resource.proxy.edge

This repository contains the source code necessary to build Ubuntu Hyper-V hard-drives containing the Fabio reverse proxy.

The resulting hard-drive is used to create Hyper-V virtual machines which act as a reverse proxy which allows the users to access the different services in a given environment without having to know the individual addresses of these services. The Fabio reverse proxy will automatically detect the different instances and handle the proxying of the HTTP calls. Each environment can have one or more instances at known IP addresses so that a DNS name can be pointed to the machines.

Image

The image is created by using the Linux base image and amending it using a Chef cookbook which installs Fabio.

There are two different images that can be created. One for use on a Hyper-V server and one for use in Azure. Which image is created depends on the build command line used.

Contents

In addition to the default applications installed in the template image the following items are also installed and configured:

• Fabio - Provides the reverse proxy capabilities

The image is configured to add Fabio as a service to the Consul services list with under the proxy service name.

Configuration

The configuration for the Fabio instance comes from a Consul-Template template file which replaces some of the template parameters with values from the Consul Key-Value store.

Important parts of the configuration file are

• The title of the Fabio UI will have the Consul environment name.
• The color of the Fabio is set to indicate how important the environment is.

Provisioning

No additional configuration is applied other than the default one for the base image.

Logs

No additional configuration is applied other than the default one for the base image.

Metrics

Metrics are collected by Fabio sending StatsD metrics to Telegraf.

Build, test and release

The build process follows the standard procedure for building Calvinverse images.

Hyper-V

For building Hyper-V images use the following command line

msbuild entrypoint.msbuild /t:build /P:ShouldCreateHypervImage=true /P:RepositoryArchive=PATH_TO_ARTIFACTLOCATION

where PATH_TO_ARTIFACTLOCATION is the full path to the directory where the base image artifact file is stored.

In order to run the smoke tests on the generated image run the following command line

msbuild entrypoint.msbuild /t:test /P:ShouldCreateHypervImage=true

Azure

For building Azure images use the following command line

msbuild entrypoint.msbuild /t:build
    /P:ShouldCreateAzureImage=true
    /P:AzureLocation=LOCATION
    /P:AzureClientId=CLIENT_ID
    /P:AzureClientCertPath=CLIENT_CERT_PATH
    /P:AzureSubscriptionId=SUBSCRIPTION_ID
    /P:AzureImageResourceGroup=IMAGE_RESOURCE_GROUP

where:

• LOCATION - The azure data center in which the image should be created. Note that this needs to be the same region as the location of the base image. If you want to create the image in a different location then you need to copy the base image to that region first.
• CLIENT_ID - The client ID of the user that Packer will use to authenticate with Azure.
• CLIENT_CERT_PATH - The client certificate which Packer will use to authenticate with Azure
• SUBSCRIPTION_ID - The subscription ID in which the image should be created.
• IMAGE_RESOURCE_GROUP - The resource group from which the base image will be pulled and in which the new image will be placed once the build completes.

For running the smoke tests on the Azure image

msbuild entrypoint.msbuild /t:test
    /P:ShouldCreateAzureImage=true
    /P:AzureLocation=LOCATION
    /P:AzureClientId=CLIENT_ID
    /P:AzureClientCertPath=CLIENT_CERT_PATH
    /P:AzureSubscriptionId=SUBSCRIPTION_ID
    /P:AzureImageResourceGroup=IMAGE_RESOURCE_GROUP
    /P:AzureTestImageResourceGroup=TEST_RESOURCE_GROUP

where all the arguments are similar to the build arguments and TEST_RESOURCE_GROUP points to an Azure resource group in which the test images are placed. Note that this resource group needs to be cleaned out after successful tests have been run because Packer will in that case create a new image.

Deploy

Hyper-V

• Download the new image to one of your Hyper-V hosts.
• Create a directory for the image and copy the image VHDX file there.
• Create a VM that points to the image VHDX file with the following settings
  • Generation: 2
  • RAM: at least 1024 Mb
  • Hard disk: Use existing. Copy the path to the VHDX file
  • Attach the VM to a suitable network
• Update the VM settings:
  • Enable secure boot. Use the Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority
  • Attach a DVD image that points to an ISO file containing the settings for the environment. These are normally found in the output of the Calvinverse.Infrastructure repository. Pick the correct ISO for the task, in this case the Linux Consul Client image
  • Disable checkpoints
  • Set the VM to always start
  • Set the VM to shut down on stop
• Start the VM, it should automatically connect to the correct environment once it has provisioned
• Remove the old VM
  • SSH into the host
  • Issue the consul leave command
  • Shut the machine down with the sudo shutdown now command
  • Once the machine has stopped, delete it

Azure

The easiest way to deploy the Azure images into a cluster on Azure is to use the terraform scripts provided by the Azure ingress repository. Those scripts will create a proxy cluster of the suitable size.