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Knative Setup for Production

This guide covers installing and configuring Knative Serving for production use with vibeD.

Why Knative?​

Knative Serving gives vibeD-deployed artifacts serverless capabilities:

  • Scale to zero - Idle artifacts consume no compute resources
  • Automatic scaling - Handles traffic spikes without manual configuration
  • Revision management - Each deployment creates a new revision with instant rollback
  • Clean URLs - Artifacts get DNS-friendly URLs like my-app.default.vibed.example.com

For a comparison of all deployment targets, see Deployment Targets.

Option A: vibed-deps Helm Chart​

The bundled vibed-deps chart provides a quick Knative installation:

helm install vibed-deps deploy/helm/vibed-deps/ \
  --set knative.domain=vibed.example.com

Production Overrides​

ValueDefaultProduction
knative.domain127.0.0.1.sslip.ioYour real domain
knative.kourier.nodePort310800 (use LoadBalancer)
knative.versionv1.17.0Latest stable

Limitations​

  • Uses a Kubernetes Job with cluster-admin privileges
  • May conflict with existing Knative installations
  • Limited configuration options compared to manual install

Best for: Greenfield clusters without existing Knative or service mesh.

For production clusters, install Knative manually for full control over versions and configuration.

1. Install Knative Serving CRDs​

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/serving-crds.yaml

2. Install Knative Serving Core​

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/serving/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/serving-core.yaml

3. Wait for Core Components​

kubectl wait --for=condition=Available deployment --all \
  -n knative-serving --timeout=300s

4. Install Networking Layer​

Choose one networking layer:

Kourier (lightweight, recommended for vibeD):

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/net-kourier/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/kourier.yaml

kubectl patch configmap/config-network \
  --namespace knative-serving \
  --type merge \
  --patch '{"data":{"ingress-class":"kourier.ingress.networking.knative.dev"}}'

Istio (if you already have Istio):

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/net-istio/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/net-istio.yaml

Contour (if you already have Contour):

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/net-contour/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/net-contour.yaml

5. Configure Domain​

Replace the default sslip.io domain with your production domain:

kubectl patch configmap/config-domain \
  --namespace knative-serving \
  --type merge \
  --patch '{"data":{"vibed.example.com":""}}'

Production DNS​

Deployed artifacts are accessible at {name}.{namespace}.{domain}. You need DNS records pointing to your networking layer's external IP.

Find the External IP​

For Kourier:

kubectl get svc kourier -n kourier-system \
  -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0]}'

Wildcard DNS Record​

Create a wildcard DNS record pointing to the load balancer:

*.vibed.example.com  →  <LOAD_BALANCER_IP>

This routes all artifact URLs (e.g., my-app.default.vibed.example.com) to Knative.

ExternalDNS (Alternative)​

For automatic DNS management, use ExternalDNS with your DNS provider. ExternalDNS watches Knative Services and creates DNS records automatically.

Knative Auto-TLS​

Knative can automatically provision TLS certificates for deployed artifacts using cert-manager.

Prerequisites​

Install cert-manager and create a ClusterIssuer:

apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
kind: ClusterIssuer
metadata:
  name: letsencrypt-prod
spec:
  acme:
    server: https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory
    email: admin@example.com
    privateKeySecretRef:
      name: letsencrypt-prod
    solvers:
      - http01:
          ingress:
            class: kourier.ingress.networking.knative.dev

Enable Auto-TLS​

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/knative/net-certmanager/releases/download/knative-v1.17.0/release.yaml

kubectl patch configmap/config-network \
  --namespace knative-serving \
  --type merge \
  --patch '{"data":{"auto-tls":"Enabled","http-protocol":"Redirected"}}'

kubectl patch configmap/config-certmanager \
  --namespace knative-serving \
  --type merge \
  --patch '{"data":{"issuerRef":"kind: ClusterIssuer\nname: letsencrypt-prod"}}'

Deployed artifacts will automatically get HTTPS URLs with Let's Encrypt certificates.

Configuring vibeD for Knative​

Set these values in your Helm values file to match your Knative configuration:

config:
  knative:
    domainSuffix: "vibed.example.com"       # Must match config-domain
    ingressClass: "kourier.ingress.networking.knative.dev"
  deployment:
    preferredTarget: "auto"                  # Auto-detects Knative via CRD check

vibeD detects Knative by checking for the serving.knative.dev CRD at startup. If found, it uses Knative as the preferred deployment target.

Verifying Knative​

# Check Knative components
kubectl get pods -n knative-serving

# Check networking layer
kubectl get pods -n kourier-system

# Deploy a test artifact via vibeD, then check
kubectl get ksvc -A

# Verify DNS resolution
nslookup my-app.default.vibed.example.com

Skipping Knative​

vibeD works without Knative by deploying artifacts as standard Kubernetes Deployments with NodePort or ClusterIP Services.

To explicitly skip Knative even if it is installed:

config:
  deployment:
    preferredTarget: "kubernetes"

See Deployment Targets for the full comparison.