Gradle Enterprise Helm Standalone Installation Manual

Before installation

Installation Overview

Gradle Enterprise is a Kubernetes-based application, distributed as a Helm chart. Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes applications.

The standalone installation of Gradle Enterprise described in this manual involves installing the K3s lightweight Kubernetes distribution onto a host, then using Helm to install and upgrade Gradle Enterprise in the K3s instance on that host.

Helm manages all Gradle Enterprise components, tracking what has been installed and upgrading them gracefully.

The helm command is used to install Gradle Enterprise into K3s and manages each installation / upgrade as a Helm release. See the Helm documentation for explanation of Helm concepts.

It is not necessary to have prior familiarity with Kubernetes concepts to install the Gradle Enterprise standalone distribution.

Database type

Gradle Enterprise can store data in either:

An embedded database that uses a local directory or volume to store its data, or
A user-managed database that is completely separate from Gradle Enterprise.

The two have different trade-offs. Please consider these prior to installation of Gradle Enterprise.

Embedded database

When using the embedded database, Gradle Enterprise will run a PostgreSQL database in a container and store data in a local directory. In this mode Gradle Enterprise can run backups on a regular or cron-like schedule.

The embedded database has several advantages:

Simple setup: there is no other database to provision or configure.
The database will get upgraded in-place to the latest PostgreSQL version supported by Gradle Enterprise with the relevant Gradle Enterprise upgrade.
Gradle Enterprise features that need disk space usage information are supported.
For smaller installations it is often cheaper than using a separate database.

However, there are downsides to the embedded database, in particular for larger installations:

Disk I/O throughput can be a bottleneck to processing on a busy system. This can be difficult to tweak in many setups.
Backup management can get difficult past a certain database size. Specifically, backup generation can be slow and create load on the server, and managing backup files for a terabyte-sized database can be awkward.
There is no ability to keep a standby database available.
The database is a single point of failure. However, for single-node Gradle Enterprise installations any system outage will likely take the service down, regardless of the database.

User-managed database

A user-managed database can be any PostgreSQL 12, 13, or 14 compatible database, but the most common usage is a cloud-based database provider such as Amazon RDS or Aurora. These have a number of advantages, particularly in large installations:

Database systems need a different set of resources to be provisioned to run smoothly. For example, a high-traffic Gradle Enterprise instance processing a lot of Build Scans will need a lot of memory, but the database needs a lot of I/O throughput and CPU. Separating the database to a different system that can be scaled differently can allow more cost-effective resource allocation.
Most cloud-based database providers have tools that allow efficient snapshotting of databases, both manually and scheduled. This allows faster and more convenient backup and data management.
Many cloud database instances allow scaling of resources easily after an initial installation. This makes adding more storage or upgrading the instance type easier than changing the configuration of nodes that Gradle Enterprise is installed on.
It is possible to run standby databases for failover in the case of an outage. If self-hosting, this can be done using something like wal-e, and many cloud database providers have this functionality built in to the service.
Some cloud database providers have hot standby and failover functionality built in to the service.

There are some downsides to using a user-managed database:

Extra system(s) to provision and configure.
Administrator must ensure network connectivity to the cloud instance, and consider network latency when choosing where to set up a database.
Backups must be completely managed by the administrator or cloud database tool.
Disk space management and alerting must be completely managed by the administrator or cloud database tool. Gradle Enterprise features that allow certain actions at disk space percentage thresholds are not available.
There are extra security considerations such as credential cycling.

Installation requirements

This section outlines the installation resource requirements and configuration aspects that need to be resolved during installation.

Operating system requirements

We focus our support efforts on Ubuntu 18.04/20.04/22.04/24.04, RHEL 8/9, and Debian 11/12. Gradle Enterprise is expected to work on most modern Linux systems.

CPU & memory requirements

The minimum installation requirements are:

Quad-core 2GHz or better CPU (amd64 architecture)
24 GB free RAM

Network connectivity requirements

Runtime network connectivity requirements

Gradle Enterprise can be run on hosts that can pull images from the internet, referred to as an online install in this guide, or on hosts without internet connectivity, referred to as an airgap install in this guide.

When starting, online installations of Gradle Enterprise will validate its license with Gradle over the internet. Once running, Gradle Enterprise will periodically check for license updates.

An online installation of Gradle Enterprise will not start if it cannot connect to both registry.gradle.com and harbor.gradle.com.

Airgap installations of Gradle Enterprise do not require internet connectivity when running (airgap installations do not validate the license on startup and do not periodically check for updates) and therefore do not require any special firewall rules. However, the airgap bundle used during installation must be downloaded from an internet-connected host. See Airgap installation for details.

Airgap installations require a specific entitlement on your license. If you need an airgap-enabled license, please contact your customer success representative.

Installation network connectivity requirements

Downloading the Gradle Enterprise Helm chart and container images requires internet access.

For online installations, Helm must be run on a host that has access to the internet.

For airgap installations:

The installation files must be downloaded on a host with access to the internet
Helm can be run on a host without access to the internet
There must be some mechanism for transferring the downloaded installation files to where they will be used

Network connectivity verification

See Verifying network connectivity for instructions on verifying network access prior to installation.

Storage requirements

Embedded database

By default, Gradle Enterprise stores its data in a database that is run as part of the application itself, with data being stored in a directory mounted on its host machine. It is also possible to store most data in a user-managed database - see the below for details.

Capacity

Gradle Enterprise stores the majority of its data in its “installation directory”, which defaults to /opt/gradle. The recommended minimum initial capacity to provide for this directory is 250 GB. It is recommended to create a specific volume for the installation directory to avoid having another consume the space required for Gradle Enterprise, and to ensure at least 10% of the volume’s space is free at all times.

The amount of space used and rate of growth is dependent on your usage of Gradle Enterprise. See the disk space management section of the administration manual for information on avoiding running out of disk space for the installation directory.

The following are additional disk capacity requirements:

Location

Location
`/tmp`	1 GB
`/var/lib/rancher/k3s`	30 GB

/tmp

1 GB

/var/lib/rancher/k3s

30 GB

Backups

It is recommended to create backups of your Gradle Enterprise installation for disaster recovery purposes, by using Gradle Enterprise’s built-in backup scheduling. By default, backups are stored in the “backups” directory of the installation directory. To simplify disk space management, it is recommended to either mount a separate volume at this location or change this setting to a separate volume. The backup location can be specified at installation time, and changed later.

Performance

For production workloads, storage volumes should exhibit SSD-class disk performance of at least 3000 input/output operations per second (IOPS). Most desktop-class, non-SSD disk drives do not provide this level of performance.

Disk performance has a significant impact on Gradle Enterprise performance. Gradle Enterprise is not compatible with network-based storage solutions due to limitations of latency and data consistency.

If you are experiencing performance problems, consider reviewing your Database type options or upgrading to gain access to Amazon S3 Build Scan storage. You can also contact Gradle support for advice.

Amazon Web Services

If you are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic Block Storage (EBS) to host your Gradle Enterprise instance you should ensure that you provision 3,000 or more IOPS for the data volume. Keep in mind that some general purpose volumes (e.g. gp2) are limited to 3 IOPS per gigabyte, meaning that a 200 GB volume will only provide a maximum of 600 IOPS. If you are provisioning a volume smaller than 1TB you should consider using gp3 or a provisioned IOPS volume.

The recommendations above are based on average workloads. For projects with more complex builds or teams that produce a large number of Build Scans, Gradle Enterprise may require higher I/O performance than suggested.

User-managed database

Gradle Enterprise can be configured to store data in a database that is hosted and managed separately to the rest of the application. This can help with performance in some circumstances by allowing database resources to be scaled separately to Gradle Enterprise. It can also simplify backups and volume management when using a database provider that provides tooling for these out of the box.

When using a user-managed database, some Gradle Enterprise administrative features such as automated backups and Build Scan disk space management features that respond to low disk space scenarios are not available. Additionally, some installation local disk storage is still required for log files and build cache artifacts.

Compatibility

Gradle Enterprise needs to connect to a PostgreSQL version 12, 13 or 14 compatible database.

Performance and capacity considerations

For similar workloads, Gradle Enterprise will need similar storage capacity and IOPS throughput as for the embedded database mentioned above. Please see your database provider’s options for provisioning and ensure that they meet these requirements.

When Gradle Enterprise and the database are not deployed in a private network near each other, consideration should also be given to ensuring that the database is hosted as close to the Gradle Enterprise host as possible. In a cloud provider this typically means deploying within the same availability zone or equivalent. This will ensure the lowest latency and highest throughput. Gradle Enterprise will not perform adequately under load if latency to its database is too high.

Backups

When using a user-managed database, backups must be handled by the database provider. Gradle Enterprise built-in backups will not operate in this mode.

Networking configuration

Application hostname

When installing Gradle Enterprise, you will need to provide a hostname, such as ge.example.com. This should be the hostname that users of the installation use to access it and therefore should resolve within your network. It is usually the name of the Gradle Enterprise host, or the hostname of a reverse proxy if one is being used.

HTTPS SSL certificate

It is strongly recommended that production installations of Gradle Enterprise are configured to use HTTPS with a trusted certificate.

Gradle Enterprise natively supports serving traffic over HTTPS when configured with a certificate and key. If you intend to use an ingress controller for directing external traffic to Gradle Enterprise, you may opt to terminate HTTPS there. It is also possible to terminate HTTPS connections in an external reverse proxy.

Untrusted SSL certificates

By default, Gradle Enterprise uses the default trust settings of the Java runtime that it ships with when connecting to other systems using SSL. If your organization uses certificates that are not signed by a trusted certificate authority, you must perform additional configuration for this to work. This may be the case if you use self-signed certificates or an internal certificate authority.

Additional trusted certificates can be specified at installation time via the unattended configuration mechanism, using the additionalTrust field in the unattended configuration file. The value of this field should be the X509 certificates to trust in PEM format, newline-seperated if there are more than one.

For example, using the inline Helm values support to include the unattended config in a values file:

values.yaml

global:
    unattended:
      configuration:
        version: 4
        systemPassword: ...
        additionalTrust: |
            -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
            MIIDfzCCAmegAwIBAgIURqPslYGu7cHXs22q3RK6e5L87PwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL
            ...
            s10yB5VjVBES6A22rYwYb8mImpQiVP/mr4ao5U5m+h50l3E=
            -----END CERTIFICATE-----
            -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
            DSE3a3CCAmegAwIBAgIURqPslYGu7cHXs22q3RK6e5L87PwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEL
            ...
            s10yB5VjVBES6A22rYwYb8mImpQiVP/mr4ao5U5m+h50l3E=
            -----END CERTIFICATE-----

Additional trusted certificates can also be configured after installation, see the Untrusted SSL certificates section of the administration guide.

Helm configuration

Many aspects of Gradle Enterprise can be configured inside the application in the Administration screens. However, some things must be configured via Helm. These are typically things that are necessary to get Gradle Enterprise up and running and serving requests.

Prior to installing Gradle Enterprise, you will need to prepare a Helm values file and have your Gradle Enterprise license and SSL certificates (optional) available on the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise.

Providing configuration to Helm

Helm configuration can be provided in several ways:

Passing values directly to the helm command using --set or --set-file.
Creating a Helm values file and passing it to helm using --values.
Editing the default Helm values file in the chart prior to running helm.

Nested items in the values file have equivalents on the command line. So a values file with this content:

values.yaml

global:
  hostname: ge.example.com
database:
  type: embedded

is equivalent to passing --set global.hostname=ge.example.com --set database.type=embedded on the command line.

It is also possible to put more complex data into a Helm values file, such as a whole file:

values.yaml

global:
  license:
    file: |
      multi
      line
      content
      here

Unless otherwise indicated, most values are optional and have usable defaults.

Example values file

Although the most commonly required configuration options are documented below, the example values file that can be found here and is included in the distribution has descriptions for all supported configuration options. After installing Helm and adding the Gradle Helm repository, this file can be viewed by running the following command:

$ helm show values gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone

The output of this command can be redirected to a file to use as the starting point for your configuration:

$ helm show values gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone > values.yaml

It’s also possible to see these values when installing from an airgap bundle. After downloading the bundle and transferring it to a host with Helm installed, extract and then run helm show values with the included chart:

$ helm show values gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7.tgz (1)

1	The file argument is a Helm chart archive as created by `helm pull` or extracted from an airgap bundle, not the airgap bundle itself.

Airgap configuration

In an airgap installation, the container images are preloaded into K3s. Helm is then configured so that no attempt is made to pull images from the outside world.

values.yaml

global:
  image:
    imagePullPolicy: Never

Gradle Enterprise license

You will have been provided with a Gradle Enterprise license file. This file can be used in any testing, staging or production deployments.

Your Gradle Enterprise license file must be provided to Helm. This can be done in a number of ways.

You can provide the file to helm using --set-file:

$ (helm command) --set-file global.license.file=path/to/gradle-enterprise.license

Alternatively, you can embed the file into your Helm values file:

values.yaml

global:
  license:
    file: |
      ====================== GRADLE ENTERPRISE LICENSE V1.0 ======================
      License file ID: YC3IWLASSXB5E
      Issued to: ACME Co.
      Issued at: 2022-02-11T05:11:38Z
      ============================================================================
      R0VMRgF4nBWOSZKCMAAAX+QUu3BUIJAIwUQiwsViEwMIDKOyvH701n3p6nJBYxoRHnAUnwHwKLjb
      YZMAbN8B5BMv3HaCdc9PbcG+Hkdz93XW+gsOY34jP+WC1iKC38SeCCKANn57HP7Bx/lVmFCLROHL
      Sv5hP4xlXO9kf40n35x4GgHhk5txTQQcMsmvG8Uz0W/hNN9eQlaMzsK8ZyKOSX0GsBN+dsp5Wq10
      /kVuf6u8LfUCPc72q79TWCvmFvNQD6RemcTxAbfILTNuaMsNgLjdCjYVK7padCLiolv2wc1P3pXF
      GoAExap9ZPKZTXpeaAaPeFF2qANCH/eXVW7+8kVxz0VH4PPnPjXc1yWzmHNTBu2WbpfDaSJil/g8
      lqB6zfaOvfSKQGkVMNthtqjJdSCmne3gWXpFJpGAe7dKkrD9K/vpoUZNUWuV7dFbFpqkNhJn+XAQ
      r2cjAak5TluR14aCsX6Fr4JgfSPyWNYdOB7DXrlnNT7d3p+/cFoqGVOvqjfDrnIkVBPLK5PCufU8
      VQzz/fagwC6dMtq0MEw5bphm5+LQeFPg/AOoua9P
      ====================== END GRADLE ENTERPRISE LICENSE =======================

It is also possible to specify the Gradle Enterprise license in its compact form, which is just the "data" part of the license.

values.yaml

global:
  license:
    file: R0VMRgF4nBWOSZKCMAAAX+QUu3BUIJAIwUQiwsViEwMIDKOyvH701n3p6nJBYxoRHnAUnwHwKLjb...

This can be more convenient in some provisioning setups.

Hostname

As described above, a hostname for the application must be supplied:

values.yaml

global:
  hostname: ge.example.com

HTTPS

Connecting to the application over HTTPS is strongly recommended. Gradle Enterprise can be configured to securely serve traffic over HTTPS based on user-provided certificates. If certificates are not supplied, self-signed certificates will be generated and used, though this is not recommended for production operation.

HTTPS terminated at the built-in Ingress

When using the Gradle Enterprise supplied Ingress, HTTPS is enabled by default. It can be disabled to serve traffic over HTTP only:

values.yaml

ingress:
  enabled: true
  ssl:
    enabled: false

SSL certificates can be provided inline in the Helm values file:

values.yaml

ingress:
  enabled: true
  ssl:
    cert: |
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIDKjCCAhKgAwIBAgIRAPNTIHf6/oUuzMKm3ffGNOgwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAw
      HDEaMBgGA1UEAxMRYXV0by1nZW5lcmF0ZWQtY2EwHhcNMjExMTMwMTU1NDU5WhcN
      ...
      Cn/3yUirFVTslrSYKAemLw8btLO6FDF9dc/lq1o7tKsYVuhEcjqnTah7puJjEN9h
      z+P5RmRxU/kaaFB+Vuw1pRezbaAtZNorVgXnBwrdseY4zLGyhAcGcR9v+VtCiQ==
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    key: |
      -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
      MIIEpQIBAAKCAQEA4qV8JlqDMi7y85Ykq8dn7uIsi609D6KuFtlc+UvNYjatz0+u
      QzIr3iw//qf7sM8nx8fhGwuWvUWeCE6zbgKjuxDH82J9NQ0ctf70n0qVTeyW1CKR
      ...
      XlOfXr/xvkXA66PROgvVxfwpN/GNrLXFi1HvMg7MVZJUZQpNzpAzw5JTk2MbawOl
      G7tI0qQ6F20e5R4tPpEDKCFZykyvgGMhfLzsvVlrgaVW8QbVK4YWNtQ=
      -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Or supplied as helm arguments using --set-file:

$ (helm command) \
    --set-file ingress.ssl.cert=path/to/ssl.crt \
    --set-file ingress.ssl.key=path/to/ssl.key

HTTPS terminated externally

In many setups, a reverse proxy or load balancer will perform SSL termination. In these cases SSL certificates must be configured with that infrastructure.

Gradle Enterprise needs to know that the application will be accessed over externally terminated HTTPS. This is done with the following configuration:

values.yaml

global:
  hostname: ge.example.com
  externalSSLTermination: true

If you’re using the provided Ingress, you may wish to communicate between the load balancer and the application using HTTP by disabling SSL at the Ingress:

values.yaml

ingress:
  enabled: true
  ssl:
    enabled: false

Application ports

The ports that the application accepts traffic on can be altered from the default of 443 (or 80 if accepting plain HTTP):

values.yaml

ingress:
  enabled: true
  port:
    http: 8080
    https: 8443

Storage configuration

The Gradle Enterprise standalone distribution will store its data in a specified directory. By default, this is /opt/gradle.

Logs and backups will be stored in subdirectories of that directory by default. These two locations can be set to something different, to allow logs and backups to be stored on different volumes.

values.yaml

global:
  storage:
    directory: /mnt/big-volume/ge           # Default /opt/gradle
    logs:
      directory: /var/log/gradle-enterprise # Default (global.storage.directory)/logs
    backup:
      directory: /mnt/vol2/ge-backups       # Default (global.storage.directory)/backups

Database configuration

By default, Gradle Enterprise will use an embedded database that stores its data in a local directory. In this configuration, there is nothing else to set up regarding the database.

When Gradle Enterprise is configured to store data in a user-managed database, it must be provided with connection settings and credentials for the database.

Standard connection settings like host, port and database name must be provided. Optionally, additional JDBC parameters can be specified.

values.yaml

database:
  location: user-managed
  connection:
    host: database.example.com
    port: 5432
    databaseName: gradle_enterprise
    params: "?connectTimeout=60"

The port and params properties are optional.

The database must have already been created using CREATE DATABASE, the createdb command or an equivalent mechanism in a cloud database interface prior to configuring Gradle Enterprise with connection details.

There are two options for credentials. If provided with credentials for a database superuser (such as the postgres user that is common on PostgreSQL database instances), Gradle Enterprise can perform all further database setup, and can do so for all subsequent Gradle Enterprise upgrades. This is the recommended configuration.

values.yaml

database:
  location: user-managed
  connection: ...
  credentials:
    superuser:
      username: postgres
      password: the_password

Note that in some installations, and often in cloud-based databases, the typical credentials provided by the database provider are not a true superuser, but have many of the same abilities. For example, the supplied postgres account in Amazon RDS Postgres databases is not a true Postgres superuser but has the rds_superuser role. Such accounts are fine to configure Gradle Enterprise to use.

In some instances it may be be preferable to not supply Gradle Enterprise with database superuser credentials. It is possible to instead run a database setup script on the database, which will set up less privileged accounts for the application to use, and some privileged functions needed for the application to run. The credentials for the accounts must then be set by the user and provided to Gradle Enterprise via Helm configuration.

values.yaml

database:
  location: user-managed
  connection: ...
  credentials:
    app:
      password: app_password
    migrator:
      password: migrator_password

Please contact Gradle support for assistance in setting up a database without providing superuser credentials.

Unattended application configuration

Many aspects of Gradle Enterprise’s behaviour can be configured via the Admin user interface. These are described in the Administration Manual.

It is possible to pre-configure Gradle Enterprise with the same settings that can be set via the Admin UI. This is useful to create a working Gradle Enterprise instance in a completely automated way, with no need to configure anything via a user interface.

The settings take the form of a yaml file. This file can be hand-written or exported from Gradle Enterprise. For more details on creating a Gradle Enterprise configuration yaml file, see Unattended configuration in the Administration Manual.

Having prepared a Gradle Enterprise configuration file and optionally an encryption key, you can provide it to Helm in one of two ways.

Example key:

gradle-enterprise-configuration.key

aes256:B0uVHRDhng+PraUI:Aj25DOwJsrXnWYcprreHAS4l66k/7q5CIjFDg5PTR7U=

Example yaml file:

gradle-enterprise-configuration.yaml

version: 4
systemPassword: "ObvvvqQww04Fn2jLBOOgjZDkXGL06fNmpueVcdk1lz0=:dBLNuLA/+qiwOqBQKf5pW89SV5mcQBJ4Vph/7lXerdD+2sLM8jij+2WJbBwXsqJ+mJugsveuUb+DyU3LBgkqcg=="
buildScans:
  keepDays: 30
email:
  administratorAddress: gradle-enterprise-adminstrator@example.com
  fromAddress: gradle-enterprise@example.com
  smtpServer: smtp.example.com:587
  sslProtocol: startTls
  authentication:
    type: login
    username: gradle-enterprise-adminstrator@example.com
    password: "aes256:B0uVHRDhng+PraUI:2bOz71vKTexz0QH5:z7lO+1wOC/tA3izLAwV0BXMugg=="

The file and encryption key can be provided inline in a Helm values file under the global.unattended property:

values.yaml

global:
  unattended:
    key: "aes256:B0uVHRDhng+PraUI:Aj25DOwJsrXnWYcprreHAS4l66k/7q5CIjFDg5PTR7U=" (1)
    configuration: (2)
      version: 4
      systemPassword: "ObvvvqQww04Fn2jLBOOgjZDkXGL06fNmpueVcdk1lz0=:dBLNuLA/+qiwOqBQKf5pW89SV5mcQBJ4Vph/7lXerdD+2sLM8jij+2WJbBwXsqJ+mJugsveuUb+DyU3LBgkqcg=="
      buildScans:
        keepDays: 30
      email:
        administratorAddress: gradle-enterprise-adminstrator@example.com
        fromAddress: gradle-enterprise@example.com
        smtpServer: smtp.example.com:587
        sslProtocol: startTls
        authentication:
          type: login
          username: gradle-enterprise-adminstrator@example.com
          password: "aes256:B0uVHRDhng+PraUI:2bOz71vKTexz0QH5:z7lO+1wOC/tA3izLAwV0BXMugg=="

1	The encryption key used for any secrets in your configuration. In this example, the password for email authentication is encrypted. Not required if the configuration does not contain any encrypted passwords. Note that the `systemPassword` is a hashed value, not an encrypted one, and so does not require an encryption key.
2	The Gradle Enterprise configuration yaml is put inline underneath this property. Content needs to be indented such that it is all correctly under the `global.unattended.configuration` property.

Or they can be supplied as helm arguments using --set-file:

$ (helm command) \
    --set-file global.unattended.configuration=path/to/gradle-enterprise-configuration.yaml \
    --set-file global.unattended.key=path/to/gradle-enterprise-configuration.key

Gradle Enterprise configuration that is set in Helm like this will not be reapplied (i.e. overwrite manual changes made in the Admin UI) in subsequent installations unless the contents of the config file(s) has changed.

Installation

As discussed in the network connectivity section, Gradle Enterprise supports two installation approaches.

At a high level, an online installation involves the following steps:

Install K3s and Helm.
Add and update the Gradle Helm repository.
Create a Helm values file.
Install Gradle Enterprise.

An airgap installation instead involves the following steps:

Download necessary installation files.
Create a Helm values file.
Transfer files to where they will be used.
Install K3s, Helm, and Gradle Enterprise.

Please see the following sections for details.

Online installation

If the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise has internet connectivity, perform an online installation as described below.

1. Install K3s

Install K3s and make it available to the current user:

$ curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -

$ sudo chown $UID /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml

$ mkdir -p "${HOME}/.kube"

$ ln -sf /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml "${HOME}/.kube/config"

Verify that you can interact with the K3s cluster:

$ kubectl get namespace

The expected output should be similar to this:

Output

NAME                STATUS   AGE
default             Active   1h
kube-system         Active   1h
kube-public         Active   1h
kube-node-lease     Active   1h

For more information on K3s installation, see the K3s Quick-Start Guide and K3s Installation.

2. Install Helm

Gradle Enterprise requires Helm version 3.5.x (or later) to install.

It is recommended to use the latest version available as this will have all known security vulnerabilities addressed. This document describes the maximum version skew supported between Helm and Kubernetes.

For more information on installing Helm (including alternate installation approaches), see Installing Helm.

Install Helm with the following command:

$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

3. Install the `gradle-enterprise-standalone` Helm chart

Gradle Enterprise is distributed from the Gradle Enterprise Helm repository.

Add the Gradle Enterprise Helm repository to your Helm installation and fetch its contents into the local cache:

$ helm repo add gradle https://helm.gradle.com/

$ helm repo update gradle

Verify that the Gradle Enterprise chart is accessible:

$ helm search repo gradle-enterprise

This will report the latest versions available for the two Gradle Enterprise charts:

Output

NAME                               	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION
gradle/gradle-enterprise           	2022.2.7        2022.2.7    Official Gradle Enterprise chart for Kubernetes cluster installations
gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone	2022.2.7        2022.2.7    Official Gradle Enterprise chart for standalone installations

This guide covers installation of the gradle-enterprise-standalone chart. Installation of the gradle-enterprise chart is covered in the Self-Hosted Kubernetes Installation Guide.

4. Install Gradle Enterprise

Install Gradle Enterprise by running:

$ helm install \
    --create-namespace --namespace gradle-enterprise \(1)
    ge-standalone \(2)
    gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone \(3)
    --values values.yaml \(4)
    --set-file global.license.file=./gradle-enterprise.license (5)

1	This example uses gradle-enterprise as the namespace, but it can be a custom name. If you use a custom name, update all other example commands accordingly.
2	This is the Helm release name. It is used by Helm to identify the Gradle Enterprise installation.
3	The Gradle Enterprise chart to install, in this case, `gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone`. To install a specific version, use `--version 2022.2.7`.
4	The Helm values file with configuration values, including items such as the hostname.
5	The Gradle Enterprise license file (if not already included in values file).

You may wish to pass other files using --set-file, such as certificates for HTTPS, or unattended configuration files.

Configuration values are provided to Helm when running the helm command by:

providing a Helm values file (which can contain inline files) with --values
providing files (such as the Gradle Enterprise license or certificates) with --set-file

Airgap installation

In an airgap installation, the container images are preloaded into K3s. Helm is then configured so that no attempt is made to pull images from the outside world.

Airgap installations require a specific entitlement on your license. Please contact Gradle if you need an Airgap-enabled license.

Airgap installation involves downloading files, transferring them, installing supporting software, and running helm install.

When installing Gradle Enterprise, follow the installation manual for that version as the steps may have changed. See Gradle Enterprise releases for information about the available versions.

We recommend you save all the files into a single transfer directory, so that it is easy to transfer to the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise. For example:

$ mkdir gradle-enterprise-files && cd gradle-enterprise-files

1. Download K3s

Use the compatability matrix to identify the latest version of K3s supported by your version of Develocity.

Download the K3s images, binary, and install script:

$ curl -LO https://github.com/k3s-io/k3s/releases/«k3s-version»/download/k3s

$ curl -LO \
  https://github.com/k3s-io/k3s/releases/«k3s-version»/download/k3s-airgap-images-amd64.tar.gz

$ curl -L -o install_k3s.sh https://get.k3s.io

If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SELinux enabled, download the K3s policy package:

SELinux policy package download

Lookup the latest version of the K3s SELinux Policy package:

$ K3S_SELINUX_DOWNLOAD_URL=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/k3s-io/k3s-selinux/releases/latest | jq -r '.assets[] | select( .name | endswith("el8.noarch.rpm") ) | .browser_download_url') && echo $K3S_SELINUX_DOWNLOAD_URL

You can view the versions available and find the download links on the K3s SELinux releases page.

Then download it:

$ curl -L -o k3s-selinux.el8.noarch.rpm $K3S_SELINUX_DOWNLOAD_URL

2. Download Helm

Use the compatibility matrix to identify the latest version of Helm supported by your version of Develocity.

Download the Helm binary:

$ curl -L -o helm-linux-amd64.tar.gz https://get.helm.sh/helm-v«helm-version»-linux-amd64.tar.gz

You can see all available Helm releases on the Helm releases page.

3. Download bundle

Save your Gradle Enterprise license to the transfer directory as gradle-enterprise.license.

Download and verify the airgap bundle:

$ curl -LOJd @gradle-enterprise.license \
    https://registry.gradle.com/airgap/gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz

$ curl -LOJd @gradle-enterprise.license \
    https://registry.gradle.com/airgap/gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz.sha256

$ sha256sum -c gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz.sha256

If the checksum verification fails, check the contents of the downloaded files for error messages.
If the error message indicates that your license is invalid/expired/not airgap enabled, you will need to request an updated license file by contacting your customer success representative.

Instead of running the above curl commands, you can download the airgap bundle by navigating to https://registry.gradle.com/airgap in your browser and following the instructions on the page.

4. Download example Helm values file

Download and verify the example Helm values file:

$ curl -L -o example.values.yaml https://docs.gradle.com/enterprise/helm-standalone-installation/values-{version}/gradle-enterprise-standalone-values-{version}.yaml

$ curl -L -o example.values.yaml.sha256 https://docs.gradle.com/enterprise/helm-standalone-installation/values-{version}/gradle-enterprise-standalone-values-{version}.yaml.sha256

$ echo "$(cat example.values.yaml.sha256)  example.values.yaml" | sha256sum -c

5. Configure Helm values file

Before installing Gradle Enterprise and its prerequisites, we recommend creating your Helm values file on your local workstation (where you can use your favorite text editor). Copy “example.values.yaml” to “values.yaml”, review the available settings, and modify as needed.

6. Transfer files

Check that the transfer directory has the following files (additional files are fine):

k3s-airgap-images-amd64.tar.gz
k3s
install_k3s.sh
k3s-selinux.el8.noarch.rpm (only if you are running SELinux)
helm-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gradle-enterprise.license
values.yaml
gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz
Optional: SSL certificates

Once you’ve verified that you have the required files, transfer them to the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise.

7. Install K3s

Follow these instructions on the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise with your transferred files present in the current directory.

If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux with SELinux enabled, first install the necessary policy packages:

SELinux Policy installation

Install the container-selinux package. This is a package that can be found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s default repository. Install this package on the airgapped server just such as you would install any other package. If your organization has an internal mirror of the Red Hat package repositories, you can run:
```
$ sudo yum install -y container-selinux
```
Install the K3s SELinux Policy package you downloaded:
```
$ sudo yum install -y k3s-selinux.el8.noarch.rpm
```

Then install and set up K3s:

Install K3s and make it available to the current user:

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/images/ && \
  sudo cp k3s-airgap-images-amd64.tar.gz /var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/images/

$ (cd /var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/images/ && sudo gunzip -f k3s-airgap-images-amd64.tar.gz)

$ sudo cp k3s /usr/local/bin && sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/k3s

$ sudo chmod a+rx ./install_k3s.sh && INSTALL_K3S_SKIP_DOWNLOAD=true ./install_k3s.sh

$ sudo chown $UID /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml && \
  mkdir -p "${HOME}/.kube" && \
  ln -sf /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml "${HOME}/.kube/config"

Verify that you can interact with the K3s cluster:
```
$ kubectl get namespace
```

Output

NAME                STATUS   AGE
default             Active   1h
kube-system         Active   1h
kube-public         Active   1h
kube-node-lease     Active   1h

8. Install Helm

Follow these instructions on the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise with your transferred files present in the current directory.

To install Helm:

$ tar -zxvf helm-linux-amd64.tar.gz && sudo mv linux-amd64/helm /usr/local/bin/helm

Verify that helm is installed and working:

$ helm version

Output

version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.15.4", GitCommit:"fa9efb07d9d8debbb4306d72af76a383895aa8c4", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.22.6"}

9. Install Gradle Enterprise

Follow these instructions on the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise with your transferred files present in the current directory.

Install Gradle Enterprise:

$ tar zxvf gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz

$ sudo k3s ctr images import gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-images.tar (1)

1	This command imports the images into K3s.

$ helm install \
    --create-namespace --namespace gradle-enterprise \(1)
    ge-standalone \(2)
    gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7.tgz \
    --values values.yaml \(3)
    --set-file global.license.file=./gradle-enterprise.license (4)

1	This example uses gradle-enterprise as the namespace, but it can be a custom name. If you use a custom name, update all other example commands accordingly.
2	This is the Helm release name. It is used by Helm to identify the Gradle Enterprise installation.
3	The Helm values file with configuration values, including items such as the hostname.
4	The Gradle Enterprise license file (if not already included in values file).

You may wish to pass other files using --set-file, such as certificates for HTTPS, or unattended configuration files.

Configuration values are provided to Helm when running the helm command by:

providing a Helm values file (which can contain inline files) with --values
providing files (such as the Gradle Enterprise license or certificates) with --set-file

Post-installation

System check

At this point, it should be possible to see the Helm release installed:

$ helm --namespace gradle-enterprise list

NAME         	NAMESPACE        	REVISION	UPDATED                                	STATUS  	CHART                                	APP VERSION
ge-standalone	gradle-enterprise	1       	2022-07-22 03:01:58.704019291 +0000 UTC	deployed	gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7  	2022.2.7

You can inspect the status of the Gradle Enterprise pods:

$ kubectl --namespace gradle-enterprise get pods

NAME                                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
gradle-enterprise-operator-76694c949d-md5dh        1/1     Running   0          84m
gradle-proxy-0                                     1/1     Running   0          83m
gradle-database-65d975cf8-dk7kw                    2/2     Running   0          83m
gradle-enterprise-app-0                            1/1     Running   0          83m
gradle-metrics-cfcd8f7f7-zqds9                     1/1     Running   0          83m
gradle-test-distribution-broker-6fd84c6988-x6jvw   1/1     Running   0          83m
gradle-build-cache-node-57b9bdd46d-2txf5           1/1     Running   0          84m
gradle-keycloak-0                                  1/1     Running   0          83m

Cleanup

For airgap installations, it is recommended to remove the following files after installation:

k3s-airgap-images-amd64.tar.gz
k3s
install_k3s.sh
k3s-selinux.el8.noarch.rpm
helm-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-bundle.tar.gz
gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7.tgz
gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7-images.tar

Once Gradle Enterprise has been installed, files used during installation are not required at runtime and can be removed if desired. However, the following files may be useful to preserve, as they may aid in future upgrades or maintenance:

Helm values files
SSL certificates
Gradle Enterprise license

Care should be applied when handling these files as they may be considered sensitive.

Post-installation setup

It is strongly recommended to immediately change the system user password from its default after installation to secure your installation.

A number of settings should be reviewed after installation. Please refer to the administration manual.

Upgrading

Before upgrading, be sure to check the upgrade notes section for any special considerations when upgrading from older versions of Gradle Enterprise.

To upgrade K3s, Helm, and Gradle Enterprise, follow the same procedure as for an initial installation. However, there are some notes to consider:

Run helm upgrade instead of helm install.
Use the same Helm release name (ge-standalone in the examples in this guide).
When running a helm upgrade, Helm will reuse values that were previously used. This means that you can run:
```
$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace gradle-enterprise \
    --reuse-values \
    ge-standalone gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone
```
or for airgap installations:
```
$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace gradle-enterprise \
    --reuse-values \
    ge-standalone gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7.tgz
```
and not need to specify any values. If you do specify some changed values (for example, to use a new license file), they will be merged with your previous values.

Alternatively, to force helm upgrade to use only the values that you set at upgrade time, run with --reset-values instead of --reuse-values.

Running helm upgrade with --reset-values will cause any previous values to be lost. All values (including license files, SSL certificates, etc.) will need to be set as part of the command.

For major version upgrades (e.g. 2021.2.4 to 2021.3 or later), if data is stored in a user-managed database and superuser credentials are not supplied, the database setup script must be run prior to the upgrade. Contact Gradle support to get the correct script for the major version to which the system is being upgraded.

Changing configuration values

To change configuration values, follow the same procedure as for upgrading, but specify the current version to ensure that a later version does not accidentally get installed.

To check the currently deployed version, run:

$ helm history --namespace gradle-enterprise ge-standalone --max 1

To apply new configuration values to a Helm-managed online installation, run:

$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace gradle-enterprise \
    ge-standalone gradle/gradle-enterprise-standalone \
    --version «deployed-version» \
    --reuse-values \
    «new values options»

or for a Helm-managed airgap installation:

$ helm upgrade \
    --namespace gradle-enterprise \
    ge-standalone gradle-enterprise-standalone-2022.2.7.tgz \
    --version «deployed-version» \
    --reuse-values \
    «new values options»

The above examples reuse previous values by default. Any specified values will override the existing values. Alternatively, if you wish to specify all values explicitly (ignoring any previously set values), run with --reset-values instead of --reuse-values.

Running helm upgrade with --reset-values will cause any previous values to be lost. All values (including license files, SSL certificates, etc.) will need to be set as part of the command.

Configuration values are provided to Helm when running the helm command by:

providing a Helm values file (which can contain inline files) with --values
providing files (such as the Gradle Enterprise license or certificates) with --set-file

If you have made local modifications to a Helm values file, apply the changes to your installation by running an upgrade command (see above) with a --values «updated-values-file» option.

If you have made local modifications to a file you previously provided via --set-file, apply the changes to running an upgrade command (see above) with a --set-file option.

Uninstalling

For Helm-managed installations, Gradle Enterprise can be uninstalled by running helm uninstall «your-release-name»:

Example:

$ helm uninstall --namespace gradle-enterprise ge-standalone

Troubleshooting

K3s installation

If you are having difficulty with installing K3s, first review the following:

K3s Installation requirements
K3s FAQ
K3s Advanced Options and Configuration (covers topics such as SELinux Support and additional preparations for specific operating systems)

Support

If you are experiencing issues with Gradle Enterprise, please see the Administration Manual for information about how to submit a support ticket.

Appendix A: Upgrade notes

It is recommended to upgrade to the latest available Gradle Enterprise prior to migrating to the Helm-based installation.

Runtime network connectivity requirements

Starting with 2022.2, Gradle Enterprise instances installed with Helm validate their licenses with Gradle over the internet. Once running, Gradle Enterprise will periodically check for license updates. Before upgrading a Helm-based installation to Gradle Enterprise 2022.2 or later, ensure that harbor.gradle.com is reachable from the Gradle Enterprise host.

Airgap installations of Gradle Enterprise do not validate the license on startup and do not check for new license updates. Airgap installation requires a specific entitlement on your license. If you need an airgap-enabled license, please contact your customer success representative .

See Network connectivity requirements and Verifying network connectivity for more information.

Temporarily degraded performance due to data reindexing

Upon upgrading, a data reindexing process will be initiated in the background with Gradle Enterprise being usable for its duration. CPU usage will be increased and performance may be slightly degraded. For large installations storing many Build Scans, the reindexing process may take several hours. During this time, some builds may be omitted from cross-build data visualizations. Recent builds are prioritized, making their data available sooner.

Predictive Test Selection updates in 2022.2.5

Improvements to Predictive Test Selection in this release, that improve its effectiveness, require model retraining and data reindexing.

For installations that have enabled Predictive Test Selection or the Predictive Test Selection Simulator, this occurs automatically upon upgrade and may temporarily degrade performance. During this time, Predictive Test Selection will be unavailable with all tests being selected at build time, and simulation data will be unavailable. Most installations will complete this process within 24 hours.

Users that have not enabled Predictive Test Selection or the Predictive Test Selection Simulator are unaffected.

Appendix B: Verifying network connectivity

For installation/upgrades of online installations, internet connectivity to https://helm.gradle.com is required.

Online installations require runtime internet connectivity to https://registry.gradle.com and https://harbor.gradle.com.

Connectivity to these can be tested by running the following commands on the host where you are installing Gradle Enterprise:

$ curl -sw \\n --fail-with-body --show-error https://helm.gradle.com/ping

$ curl -sw \\n --fail-with-body --show-error https://registry.gradle.com/ping

$ curl -sw \\n --fail-with-body --show-error https://harbor.gradle.com/ping

All should return SUCCESS.

If any errors occur, please review your network setup before installing or upgrading Gradle Enterprise.

Appendix C: Example Helm values file

gradle-enterprise-standalone-values-2022.2.yaml Download (SHA-256 checksum, PGP signature, PGP signature SHA-256 checksum)