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Making Support Bundle Specs Available Online

This topic describes how to make your application's support bundle specs available online as well as how to link to online specs.

Overview​

You can make the definition of one or more support bundle specs available online in a source repository and link to it from the specs in the cluster. This approach lets you update collectors and analyzers outside of the application release and notify customers of potential problems and fixes in between application updates.

The schema supports a uri: field that, when set, causes the support bundle generation to use the online specification. If the URI is unreachable or unparseable, any collectors or analyzers in the specification are used as a fallback.

You update collectors and analyzers in the online specification to manage bug fixes. When a customer generates a support bundle, the online specification can detect those potential problems in the cluster and let them know know how to fix it. Without the URI link option, you must wait for the next time your customers update their applications or Kubernetes versions to get notified of potential problems. The URI link option is particularly useful for customers that do not update their application routinely.

If you are using a modular approach to designing support bundles, you can use multiple online specs. Each specification supports one URI link. For more information about modular specs, see About Creating Modular Support Bundle Specs.

Example: URI Linking to a Source Repository​

This example shows how Replicated could set up a URI link for one of its own components. You can follow a similar process to link to your own online repository for your support bundles.

Replicated kURL includes an EKCO add-on for maintenance on embedded clusters, such as automating certificate rotation or data migration tasks. Replicated can ship this component with a support bundle manifest that warns users if they do not have this add-on installed or if it is not running in the cluster.

Example: Release v1.0.0

apiVersion: troubleshoot.sh/v1beta2
kind: SupportBundle
metadata:
  name:  ekco
spec:
  collectors:
  analyzers:
    - deploymentStatus:
        checkName: Check EKCO is operational
        name: ekc-operator
        namespace: kurl
        outcomes:
          - fail:
              when: absent
              message: EKCO is not installed - please add the EKCO component to your kURL spec and re-run the installer script
          - fail:
              when: "< 1"
              message: EKCO does not have any ready replicas
          - pass:
              message: EKCO has at least 1 replica

If a bug is discovered at any time after the release of the specification above, Replicated can write an analyzer for it in an online specification. By adding a URI link to the online specification, the support bundle uses the assets hosted in the online repository, which is kept current.

The uri field is added to the specification as a raw file link. Replicated hosts the online specification on GitHub.

Example: Release v1.1.0

apiVersion: troubleshoot.sh/v1beta2
kind: SupportBundle
metadata:
  name: ekco
spec:
  uri: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/replicatedhq/troubleshoot-specs/main/in-cluster/default.yaml
  collectors: [...]
  analyzers: [...]

Using the uri: property, the support bundle gets the latest online specification if it can, or falls back to the collectors and analyzers listed in the specification that is in the cluster.

Note that because the release version 1.0.0 did not contain the URI, Replicated would have to wait until existing users upgrade a cluster before getting the benefit of the new analyzer. Then, going forward, those users get any future online analyzers without having to upgrade. New users who install the version containing the URI as their initial installation automatically get any online analyzers when they generate a support bundle.

For more information about the URI, see Troubleshoot schema supports a uri:// field in the Troubleshoot documentation. For a complete example, see Debugging Kubernetes: Enhancements to Troubleshoot in The Replicated Blog.