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ArgoCD Initial Access Configuration

ArgoCD Initial Access Configuration refers to the process of deploying ArgoCD onto a Kubernetes cluster and retrieving the credentials required for the first login. This involves creating the necessary Kubernetes resources, exposing the UI, and decoding the auto-generated initial secret.

Installation

To install ArgoCD, a dedicated namespace is created first, followed by applying the official installation manifests.^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md]

[kubectl](<./kubectl.md>) create namespace [ArgoCD](<./argocd.md>)
[kubectl](<./kubectl.md>) apply -n [ArgoCD](<./argocd.md>) -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml

Accessing the UI

Once the pods are running, the ArgoCD UI can be accessed locally via port forwarding. The service argocd-server handles the UI traffic on port 443, which can be forwarded to a local port like 8080.^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md]

[kubectl](<./kubectl.md>) port-forward svc/argocd-server 8080:443 -n [ArgoCD](<./argocd.md>)

Initial Authentication

ArgoCD generates a default admin user and stores the initial password in a secret named argocd-initial-admin-secret.^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md] The password is base64 encoded within the secret data and must be decoded to be used for login.^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md]

[kubectl](<./kubectl.md>) -n [ArgoCD](<./argocd.md>) get secret argocd-initial-admin-secret -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode && echo

Security Note: It is standard practice to change or delete this initial password after the first successful login.^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md]

  • Kubernetes
  • [[Secrets Management]]
  • [[Continuous Deployment]]

Sources

^[400-devops__04-CI-CD-Pipelines__devops-ci__github-action__argocd-app-config__README.md]