Manage satellites

This article will show you how to deploy a satellite to reduce latency. It also covers how to view a list of your satellites and how to remove satellites.

Creating a Satellite

To create a new satellite, you must update the Coder Helm chart to enable satellite mode, deploy Coder, and register the new deployment using the Coder CLI.

Dependencies

Install the following dependencies if you haven't already:

• Coder CLI
• Helm
• kubectl

Requirements

1. You must be a Coder site manager and have authenticated with the Coder CLI.

2. The satellite deployment must be able to communicate with the primary Coder deployment via HTTPS.

Step 1: Confirming your context

First, make sure that you're connected to the cluster to which you want to deploy the satellite. Ideally, this deployment should be in the same geographical region as the developers' and their workspaces.

To see your current context, run:

kubectl config current-context

Confirm that your current kubectl context is correct before continuing; otherwise, connect to the right context.

Step 2: Creating the new deployment

The following steps are identical to those for deploying the primary Coder installation.

First, update your Helm chart to set the following required values:

• coderd.satellite.enable - set to true
• coderd.satellite.primaryURL - set with the primary Coder deployment access URL
• coderd.satellite.accessURL - set with the URL you want to use to access the satellite deployment

The following is a sample values.yaml for a deployment with satellites, TLS, and dev URLs enabled:

coderd:
  satellite:
    enable: "true"
    primaryURL: "https://coder.example.com"
    accessURL: "https://coder-eu-west.example.com"
  devurlsHost: "*.coder-eu-west.example.com"
  tls:
    hostSecretName: "coder-satellite-cert"
    devurlsHostSecretName: "coder-satellite-cert"

Once you've updated your Helm chart, install the satellite:

helm repo add coder https://helm.coder.com
helm repo update
helm upgrade coder-satellite coder/coder \
  --namespace=<NAMESPACE>
  --version=<CODER_VERSION> \
  --install \
  -f values.yaml

Step 3: Registering the satellite

Once you've deployed the satellite, you need to register it to the primary Coder deployment. This process ensures that the primary deployment can trust requests originating from the satellite deployment.

Using the Coder CLI, run:

coder satellites create <NAME> <SATELLITE_ACCESS_URL>

This command will fetch the public key from satellite deployment and register it with Coder. If successful, the satellite deployment should be fully functional and reachable via the provided access URL.

Viewing Satellites

You can list your satellite deployments using the Coder CLI:

coder satellites ls

Removing a Satellite

You can remove your satellite deployments using the Coder CLI:

coder satellites rm <NAME_OF_SATELLITE>

After removing a registered satellite deployment via the Coder CLI, you should remove the deployment via Helm as well:

helm uninstall coder-satellite -n <NAMESPACE>