phpPgAdmin on Kubernetes
Production deployment for the brunner.ninja phpPgAdmin service. The repository uses a maintained public container image, a single plain Kubernetes manifest, Traefik ingress, health probes, zero-unavailable rolling updates, and restricted Gitea Actions deployment credentials.
Architecture
tozd/phppgadminsupplies phpPgAdmin, Nginx, PHP, and PostgreSQL client tools.- The image is pinned to an immutable multi-platform manifest digest rather than a mutable tag.
default/phppgadmin-configmounts the complete multi-server configuration at/etc/phppgadmin/config.inc.php.- A ClusterIP Service exposes TCP port 80 to Traefik.
https://phppgadmin.brunner.ninjaredirects to the image's native/phppgadmin/path.- One replica uses
maxUnavailable: 0,maxSurge: 1, and five seconds of minimum readiness. The old pod remains available until the replacement has passed its HTTP probe continuously for five seconds. - CI places the Git commit in a pod-template annotation. This forces a safe
rollout when a ConfigMap-only change would otherwise leave a
subPathmount unchanged in the running container. - Startup, readiness, and liveness probes request
/phppgadmin/over HTTP.
The deployment is stateless. phpPgAdmin does not store database passwords or sessions on a PVC; users authenticate directly to the selected PostgreSQL server. The ConfigMap lists server addresses but contains no credentials.
Why there is no Dockerfile
This repository previously built phpPgAdmin from the Arch User Repository on top of a private base image and pushed the result to the private Quay registry. That duplicated public image storage and made every repository commit rebuild an otherwise unchanged application.
The current deployment instead uses the actively maintained public
tozd/phppgadmin image. It supports
the same configuration-file mount used here. The pinned image contains
phpPgAdmin 7.14.7, which is also the current AUR package version at the time of
this repository conversion.
The committed image is:
tozd/phppgadmin@sha256:4ee690768d54b0c057dbc4ed5c1baa152c1a5ef0ebd6eb12f1e310e545eb4489
It was inspected and smoke-tested before deployment. Pinning prevents an
upstream rebuild from silently changing the running software. To upgrade,
inspect and test the new upstream digest, replace the image line in
phppgadmin.yaml, and merge the change through the normal deployment workflow.
Repository contents
phppgadmin.yaml: ConfigMap, Deployment, Service, Ingress, and Traefik root redirect Middleware.install.sh: server-side dry-run, apply, and rollout verification.test.sh: local script and Kubernetes schema validation.ci-deployer.yaml: restricted Gitea Actions ServiceAccount, Role, binding, and revocable token.create-ci-kubeconfig.sh: one-time CI identity bootstrap..gitea/workflows/deploy.yml: validation on every push and pull request; deployment after successful validation ofmain.
There is no Helm chart, Kustomize overlay, Argo CD application, private image, or container build pipeline.
Prerequisites
- Kubernetes and kubectl.
- An amd64 worker node. The pinned upstream image currently publishes amd64.
- Traefik with the
traefik.io/v1alpha1Middleware CRD and ingress classtraefik. - The existing Traefik
websecureentrypoint and default*.brunner.ninjaTLS certificate. - Network connectivity from the pod to every PostgreSQL hostname listed in the ConfigMap.
Another cluster operator can reuse the manifest by changing the namespace, database server list, ingress hostname, ingress class, and redirect Middleware.
Install manually
With an administrator kubeconfig active, run:
./install.sh
The script performs a server-side dry-run, applies all resources, and waits up to ten minutes for the Deployment. Existing resource names are preserved, so the Service keeps its ClusterIP and the change rolls out in place.
Verify both application paths:
curl -I https://phppgadmin.brunner.ninja/
curl -I https://phppgadmin.brunner.ninja/phppgadmin/
The first should redirect permanently and the second should return the phpPgAdmin application.
Configure PostgreSQL servers
Edit config.inc.php inside the ConfigMap in phppgadmin.yaml. Each server
entry contains a display name, service DNS name, port, SSL mode, and default
database. Do not put PostgreSQL usernames or passwords into the ConfigMap or
Git repository.
The file is mounted using subPath, so Kubernetes does not update it inside an
already-running pod. The CI workflow replaces the manifest's manual revision
annotation with the Git commit SHA before applying it, which safely rolls the
pod for every merged configuration change. A manual ./install.sh changes the
annotation back to manual and likewise triggers a rollout after a CI deploy.
Validate locally
./test.sh
The test checks both shell scripts and validates the Kubernetes resources with kubeconform. The Traefik Middleware is reported as skipped because kubeconform's standard schema catalog does not contain cluster-specific CRDs; the Kubernetes API validates it during the server-side dry-run.
Automatic deployment with Gitea Actions
The workflow validates every push and pull request. A successful push to
main applies the complete phppgadmin.yaml, including ConfigMap, Deployment,
Service, Ingress, and Middleware, then polls the Deployment for up to ten
minutes.
No image is built or pushed. The workflow requires only one Gitea Actions secret:
KUBE_CONFIG_BASE64: the restricted phpPgAdmin deployment kubeconfig, base64-encoded on one line.
One-time CI setup
-
Run
./install.shwith an administrator identity so every application resource already exists. -
Run:
./create-ci-kubeconfig.sh -
Copy only the final base64 line into the Gitea repository Actions secret named
KUBE_CONFIG_BASE64. -
Protect
main, require successful validation before merging, and review manifest and workflow changes. -
Push a harmless README change and confirm the deployment job succeeds.
The workflow matches the existing brunner.ninja runner: Kubernetes API URL
https://host.containers.internal:6443, with TLS server name 192.168.0.2.
Other clusters must change those values.
CI can get, patch, and update only these existing named objects:
- ConfigMap
phppgadmin-config; - Deployment and Service
phppgadmin; - Ingress
phppgadmin; - Middleware
phppgadmin-root-redirect.
It cannot create or delete resources and cannot call the Kubernetes Secrets
API. Revoke it by deleting default/phppgadmin-deployer-token and the Gitea
secret. Rerunning the wrapper creates a replacement token.
Kubernetes RBAC cannot constrain individual fields inside an allowed
Deployment patch. A malicious change merged into main could alter the pod
specification. Branch protection and review therefore remain part of the
security boundary.
Internet exposure
This instance is reachable from the public internet and presents direct
PostgreSQL username/password authentication. Use long, unique database
passwords, restrictive PostgreSQL roles and pg_hba.conf rules, TLS for remote
database connections, and external rate limiting or access control where
appropriate. phpPgAdmin's extra_login_security remains enabled in the
committed configuration.