Deploy Drupal + MariaDB + Redis on Kubernetes: Production-Ready CMS

Running Drupal on Kubernetes requires coordinating a stateful database, a cache layer, and a web application tier with shared persistent storage. This template deploys Drupal 10 with MariaDB in a StatefulSet and Redis for page and object caching on any NGINX-ingress-enabled cluster. The result is a scalable CMS stack with health probes, resource limits, and network policies configured out of the box.

What's Included

Component	Type	Port	Role
drupal-app	Deployment	80	Serves Drupal 10 over Apache; mounts shared files PVC
drupal-db	StatefulSet	3306	MariaDB 10.11; one PVC per replica via volumeClaimTemplates
redis	StatefulSet	6379	Redis 7 cache layer for Drupal page and object cache
drupal-service	Service (ClusterIP)	80	Internal service fronting the Drupal Deployment
db-service	Service (Headless)	3306	Headless service enabling per-pod DNS for MariaDB replicas
redis-service	Service (Headless)	6379	Headless service enabling per-pod DNS for Redis replicas
drupal-ingress	Ingress	80	Routes external HTTP traffic to drupal-service via NGINX
drupal-hpa	HorizontalPodAutoscaler	-	Scales Drupal pods between 2 and 5 replicas at 70% CPU
drupal-secrets	Secret	-	Holds MariaDB root and Drupal user passwords
cms-ssd-storage	StorageClass	-	Local-path storage class; swap for cloud CSI in production
pvc-drupal-app	PersistentVolumeClaim	-	ReadWriteMany volume shared across all Drupal pods
allow-drupal-to-db	NetworkPolicy	-	Restricts MariaDB ingress to Drupal pods only
allow-drupal-to-redis	NetworkPolicy	-	Restricts Redis ingress to Drupal pods only

Architecture Overview

External HTTP traffic enters through the NGINX Ingress and reaches drupal-service, which load-balances across Drupal pods. Each pod connects to MariaDB via headless db-service using per-pod DNS and to Redis via redis-service for caching. All Drupal replicas share a ReadWriteMany PVC for sites/default/files. NetworkPolicies enforce that only Drupal pods can reach the database and cache tiers. The HPA scales the Deployment based on CPU utilization.

Prerequisites

• A running Kubernetes cluster (Docker Desktop, Minikube, or any cluster)
• NGINX Ingress Controller installed on the cluster
• At least 6 GB of node memory allocated
• Host paths /mnt/data/db-0, /mnt/data/db-1, /mnt/data/db-2, /mnt/data/app-content created on the node (local clusters only; use cloud CSI PVs in production)
• KubeKanvas CLI installed and running on your computer (Optional, if you want to use one-click deployment)

How to Deploy

1. Update the db-password value in drupal-secrets to a strong, unique password before deploying.
2. For local clusters, verify the four host paths exist on your node. For cloud clusters, replace hostPath PV definitions with your CSI equivalents and update the StorageClass provisioner.
3. Confirm NGINX Ingress Controller is running. Add a host: field to the Ingress rule if serving Drupal on a specific domain.
4. Deploy the template to your cluster via the Play button in the top right bar. If you prefer to deploy manually, download the YAML and apply it with kubectl.
5. Wait for all pods to reach Running status. You can monitor progress in the Release Monitor screen.

How to Test

1. Run kubectl get pvc -n cms-web and confirm all four PVCs show status Bound.
2. Open http://<your-cluster-ip>/ in a browser; the Drupal installation wizard should appear.
3. Run kubectl exec -n cms-web drupal-db-0 -- mysqladmin ping -u root -p<password> to confirm MariaDB is healthy.
4. Run kubectl exec -n cms-web redis-0 -- redis-cli ping and verify the response is PONG.

Use Cases

• Multi-replica CMS: Run Drupal with 2-5 replicas sharing a common files directory via a ReadWriteMany volume.
• Stateful database on Kubernetes: Use MariaDB in a StatefulSet with per-pod PVCs for stable network identities and individual disk persistence.
• Cache-backed Drupal: Connect Drupal's page and object cache modules to Redis to offload PHP processing on high-read workloads.
• Network-isolated stack: Enforce that only application pods reach the database and cache tiers using NetworkPolicy without an external firewall.
• Autoscaling web tier: Pair a fixed StatefulSet database with an autoscaling Deployment for variable PHP traffic.

Summary

This template configures a three-tier Drupal CMS stack with a 3-replica MariaDB StatefulSet, a 3-replica Redis StatefulSet, and an autoscaling Drupal Deployment, including persistent storage, health probes, resource limits, NetworkPolicies, and NGINX Ingress routing in the cms-web namespace.