Kubernetes how to make Deployment to update image

Question

You can configure your pod with a grace period (for example 30 seconds or more, depending on container startup time and image size) and set "imagePullPolicy: "Always". And use kubectl delete pod pod_name. A new container will be created and the latest image automatically downloaded, then the old container terminated.

Example:

spec:
  terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30
  containers:
  - name: my_container
    image: my_image:latest
    imagePullPolicy: "Always"

I'm currently using Jenkins for automated builds and image tagging and it looks something like this:

kubectl --user="kube-user" --server="https://kubemaster.example.com"  --token=$ACCESS_TOKEN set image deployment/my-deployment mycontainer=myimage:"$BUILD_NUMBER-$SHORT_GIT_COMMIT"

Another trick is to intially run:

kubectl set image deployment/my-deployment mycontainer=myimage:latest

and then:

kubectl set image deployment/my-deployment mycontainer=myimage

It will actually be triggering the rolling-update but be sure you have also imagePullPolicy: "Always" set.

Update:

another trick I found, where you don't have to change the image name, is to change the value of a field that will trigger a rolling update, like terminationGracePeriodSeconds. You can do this using kubectl edit deployment your_deployment or kubectl apply -f your_deployment.yaml or using a patch like this:

kubectl patch deployment your_deployment -p \
  '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"terminationGracePeriodSeconds":31}}}}'

Just make sure you always change the number value.

UPDATE 2019-06-24

Based on the @Jodiug comment if you have a 1.15 version you can use the command:

kubectl rollout restart deployment/demo

Read more on the issue:

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/13488

---

Well there is an interesting discussion about this subject on the kubernetes GitHub project. See the issue: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/33664

From the solutions described there, I would suggest one of two.

First

1.Prepare deployment

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: demo
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: demo
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: demo
        image: registry.example.com/apps/demo:master
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        env:
        - name: FOR_GODS_SAKE_PLEASE_REDEPLOY
          value: 'THIS_STRING_IS_REPLACED_DURING_BUILD'

2.Deploy

sed -ie "s/THIS_STRING_IS_REPLACED_DURING_BUILD/$(date)/g" deployment.yml
kubectl apply -f deployment.yml

Second (one liner):

kubectl patch deployment web -p \
  "{\"spec\":{\"template\":{\"metadata\":{\"labels\":{\"date\":\"`date +'%s'`\"}}}}}"

Of course the imagePullPolicy: Always is required on both cases.

kubectl rollout restart deployment myapp

This is the current way to trigger a rolling update and leave the old replica sets in place for other operations provided by kubectl rollout like rollbacks.

I use Gitlab-CI to build the image and then deploy it directly to GCK. If use a neat little trick to achieve a rolling update without changing any real settings of the container, which is changing a label to the current commit-short-sha.

My command looks like this:

kubectl patch deployment my-deployment -p "{\"spec\":{\"template\":{\"metadata\":{\"labels\":{\"build\":\"$CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA\"}}}}}}"

Where you can use any name and any value for the label as long as it changes with each build.

Have fun!