Cloud-Native Microservices With Kubernetes - 2nd Edition

Key Takeaways

This chapter focuses on managing the settings and initialization of microservice applications in Kubernetes using ConfigMaps, Secrets, and init containers. Here are the most important takeaways:

• ConfigMaps are used to store non-sensitive configuration data in key-value pairs. They can be created from files, which is useful for managing multiple configurations. When a variable is changed in a ConfigMap, the application may need to be restarted to pick up the new value (e.g., kubectl rollout restart deployment).
• Secrets are used to store sensitive information, such as passwords and keys. The data in Secrets is base64-encoded for basic obfuscation and is encrypted when stored in etcd. As with ConfigMaps, restarting the application may be required to pick up changes.