This guide explains how to install Tekton Dashboard. It covers the following topics:
- Before you begin
- Pre-requisites
- Which version should I use
- Installing Tekton Dashboard on Kubernetes
- Installing Tekton Dashboard on OpenShift
- Installing with the installer script
- Accessing the Dashboard
- Uninstalling the Dashboard on Kubernetes
- Next steps
Choose the version of Tekton Dashboard you want to install. You have the following options:
- Official - install this unless you have a specific reason to go for a different release.
- Nightly - may contain bugs, install at your own risk.
- [
HEAD
] - this is the bleeding edge. It contains unreleased code that may result in unpredictable behavior. To get started, see the development guide instead of this page.
In order to install the Tekton Dashboard, please make sure the following requirements are met:
-
You must have a Kubernetes cluster running version 1.18.0 or later. Tekton Pipelines or other projects may require a newer version.
If you don't already have a cluster, you can create one for testing with
kind
. Installkind
and create a cluster by runningkind create cluster
. This will create a cluster running locally, with RBAC enabled and your user granted thecluster-admin
role. -
Tekton Pipelines must be installed in the cluster. See Installing Tekton Pipelines.
-
Optionally, install Tekton Triggers. See Installing Tekton Triggers.
Every Tekton Dashboard version is meant to support specific Tekton Pipelines and Tekton Triggers versions. See the docs on the main page to find the Tekton Dashboard version that suits your needs.
Pay attention to annoucements like deprecated versions and/or security related recommendations when choosing the version you want to install.
To install Tekton Dashboard on a Kubernetes cluster:
-
Run the following command to install Tekton Dashboard and its dependencies:
kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/tekton-dashboard-release.yaml
Previous versions are available at
previous/$VERSION_NUMBER/*.yaml
, e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/previous/v0.12.0/tekton-dashboard-release.yaml -
Monitor the installation using the following command until all components show a
Running
status:kubectl get pods --namespace tekton-pipelines --watch
Note: Hit CTRL+C to stop monitoring.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Tekton Dashboard on your Kubernetes cluster.
To install Tekton Dashboard on an OpenShift cluster:
-
Install the Openshift Pipeline Operator from the operator hub.
-
Assuming you want to install the Dashboard into the
openshift-pipelines
namespace, which is the default one:kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/openshift-tekton-dashboard-release.yaml --validate=false
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Tekton Dashboard on your OpenShift cluster.
Note for users installing Tekton Pipelines and Triggers outside the OpenShift Pipelines operator:
Tekton Dashboard on OpenShift works out of the box with the OpenShift Pipelines operator. If you installed Tekton Pipelines and Triggers without using the OpenShift Pipelines operator, you will need to change the following args --pipelines-namespace=openshift-pipelines
and --triggers-namespace=openshift-pipelines
and set their values to the namespace where Pipelines and Triggers were respectively deployed.
v0.8.0
and later releases provide an installer script to simplify deploying the Tekton Dashboard with custom options.
You can refer to the dev docs for more info on how to use the installer.
For example, to install the latest release in read only mode:
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tektoncd/dashboard/main/scripts/release-installer | \
bash -s -- install latest --read-only
By default, the Dashboard is not exposed outside the cluster.
There are several solutions to access the Dashboard UI depending on your setup described below.
The Dashboard can be accessed through its ClusterIP Service by running kubectl proxy
.
Assuming tekton-pipelines
is the install namespace for the Dashboard, run the following command:
kubectl proxy
Browse http://localhost:8001/api/v1/namespaces/tekton-pipelines/services/tekton-dashboard:http/proxy/ to access your Dashboard.
An alternative way to access the Dashboard is using kubectl port-forward
.
Assuming tekton-pipelines
is the install namespace for the Dashboard, run the following command:
kubectl --namespace tekton-pipelines port-forward svc/tekton-dashboard 9097:9097
Browse http://localhost:9097 to access your Dashboard.
A more advanced solution is to expose the Dashboard through an Ingress
rule.
This way the Dashboard can be accessed as a regular website without requiring kubectl
.
Assuming you have an ingress controller up and running in your cluster, and that tekton-pipelines
is the install namespace for the Dashboard, run the following command to create the Ingress
resource:
# replace DASHBOARD_URL with the hostname you want for your dashboard
# the hostname should be setup to point to your ingress controller
DASHBOARD_URL=dashboard.domain.tld
kubectl apply -n tekton-pipelines -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: tekton-dashboard
namespace: tekton-pipelines
spec:
rules:
- host: $DASHBOARD_URL
http:
paths:
- pathType: ImplementationSpecific
backend:
service:
name: tekton-dashboard
port:
number: 9097
EOF
You can now access the Dashboard UI at http(s)://dashboard.domain.tld
in your browser (assuming the host configured in the ingress is dashboard.domain.tld
)
Notes:
- The exact
Ingress
resource definition may vary a little depending on the ingress controller installed in the cluster. Some specific annotations may be required for the ingress controller to process theIngress
resource correctly - If you don't have access to a domain you can use the freely available
nip.io
service
An example using the NGINX ingress controller to expose the Dashboard on a specific path instead of at the root of the domain:
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: tekton-dashboard
namespace: tekton-pipelines
annotations:
kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /$2
spec:
rules:
- host: domain.tld
http:
paths:
- path: /tekton(/|$)(.*)
backend:
service:
name: tekton-dashboard
port:
number: 9097
You can then access the Dashboard UI at http(s)://domain.tld/tekton/
The Dashboard does not provide its own authentication or authorization, however it will pass on any authentication headers provided to it by a proxy deployed in front of the Dashboard. These are then handled by the Kubernetes API server allowing for full access control via Kubernetes RBAC. In case of forbidden access the Dashboard will display corresponding error notifications.
See the walk-throughs for an example of enabling authentication using oauth2-proxy.
By default the Dashboard accesses resources and performs actions in the cluster using the permissions granted to its own ServiceAccount (i.e. the tekton-dashboard
ServiceAccount in the tekton-pipelines
namespace). If you wish to have the Dashboard perform actions on behalf of the authenticated user or some other ServiceAccount this can be achieved via user impersonation. This is known to work with a number of popular solutions including oauth2-proxy, Keycloak, OpenUnison, Traefik, Istio's EnvoyFilter, and more.
Typically when configuring impersonation you would have the proxy forward its ServiceAccount token in the Authorization
header, and details of the user and groups in the Impersonate-User
and Impersonate-Group
headers respectively. See the docs of your chosen solution for details.
When using a reverse proxy, with impersonation headers or the user's account, you should remove the Dashboard's privileges to better maintain a "least privileged" approach. This will make it less likely that the Dashboard's ServiceAccount
will be abused:
kubectl delete clusterrolebinding -l rbac.dashboard.tekton.dev/subject=tekton-dashboard
kubectl delete rolebinding -l rbac.dashboard.tekton.dev/subject=tekton-dashboard -n tekton-pipelines
If you're using one of these proxies to provide authentication but still want to use the Dashboard's ServiceAccount to access the Kubernetes APIs you may need to modify the proxy config to prevent it from sending the Authorization
header on upstream requests to the Dashboard. Some examples of relevant config:
- oauth2-proxy: add the
--pass-authorization-header=false
command line argument or its equivalent to your config https://oauth2-proxy.github.io/oauth2-proxy/docs/configuration/overview#command-line-options - Istio EnvoyFilter: the external authentication service should return a custom header
x-envoy-auth-headers-to-remove: Authorization
https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/api-v3/service/auth/v3/external_auth.proto - Traefik:
removeHeader: true
https://doc.traefik.io/traefik/v2.0/middlewares/basicauth/#removeheader
The Dashboard can be uninstalled by running the following command:
kubectl delete --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/tekton-dashboard-release.yaml
The above command assumes that the latest version was installed, refer to Installing Tekton Dashboard on Kubernetes to find the correct --filename
argument if another version was installed.
To get started with Tekton Dashboard, see the Tekton Dashboard katacoda tutorial.
To add more functionality to your Tekton Dashboard, see the Tekton Dashboard extensions
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.