Telepresence allows developers to test Kubernetes applications locally on their laptop for a fast development workflow. It works by replacing deployments with a proxy that redirects traffic to the local machine, providing access to cluster resources and unlimited compute. This avoids the slow process of building containers and deploying to the cluster for each change. The developer's laptop joins the cluster network namespace, allowing local tools to integrate seamlessly. Telepresence is an open source CNCF project that is actively developed to support additional features like multi-user development and persistent proxy deployments.

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TELEPRESENCE
FastDevelopmentWorkflowsfor
Kubernetes

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https://mitchdenny.com/the-inner-loop/

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The Kubernetes inner & outer loop is usually the same.
Write code
Build container
Push to registry
Deploy to cluster
Test
And can be …. SLOW.

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Automation helps speed it up …

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But you want a really fast inner loop (no docker build/push) …

6. And you want to use your own tools.

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Let’s do everything locally, so it’s really fast and I can use
my tools!

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My laptop only
has 16GB RAM and
you’re asking it to
run Kubernetes
and a JVM and a
database???

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TELEPRESENCE

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WhatisTelepresence?
“Fancy Kubernetes VPN for development”
“kubectl port-forward on steroids”
A network bridge between your laptop and the Kubernetes cluster

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Howitworks
A B
C
A’
The “A” deployment is
replaced by a proxy. Requests
to the proxy are sent to the
laptop.
Telepresence:
1. Intercepts DNS
2. Environment variables &
secrets
3. Volumes
4. TCP

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Benefits
Use any tool that runs on your laptop: IDE, profiler, debugger, …
Unlimited compute resources
Same network namespace (e.g., nslookup works)
Very fast inner loop!
Requirements
• Network connection
• kubectl access to cluster
• Mac or Linux

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TelepresenceisaCNCFproject,withawide
varietyofusers.

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• Capturing DNS and routing
only part of it to the cluster is
tricky
• No two laptops are alike
• Swapping out your (real)
deployment for a (proxy)
deployment is tricky

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DEMO

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USINGTHISINYOUR
WORKFLOW

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Our problem: Transfer data from monoliths to microservices
Following challenges
• Too many legacy services for Docker Compose (7+)
• Too many protocols to mock (LDAP, MSSQL, HTTP API, …)
• Too many cloud services to emulate (Cloud Pub/Sub, Consul, …)
TheProblem

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One cluster with multiple namespaces for all single-source-of-truth
microservices
Developers check out one of the microservices
Developers use Bazel + Telepresence + IDE
Telepresence is used in container mode with Bazel images
Once code is done, Jenkins is used to run tests, build, and deploy
Ourworkflow

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WHAT’SNEXT?

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Telepresencecomponents
Proxy Server
Client
Capture DNS requests for Kubernetes
resources
DNS resolution for Kubernetes resources
Proxy TCP connections to cluster
Proxy TCP connections to laptop
Canonical DNS for Kubernetes resources

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TelepresenceClient
Use kubectl port-forward to bootstrap sshuttle (ssh-based VPN)
sshuttle has a lot of functionality that is not used by Telepresence (it’s a VPN, after
all)
Replace sshuttle with Teleproxy — designed for Kubernetes
• Capture DNS locally
• Do DNS resolution intelligently
• Redirect TCP connections to the right destination
Already in progress, will replace VPN-TCP method
Also support multiple simultaneous swaps

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TelepresenceProxyServer
Currently deployed every time you do a swap-deployment (and then deleted)
Switch mode to be persistent (this is what Kubernetes is good for)
• Speeds up startup
• Support reconnect

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Multi-userdevelopment
Swap deployment doesn’t work well for multi-user development
Solution today is to use namespaces and/or individual clusters
• Expensive (more hardware & setup)
• Delays integration testing until after commit

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Intercept(Commercial)
Ambassador sends adds a
user identity token to the
HTTP header.
The intercept sidecar will
route to B or B’ depending
on the HTTP header.

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DEMO

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ContributingtoTelepresence
Documentation and workflows — how you integrate Telepresence into your
development workflow
Let us know if you’re a user!
Triage — lots of folks use GitHub for support; doesn’t scale well
Join Slack to help other users https://d6e.co/slack #telepresence

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Thankyou!Questions?
richard@datawire.io / @rdli
www.telepresence.io
https://github.com/telepresenceio
If you missed Christian Roggia’s talk on Telepresence, check
out the video!
Visit us at Booth SE19