Gravity

Warning Gravity was archived 2023-07-01.

Please see our Gravitational is Teleport blog post for more information.

If you're looking for a similar solution, we recommend using a certified Kubernetes Distribution.

Gravity is a Kubernetes packaging solution.

Introduction

Gravity is an open source toolkit for creating "images" of Kubernetes clusters and the applications running inside the clusters. The resulting images are called cluster images and they are just .tar files.

A cluster image can be used to re-create full replicas of the original cluster in any environment where compliance and consistency matters, i.e. in locked-down AWS/GCE/Azure environments or even in air-gapped server rooms. An image can run without human supervision, as a "kubernetes appliance".

Cluster Images

A Cluster Image produced by Gravity includes:

• All Kubernetes binaries and their dependencies.
• Built-in container registry.
• De-duplicated layers of all application containers inside a cluster.
• Built-in cluster orchestrator which guarantees HA operation, in-place upgrades and auto-scaling.
• Installation wizard for both CLI and web browser GUI.

An image is all one needs to re-create the complete replica of the original Kubernetes cluster, with all deployed applications inside, even in an air-gapped server room.

Examples

Take a look at the examples directory in this repository to find examples of how to package and deploy Kubernetes applications using Gravity.

The following examples are currently available:

• Wordpress. Deploys Wordpress CMS with an OpenEBS-backed persistent storage.

Building from source

Gravity is written in Go. There are two ways to build the Gravity tools from source: by using locally installed build tools or via Docker. In both cases you will need a Linux machine.

Building on MacOS, even with Docker, is possible but not currently supported

$ git clone git@github.com:gravitational/gravity.git
$ cd gravity

# Running 'make' with the default target uses Docker.
# The output will be stored in build/current/
$ make

# If you have Go 1.10+ installed, you can build without Docker which is faster.
# The output will be stored in $GOPATH/bin/
$ make install

# To remove the build artifacts:
$ make clean