This guide explains how to install Tekton Dashboard. It covers the following topics:
- Before you begin
- Pre-requisites
- Installing Tekton Dashboard on Kubernetes
- 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 1.24.0 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.
Each Tekton Dashboard release is tested against specific Tekton Pipelines and Tekton Triggers versions. See the Tekton Dashboard release notes for details of the supported versions.
To install Tekton Dashboard on a Kubernetes cluster:
-
Run the following command to install Tekton Dashboard:
kubectl apply --filename https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/latest/release.yaml
This will install the Dashboard in read-only mode by default.
Previous versions are available at
previous/$VERSION_NUMBER/*.yaml
, e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/tekton-releases/dashboard/previous/v0.32.0/release.yamlTo install in read/write mode, use release-full.yaml.
v0.31.0 and earlier used a different naming scheme for the release manifests:
Mode Current v0.31.0 and earlier read-only release.yaml tekton-dashboard-release-readonly.yaml read/write release-full.yaml 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.
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/write mode:
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tektoncd/dashboard/main/scripts/release-installer | \ bash -s -- install latest --read-write
-
to install with access to a subset of namespaces instead of full cluster access:
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tektoncd/dashboard/main/scripts/release-installer | \ bash -s -- install latest --read-write --tenant-namespaces tenant-namespace1,tenant-namespace2
This will add the
--namespaces
arg to the Dashboard deployment and create a RoleBinding in each of the specified namespaces with roletekton-dashboard-tenant
granted to the Dashboard ServiceAccount. -
to install with support for loading logs from an external source:
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tektoncd/dashboard/main/scripts/release-installer | \ bash -s -- install latest --read-write --external-logs <logs-provider-url>
See Tekton Dashboard walk-through - Logs persistence for details
By default, the Dashboard is not exposed outside the cluster.
There are several solutions described below for accessing the Dashboard UI depending on your setup.
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/release.yaml
The above command assumes that the current 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 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.