3.3. Cert manager

cert manager is a native Kubernetes certificate management controller. It can help with issuing certificates from a variety of sources, such as Let’s Encrypt, HashiCorp Vault, Venafi, a simple signing keypair, or self signed.

It will ensure certificates are valid and up to date, and attempt to renew certificates at a configured time before expiry.

Install resources

cert-manager runs within your Kubernetes cluster as a series of deployment resources. It utilises CustomResourceDefinitions to configure Certificate Authorities and request certificates. Install the CustomResourceDefinition resources separately

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jetstack/cert-manager/release-0.8/deploy/manifests/00-crds.yaml

Add external charts repository

# Add the Jetstack Helm repository
helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
# Update your local Helm chart repository cache
helm repo update