---
weight: 6
title: NGINX Canary Deployments
---

This guide shows you how to use the NGINX ingress controller and Flagger to automate canary deployments and A/B testing.

![Flagger NGINX Ingress Controller](/img/diagrams/flagger-nginx-overview.png)

## Prerequisites

Flagger requires a Kubernetes cluster **v1.19** or newer and NGINX ingress **v1.0.2** or newer.

Install the NGINX ingress controller with Helm v3:

```bash
helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
kubectl create ns ingress-nginx
helm upgrade -i ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx \
--namespace ingress-nginx \
--set controller.metrics.enabled=true \
--set controller.podAnnotations."prometheus\.io/scrape"=true \
--set controller.podAnnotations."prometheus\.io/port"=10254
```

Install Flagger and the Prometheus add-on in the same namespace as the ingress controller:

```bash
helm repo add flagger https://flagger.app

helm upgrade -i flagger flagger/flagger \
--namespace ingress-nginx \
--set prometheus.install=true \
--set meshProvider=nginx
```

## Bootstrap

Flagger takes a Kubernetes deployment and optionally a horizontal pod autoscaler (HPA),
then creates a series of objects (Kubernetes deployments, ClusterIP services and canary ingress).
These objects expose the application outside the cluster and drive the canary analysis and promotion.

Create a test namespace:

```bash
kubectl create ns test
```

Create a deployment and a horizontal pod autoscaler:

```bash
kubectl apply -k https://github.com/fluxcd/flagger//kustomize/podinfo?ref=main
```

Deploy the load testing service to generate traffic during the canary analysis:

```bash
helm upgrade -i flagger-loadtester flagger/loadtester \
--namespace=test
```

Create an ingress definition (replace `app.example.com` with your own domain):

```yaml
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: podinfo
  namespace: test
  labels:
    app: podinfo
  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "nginx"
spec:
  rules:
    - host: "app.example.com"
      http:
        paths:
          - pathType: Prefix
            path: "/"
            backend:
              service:
                name: podinfo
                port:
                  number: 80
```

Save the above resource as podinfo-ingress.yaml and then apply it:

```bash
kubectl apply -f ./podinfo-ingress.yaml
```

Create a canary custom resource (replace `app.example.com` with your own domain):

```yaml
apiVersion: flagger.app/v1beta1
kind: Canary
metadata:
  name: podinfo
  namespace: test
spec:
  provider: nginx
  # deployment reference
  targetRef:
    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: Deployment
    name: podinfo
  # ingress reference
  ingressRef:
    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
    kind: Ingress
    name: podinfo
  # HPA reference (optional)
  autoscalerRef:
    apiVersion: autoscaling/v2beta2
    kind: HorizontalPodAutoscaler
    name: podinfo
  # the maximum time in seconds for the canary deployment
  # to make progress before it is rollback (default 600s)
  progressDeadlineSeconds: 60
  service:
    # ClusterIP port number
    port: 80
    # container port number or name
    targetPort: 9898
  analysis:
    # schedule interval (default 60s)
    interval: 10s
    # max number of failed metric checks before rollback
    threshold: 10
    # max traffic percentage routed to canary
    # percentage (0-100)
    maxWeight: 50
    # canary increment step
    # percentage (0-100)
    stepWeight: 5
    # NGINX Prometheus checks
    metrics:
    - name: request-success-rate
      # minimum req success rate (non 5xx responses)
      # percentage (0-100)
      thresholdRange:
        min: 99
      interval: 1m
    # testing (optional)
    webhooks:
      - name: acceptance-test
        type: pre-rollout
        url: http://flagger-loadtester.test/
        timeout: 30s
        metadata:
          type: bash
          cmd: "curl -sd 'test' http://podinfo-canary/token | grep token"
      - name: load-test
        url: http://flagger-loadtester.test/
        timeout: 5s
        metadata:
          cmd: "hey -z 1m -q 10 -c 2 http://app.example.com/"
```

Save the above resource as podinfo-canary.yaml and then apply it:

```bash
kubectl apply -f ./podinfo-canary.yaml
```

After a couple of seconds Flagger will create the canary objects:

```bash
# applied 
deployment.apps/podinfo
horizontalpodautoscaler.autoscaling/podinfo
ingresses.extensions/podinfo
canary.flagger.app/podinfo

# generated 
deployment.apps/podinfo-primary
horizontalpodautoscaler.autoscaling/podinfo-primary
service/podinfo
service/podinfo-canary
service/podinfo-primary
ingresses.extensions/podinfo-canary
```

## Automated canary promotion

Flagger implements a control loop that gradually shifts traffic to the canary while measuring key performance
indicators like HTTP requests success rate, requests average duration and pod health.
Based on analysis of the KPIs a canary is promoted or aborted, and the analysis result is published to Slack or MS Teams.

![Flagger Canary Stages](/img/diagrams/flagger-canary-steps.png)

Trigger a canary deployment by updating the container image:

```bash
kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.1
```

Flagger detects that the deployment revision changed and starts a new rollout:

```text
kubectl -n test describe canary/podinfo

Status:
  Canary Weight:         0
  Failed Checks:         0
  Phase:                 Succeeded
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age   From     Message
  ----     ------  ----  ----     -------
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  New revision detected podinfo.test
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Scaling up podinfo.test
  Warning  Synced  3m    flagger  Waiting for podinfo.test rollout to finish: 0 of 1 updated replicas are available
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 5
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 10
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 15
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 20
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 25
  Normal   Synced  1m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 30
  Normal   Synced  1m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 35
  Normal   Synced  55s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 40
  Normal   Synced  45s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 45
  Normal   Synced  35s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 50
  Normal   Synced  25s   flagger  Copying podinfo.test template spec to podinfo-primary.test
  Warning  Synced  15s   flagger  Waiting for podinfo-primary.test rollout to finish: 1 of 2 updated replicas are available
  Normal   Synced  5s    flagger  Promotion completed! Scaling down podinfo.test
```

**Note** that if you apply new changes to the deployment during the canary analysis, Flagger will restart the analysis.

You can monitor all canaries with:

```bash
watch kubectl get canaries --all-namespaces

NAMESPACE   NAME      STATUS        WEIGHT   LASTTRANSITIONTIME
test        podinfo   Progressing   15       2019-05-06T14:05:07Z
prod        frontend  Succeeded     0        2019-05-05T16:15:07Z
prod        backend   Failed        0        2019-05-04T17:05:07Z
```

## Automated rollback

During the canary analysis you can generate HTTP 500 errors to test if Flagger pauses and rolls back the faulted version.

Trigger another canary deployment:

```bash
kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.2
```

Generate HTTP 500 errors:

```bash
watch curl http://app.example.com/status/500
```

When the number of failed checks reaches the canary analysis threshold,
the traffic is routed back to the primary,
the canary is scaled to zero and the rollout is marked as failed.

```text
kubectl -n test describe canary/podinfo

Status:
  Canary Weight:         0
  Failed Checks:         10
  Phase:                 Failed
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age   From     Message
  ----     ------  ----  ----     -------
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Starting canary deployment for podinfo.test
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 5
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 10
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary weight 15
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 69.17% < 99%
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 61.39% < 99%
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 55.06% < 99%
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 47.00% < 99%
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  (combined from similar events): Halt podinfo.test advancement success rate 38.08% < 99%
  Warning  Synced  1m    flagger  Rolling back podinfo.test failed checks threshold reached 10
  Warning  Synced  1m    flagger  Canary failed! Scaling down podinfo.test
```

## Custom metrics

The canary analysis can be extended with Prometheus queries.

The demo app is instrumented with Prometheus so you can create a custom check
that will use the HTTP request duration histogram to validate the canary.

Create a metric template and apply it on the cluster:

```yaml
apiVersion: flagger.app/v1beta1
kind: MetricTemplate
metadata:
  name: latency
  namespace: test
spec:
  provider:
    type: prometheus
    address: http://flagger-prometheus.ingress-nginx:9090
  query: |
    histogram_quantile(0.99,
      sum(
        rate(
          http_request_duration_seconds_bucket{
            kubernetes_namespace="{{ namespace }}",
            kubernetes_pod_name=~"{{ target }}-[0-9a-zA-Z]+(-[0-9a-zA-Z]+)"
          }[1m]
        )
      ) by (le)
    )
```

Edit the canary analysis and add the latency check:

```yaml
  analysis:
    metrics:
    - name: "latency"
      templateRef:
        name: latency
      thresholdRange:
        max: 0.5
      interval: 1m
```

The threshold is set to 500ms so if the average request duration in the last minute goes over
half a second then the analysis will fail and the canary will not be promoted.

Trigger a canary deployment by updating the container image:

```bash
kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.3
```

Generate high response latency:

```bash
watch curl http://app.example.com/delay/2
```

Watch Flagger logs:

```text
kubectl -n nginx-ingress logs deployment/flagger -f | jq .msg

Starting canary deployment for podinfo.test
Advance podinfo.test canary weight 5
Advance podinfo.test canary weight 10
Advance podinfo.test canary weight 15
Halt podinfo.test advancement latency 1.20 > 0.5
Halt podinfo.test advancement latency 1.45 > 0.5
Halt podinfo.test advancement latency 1.60 > 0.5
Halt podinfo.test advancement latency 1.69 > 0.5
Halt podinfo.test advancement latency 1.70 > 0.5
Rolling back podinfo.test failed checks threshold reached 5
Canary failed! Scaling down podinfo.test
```

If you have alerting configured, Flagger will send a notification with the reason why the canary failed.

## A/B Testing

Besides weighted routing, Flagger can be configured to route traffic to the canary based on HTTP match conditions.
In an A/B testing scenario, you'll be using HTTP headers or cookies to target a certain segment of your users.
This is particularly useful for frontend applications that require session affinity.

![Flagger A/B Testing Stages](/img/diagrams/flagger-abtest-steps.png)

Edit the canary analysis, remove the max/step weight and add the match conditions and iterations:

```yaml
  analysis:
    interval: 1m
    threshold: 10
    iterations: 10
    match:
      # curl -H 'X-Canary: insider' http://app.example.com
      - headers:
          x-canary:
            exact: "insider"
      # curl -b 'canary=always' http://app.example.com
      - headers:
          cookie:
            exact: "canary"
    metrics:
    - name: request-success-rate
      thresholdRange:
        min: 99
      interval: 1m
    webhooks:
      - name: load-test
        url: http://flagger-loadtester.test/
        timeout: 5s
        metadata:
          cmd: "hey -z 1m -q 10 -c 2 -H 'Cookie: canary=always' http://app.example.com/"
```

The above configuration will run an analysis for ten minutes targeting users that have
a `canary` cookie set to `always` or those that call the service using the `X-Canary: insider` header.

Trigger a canary deployment by updating the container image:

```bash
kubectl -n test set image deployment/podinfo \
podinfod=ghcr.io/stefanprodan/podinfo:6.0.4
```

Flagger detects that the deployment revision changed and starts the A/B testing:

```text
kubectl -n test describe canary/podinfo

Status:
  Failed Checks:         0
  Phase:                 Succeeded
Events:
  Type     Reason  Age   From     Message
  ----     ------  ----  ----     -------
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  New revision detected podinfo.test
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Scaling up podinfo.test
  Warning  Synced  3m    flagger  Waiting for podinfo.test rollout to finish: 0 of 1 updated replicas are available
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 1/10
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 2/10
  Normal   Synced  3m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 3/10
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 4/10
  Normal   Synced  2m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 5/10
  Normal   Synced  1m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 6/10
  Normal   Synced  1m    flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 7/10
  Normal   Synced  55s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 8/10
  Normal   Synced  45s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 9/10
  Normal   Synced  35s   flagger  Advance podinfo.test canary iteration 10/10
  Normal   Synced  25s   flagger  Copying podinfo.test template spec to podinfo-primary.test
  Warning  Synced  15s   flagger  Waiting for podinfo-primary.test rollout to finish: 1 of 2 updated replicas are available
  Normal   Synced  5s    flagger  Promotion completed! Scaling down podinfo.test
```

The above procedure can be extended with
[custom metrics](../usage/metrics.md) checks,
[webhooks](../usage/webhooks.md),
[manual promotion](../usage/webhooks.md#manual-gating) approval and
[Slack or MS Teams](../usage/alerting.md) notifications.
