegate-service unchanged

  2. In Harness, click Verify. The verification process takes a few minutes. After the installation is verified, close the wizard.

Connect your delegate to your cluster​

Enable a connection from your delegate to your cluster:

  1. Return to Set Up Delegates, and select the delegate you created. The list of delegates should include your delegate and its tags.

  2. Select Connect using Delegates and choose the Tags option.

  3. Add a descriptive tag for the delegate, and then click Save and Continue.

    The connector is tested.

Confirm that the delegate pod is up and running​

Use the following command to confirm that the delegate pod is running in your Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl get pods -n harness-delegate-ng

Next Steps​

Use the kubectl utility to add resources to your cluster. For a tutorial on creating a CI/CD pipeline, see Start Deploying in 5 Minutes with a Delegate-first Approach.

Need Help?​

You can post questions to community.harness.io or join the community slack to chat with Harness engineers in product-specific channels: