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Deployment Management

This section walks infrastructure administrators through deploying and configuring Crucible, referencing the detailed installation guide and architecture documentation.

Installation

For complete installation instructions, follow the installation guide, which covers:

  • Requirements - Kubernetes, vCenter/Proxmox, and recommended tools
  • Certificates - TLS certificate generation and configuration
  • Load Balancer - MetalLB setup for bare metal installations
  • Ingress - nginx ingress controller deployment
  • Storage - Longhorn configuration for persistent volumes
  • Database - PostgreSQL and pgAdmin installation
  • Crucible Applications - Helm chart deployment for all framework components

The installation guide includes example configurations and links to the k3s-install and k3s-production repositories containing production-ready values and setup scripts.

Deployment Architecture

Core Services

Crucible's architecture consists of:

  • Identity Management - Keycloak for authentication
  • Container Orchestration - Kubernetes (K3s recommended for bare metal)
  • Application Services - Player, Caster, Steamfitter, Alloy, TopoMojo, Gameboard, Blueprint, Gallery, CITE
  • Supporting Services - PostgreSQL, Redis, File Storage (S3/MinIO), Message Queue
  • Infrastructure - Load balancers, SSL termination, monitoring, and logging

See the Administrator Guide for more information.

Configuration Management

Application Configuration

Each Crucible application has specific configuration requirements documented in their respective GitHub repositories:

Helm chart values for each application are available in the helm-charts repository.

Secrets Management

For sensitive configuration:

  • Store secrets in Kubernetes secrets or external secret managers
  • Use the certificate procedures from the installation guide
  • Rotate credentials regularly following security best practices

Scaling and Performance

Scaling Considerations

  • Horizontal Scaling - Most Crucible applications are stateless and can scale horizontally by increasing replica counts in Helm values
  • Vertical Scaling - Adjust resource limits and requests in Helm chart values based on workload requirements
  • Storage Planning - The installation guide notes that minimal hardware configurations start at 100-250 GB storage, 8 GB RAM, and 2 cores per node

Resource Optimization

Monitor resource utilization through:

  • Kubernetes metrics and dashboards (Rancher if installed)
  • PostgreSQL query performance
  • Storage usage via Longhorn (if installed)

Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Health Monitoring

  • Use Kubernetes health checks and readiness probes defined in Helm charts
  • Monitor application logs via kubectl logs or centralized logging solutions
  • Check service status with kubectl get pods -A

Common Issues

Refer to the Troubleshooting Guide for procedures and solutions to aid in common deployment problems.

Security

For deployment security considerations, see: