Deploying CTRL

Purpose/Aim

This guide aims to provide a clear step-by-step process for deployment the CTRL platform using Kubernetes and Helm. Whether you're deploying CTRL for production use or for demo/testing purposes, this guide will walk you through the essential setup steps, configuration, and validation processes.

Tools

CTRL's deployment relies on modern DevOps tools for infrastructure automation and application orchestration:

• helm - package manager for Kubernetes that automates the creation, packaging, and deployment of applications. It allows you to reuse charts (packages of YAML templates) and provides an easy way to manage configurable deployments through values.yaml.
• kubernetes - open-source container orchestration system used to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerised applications. It uses declarative configuration via YAML files and CLI tools (kubectl) to manage services and infrastructure.

Together, these tools form a simple yet robust pipeline to deploy CTRL with flexibility across environments (demo, staging, production).

Process

1. Set up Kubernetes (k3s recommended)

   Install a Kubernetes distribution in order to orchestrate the ctrl deployment (k3s is our preferred distribution, see instructions).

2. Prepare Configuration (values.yaml)

   Create a values.yaml file to define deployment-specific configuration:

   *e.g.
   values.yaml*
   -----------
   demoMode:
     enabled: true | false # Demo seed data refreshed every night.
   
   ingress:
     hosts:
       userClient:
         hostname: "[your.ctrl.org.au](http://your.ctrl.org.au/)" # Your ctrl site hostname
       adminClient:
         hostname: "admin.[your.ctrl.org.au](http://your.ctrl.org.au/)" # Your ctrl admin site hostname
   
   cert-manager:
     enabled: true | false # Use for TLS (https) encryption on in flight data.
   
   letsencryptEmail: "email@some.institute.org.au" # Must have this configured if using cert-manager
   
   userClient:
     image:
       tag: "latest" # Specific tagged version of CTRL userClient
   
   adminClient:
     image:
       tag: "latest" # Specific tagged version of CTRL adminClient
   
   backend:
     image:
       tag: "latest" # Specific tagged version of CTRL backend

   NOTE(s):

   • Make sure your domain names (e.g. your.ctrl.org.au) are pointed to your server or VM's public IP via DNS.
   • TLS support requires cert-manager and proper DNS configuration
   • Tagged release versions of CTRL can be found here

3. Install Helm

   Install helm to automate the configuration using CTRLs helm charts (see instructions).

4. Pull the CTRL Helm Charts (optional)

   helm pull oci://australia-southeast1-docker.pkg.dev/dsp-registry-410602/garvan-public/ctrl --version <ctrl-version>

   Which will download a file like ctrl-<ctrl-version>.tgz which can be used for the helm upgrade --install step below.

   NOTE(s):

   • <ctrl-version> e.g. 1.0.0
   • Tagged release versions of CTRL can be found here

5. Deploy CTRL w/ Helm

   # Using public CTRL helm charts
   helm upgrade --install <release-name> oci://australia-southeast1-docker.pkg.dev/dsp-registry-410602/garvan-public/ctrl:<ctrl-version> -f <path/to/values.yaml> --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml
   
   # ---OR---
   # Optionally, using locally pulled helm charts from step 4. 
   # This can be used if you want to inspect the helm charts directly before 
   # installing CTRL by extracting the tar (e.g. tar -zxvf ctrl-1.0.0.tgz).
   helm upgrade --install <release-name> <path/to/helm/charts> -f <path/to/values.yaml> --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml

   NOTE(s):

   • <release-name> e.g. garvan-ctrl
   • <ctrl-version> e.g. 1.0.0
   • <path/to/values.yaml> e.g. ~/values.yaml
   • <path/to/.helm/charts> e.g. ~/ctrl-1.0.0.tgz
   • /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml - This path by default. Replace with your actual kubeconfig path if different
   • Tagged release versions of CTRL can be found here***

6. Verify Deployment

   use kubectl to verify that the deployment was successful:

   # Check running pods
   kubectl get pods
   **
   # Check logs for specific pods
   kubectl logs <pod-name>
   
   # Describe deployments
   kubectl describe deployment <deployment>
   
   # List secrets
   kubectl get secrets

   ✅ All pods should reach the Running state with no crash loops or errors.

7. Access CTRL in Browser

   Navigate to the domain(s) you configured (e.g., https://your.ctrl.org.au and https://admin.your.ctrl.org.au) to confirm that the CTRL user portal and admin portal are running.

✅ You should see the CTRL login screens for both user and admin portals.