Deploying an Application

When pushing an app (via kf push) to Kf, there are three lifecycles that Kf uses to take your source code and allow it to handle traffic:

  1. Source code upload
  2. Build
  3. Run

Source Code Upload

The first thing that happens when you kf push is the Kf CLI (kf) packages up your directory (either current or --path/-p) into a container and publishes it to the container registry configured for the Space. This is called the source container. The Kf CLI then creates an App type in Kubernetes that contains both the source image and configuration from the App manifest and push flags.

Ignoring files during push

In many cases, you will not want to upload certain files during kf push (i.e., "ignore" them). This is where a .kfignore (or .cfignore) file can be used. Similar to a .gitignore file, this file instructs the Kf CLI which files to not include in the source code container.

To create a .kfignore file, create a text file named .kfignore in the base directory of your app (similar to where you would store the manifest file). Then populate it with a newline delimited list of files and directories you don't want published. For example:

bin
.idea

This will tell the Kf CLI to not include anything in the bin or .idea directories.

Kf supports gitignore style syntax.

Build

The Build lifecycle is handled by a Tekton TaskRun. Depending on the flags you provide while pushing, it will choose a specific Tekton Task. Kf currently has the following Tekton Tasks:

  • buildpackv2
  • buildpackv3
  • kaniko

Kf tracks each TaskRun as a Build. If a Build succeeds, the resulting container image is then deployed via the Run lifecycle (described below).

More information can be found at Build Runtime.

Run

The Run lifecycle is responsible for taking a container image and creating a Kubernetes Deployment.

It also creates:

More information can be found at Build Runtime.

Push Timeouts

Kf supports setting an environment variable to instruct the CLI to time out while pushing apps. If set, the variables KF_STARTUP_TIMEOUT or CF_STARTUP_TIMEOUT are parsed as a golang style duration (for example 15m, 1h). If a value is not set, the push timeout defaults to 15 minutes.