🚀 Full Stack Chat Application

Kubernetes manifests for deploying a Full Stack Chat Application on a local Docker Desktop (Windows) environment with Kubernetes enabled on a single-node cluster.

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📋 Table of Contents

• Overview
• Architecture
• Prerequisites
• Project Structure
• Getting Started
• Deployment
• Accessing the Application
• Teardown
• Troubleshoots
• License

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🚀 Overview

This repository contains all the Kubernetes manifest files needed to spin up a full-stack chat application locally. The stack includes:

• Frontend – Web UI served via a dedicated deployment and service
• Backend – REST/WebSocket API server
• MongoDB – Persistent database with a PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim
• Ingress – NGINX Ingress Controller to route external traffic to services
• Secrets – Kubernetes secrets for sensitive configuration (e.g. DB credentials)

All resources are scoped to the k8s-chatapp namespace.

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🏗️ Architecture

                        ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
                        │           k8s-chatapp Namespace         │
                        │                                         │
  Browser ──► Ingress ──►  Frontend Pod  ──►  Backend Pod         │
                        │                        │                │
                        │               MongoDB Service           │
                        │                    │                    │
                        │               MongoDB Pod               │
                        │            (PV + PVC mounted)           │
                        └─────────────────────────────────────────┘

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⚙️ Prerequisites

Ensure the following are installed and running before deploying:

Tool	Version	Notes
Docker Desktop	Latest	Enable Kubernetes in settings
kubectl	v1.25+	Kubernetes CLI
NGINX Ingress Controller	Latest	Required for ingress routing

Enable Kubernetes on Docker Desktop

1. Open Docker Desktop → Settings → Kubernetes
2. Check Enable Kubernetes
3. Click Apply & Restart

Install NGINX Ingress Controller

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/controller-v1.10.0/deploy/static/provider/cloud/deploy.yaml

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📂 Project Structure

full-stack-chatapp/
├── k8s-manifests/
│   ├── namespace.yaml            # Namespace: k8s-chatapp
│   ├── secrets.yaml              # Kubernetes Secrets (DB credentials, etc.)
│   ├── mongodb-pv.yaml           # PersistentVolume for MongoDB
│   ├── mongodb-pvc.yaml          # PersistentVolumeClaim for MongoDB
│   ├── mongodb-deployment.yaml   # MongoDB Deployment
│   ├── mongodb-service.yaml      # MongoDB ClusterIP Service
│   ├── backend-deployment.yaml   # Backend API Deployment
│   ├── backend-service.yaml      # Backend ClusterIP Service
│   ├── frontend-deployment.yaml  # Frontend Deployment
│   ├── frontend-service.yaml     # Frontend ClusterIP Service
│   └── ingress.yaml              # NGINX Ingress rules
├── .env                          # Environment variables (local use only)
├── .gitignore
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

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⚡Getting Started

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/swapnilmali101/full-stack-chatapp.git
cd full-stack-chatapp

2. Configure Environment Variables

Copy or review the .env file and update any values as needed. Sensitive values should be base64-encoded and placed in secrets.yaml.

# Example: base64 encode a secret value
echo -n "your-password" | base64

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👷‍♂️ Deployment

Apply all manifests in the following order from the k8s-manifests/ directory:

cd k8s-manifests

Step 1 – Create Namespace

kubectl create -f namespace.yaml
kubectl get ns

Step 2 – Create Persistent Storage for MongoDB

kubectl apply -f mongodb-pv.yaml
kubectl apply -f mongodb-pvc.yaml
kubectl get pvc,pv -n k8s-chatapp

Step 3 – Deploy MongoDB

kubectl apply -f mongodb-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f mongodb-service.yaml

Step 4 – Apply Secrets

kubectl apply -f secrets.yaml

Step 5 – Deploy Backend

kubectl apply -f backend-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f backend-service.yaml

Step 6 – Deploy Frontend

kubectl apply -f frontend-deployment.yaml
kubectl apply -f frontend-service.yaml

Step 7 – Apply Ingress

kubectl apply -f ingress.yaml

Verify Everything Is Running

kubectl get pods -n k8s-chatapp
kubectl get svc -n k8s-chatapp
kubectl get ingress -n k8s-chatapp
kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx
kubectl get svc -n ingress-nginx

All pods should show Running status before proceeding.

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🌐 Accessing the Application

Via Ingress (Recommended)

Forward traffic from the NGINX Ingress Controller to your local machine:

kubectl port-forward svc/ingress-nginx-controller -n ingress-nginx 80:80

Then open your browser at: http://localhost:80

Direct Backend Port-Forward (for debugging)

kubectl port-forward svc/backend 5001:5001 -n k8s-chatapp

Backend API available at: http://localhost:5001

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⛓️‍💥 Teardown

To remove all deployed resources and clean up the namespace:

kubectl delete namespace k8s-chatapp
kubectl get ns

⚠️ This will delete all resources in the k8s-chatapp namespace, including PersistentVolumeClaims and their data.

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📟 Troubleshoots

refer repo ⇒ troubleshooting-plunges

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📄 License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

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✍️ Author

SWAPNIL MALI. 👨🏻‍💻CS Engineer | AWS & DevOps Specialist -🎯focused on building reliable, observable, and scalable systems.

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