Image set in an Application has no effect when using Kustomize image transformers

[BillyMorgan]

My Argo application has the following image set:

Source:
    Kustomize:
      Images:
        busybox:1.24.0

Kustomization:

apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
images:
  - name: container-image
    newName: busybox
    newTag: ubuntu
resources:
  - base-deployment.yaml

base-deployment.yaml looks like:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: test-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      role: deployment
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        role: deployment
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: test-pod
          image: container-image
          command: ["tail", "-f", "/dev/null"]

As a result I get the busybox:ubuntu image, where I would expect to get the busybox:1.24.0 image from the Argo application.

argocd: v2.6.7+5bcd846
  BuildDate: 2023-03-23T15:24:49Z
  GitCommit: 5bcd846fa16e4b19d8f477de7da50ec0aef320e5
  GitTreeState: clean
  GoVersion: go1.18.10
  Compiler: gc
  Platform: linux/amd64
argocd-server: v2.6.7+5bcd846
  BuildDate: 2023-03-23T14:57:27Z
  GitCommit: 5bcd846fa16e4b19d8f477de7da50ec0aef320e5
  GitTreeState: clean
  GoVersion: go1.18.10
  Compiler: gc
  Platform: linux/amd64
  Kustomize Version: v4.5.7 2022-08-02T16:35:54Z
  Helm Version: v3.10.3+g835b733
  Kubectl Version: v0.24.2
  Jsonnet Version: v0.19.1

[David3310273]

Hi @BillyMorgan, I wonder what's your output yaml script of kustomize build command, would you like to show me that?

[BillyMorgan]

@David3310273 Sure thing, here you go, it's as you'd expect tho:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: test-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      role: deployment
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        role: deployment
    spec:
      containers:
      - command:
        - tail
        - -f
        - /dev/null
        image: busybox:ubuntu
        imagePullPolicy: Always
        name: test-pod

[joebowbeer]

The current behavior is caused because kustomize edit set image is prepended rather than appended.

The Application images are added using kustomize edit set image here:

https://github.com/argoproj/argo-cd/blob/master/util/kustomize/kustomize.go#L141

and then kustomize build is run.

Unfortunately, after calling kustomize edit set image busybox:1.24.0, the kustomization.yaml file is effectively:

apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
resources:
- base-deployment.yaml
images:
- name: busybox
  newTag: 1.24.0
- name: container-image
  newName: busybox
  newTag: ubuntu

If kustomize edit set image appended instead, then it would work as the OP expected.

As a workaround, remove the image transforms from the top-level kustomization.

Another workaround might be to move the image transforms to .argocd-source.yaml

https://argo-cd.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user-guide/parameters/#store-overrides-in-git