###Fabrikam Purchasing Website using Chef cookbook
In this demo you will explore some of the new features and capabilities of Visual Studio Online (VSO). The demo showcases VSO Build and Release Management feature which allows users to deploy a sample webapp 'Purchasing' (this repo) using Chef deployment task to a VM in Azure
Prerequisites
- Visual Studio Online Account. Link:SignUp for VSO
- An on-prem Windows VM with VSO-Agent. Link:Deploy a Windows VSO Build/Release Agent
- Azure Linux Virtual Machine (target) and a Storage Account Link:Azure Portal
- Hosted/Enterprise Chef account. Link SingUp for Hosted Chef
Tasks
- Configure your organization in Chef Server
- Configure the Chef Workstation
- Create a Cookbook
- Create a Role
- Create an Enviornment
- Add your linux vm as a Chef 'Node'
- Setup continuous delivery using Build and Release definitions
###Task 1: Configure your organization in Chef Server
Step 1. Login to your Chef account.
Step 2. Click on the "Administration" tab.
Step 3. On the left pane under "Organizations", Click the "Create" button.
Step 4. Once your organiztion is created. Click on the Action menu, click on Starter Kit.
Step 5. Click on Download Starter kit.
Step 6. Copy and Extract the contents to your Windows VM configured with VSO Agent, to say 'C:\chef-repo'
Chef uses RSA keys to encrypt all communication between the Chef workstation and the Chef server. Chef starter kit contains a files in the directory c:\chef-repo.chef called <user>.pem, which contains the key for the user account. When we created our orgainization, we got the organization key into a file called <yourname-validator>.pem in the 'c:\chef-repo.chef' directory.
###Task 2: Configuring Windows VM having the VSO Agent as the Chef Workstation In this exercise, you will configure your Windows VM as a Chef Workstation.
Step 1. Download and install Chef Development kit for Windows
https://downloads.chef.io/chef-dk/windows/
The ChefDK can be installed on any workstation across a variety of operating systems and configured to work with a Chef server. For this demo, we are using the Windows VM as our workstation to make things easier and faster for a lab.
Step 2. Synchronize the Chef repo.
C:\chef-repo>knife download /
You will observe that additional files and folders have been created in the chef-repo directory.
###Task 4: Create a Cookbook In this exercise, you will create a cookbook to automate the installation of the Purchasing application and upload it to the Chef server.
Step 1. Navigate to Chef-repo cookbook directory, use the knife tool to generate a cookbook template.
C:\chef-repo\cookbook>knife cookbook create purchasing
A cookbook is a set of tasks for configuring an application or feature. It defines a scenario and everything required to support that scenario. Within a cookbook, there are a series of recipes that define a set of actions to perform. Cookbooks and recipes are written in the Ruby language.
This creates an “purchasing” directory in the chef-repo/cookbooks/ directory that contains all of the boilerplate code that defines a cookbook and a default recipe.
Step 2. Edit the metadata.rb file in our purchasing cookbook directory.
C:\chef-repo\cookbook\purchasing\metadata.rb
Cookbooks and recipes can leverage other cookbooks and recipes. Our cookbook will use a pre-existing recipe for managing APT repositories.
Step 3. Add the following line at the end of the file:
depends 'apt'
Step 4. The file should look like this:
name 'purchasing'
maintainer 'YOUR_COMPANY_NAME'
maintainer_email 'YOUR_EMAIL'
license 'All rights reserved'
description 'Installs/Configures mrpapp'
long_description IO.read(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'README.md'))
version '0.1.0'
depends 'apt'
Step 5. Save the file
Step 6. Download the apt cookbook.
C:\chef-repo\cookbook\knife cookbook site download apt
We need to install additional dependencies for our recipe: the apt cookbook, and the chef-client, cron, logrotate, chef_handler & windows cookbook. This can be accomplished using the knife cookbook site command, which will download the cookbooks from the official Chef cookbook repository, https://supermarket.chef.io/cookbooks.
Extract the '*.tar.gz' files into cookbook directory. It should look like below
Step 8. We will first open up a full copy of the recipe on the host machine where you are connected to the Chef Server, found at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RoopeshNair/purchasing/master/Deploy/default.rb.
Step 9. Copy all of the contents of this page, open the file c:\chef-repo\cookbooks\purchasing\recipes\default.rb
Step 10. The file should look like this to start:
↪ #
↪ # Cookbook Name:: purrchasing
↪ # Recipe:: default
↪ Cd site insta#
↪ # Copyright 2015, YOUR_COMPANY_NAME
↪ #
↪ # All rights reserved - Do Not Redistribute
↪ #
Step 11. Paste the contents of the recipe into the purchasing recipe file at the end, save and exit
Step 12. The following explains what the recipe is doing to provision the application.
The first thing the recipe will do will be to run the 'apt' resource – this will cause our recipe to execute 'apt-get update' prior to running, to make sure the package sources on the machine are up-to-date.
↪ # Runs apt-get update
↪ include_recipe "apt"
Now we add an apt_repository resource to make sure that the OpenJDK repository is part of our apt repository list and up-to-date.
↪
↪ # Add the Open JDK apt repo
↪ apt_repository 'openJDK' do
↪ uri 'ppa:openjdk-r/ppa'
↪ distribution 'trusty'
↪ end
Next, we will use the apt-package recipe to ensure that the OpenJDK and OpenJRE are installed.
↪ # Install JDK and JRE
↪ apt_package 'openjdk-8-jdk' do
↪ action :install
↪ end
↪
↪ apt_package 'openjdk-8-jre' do
↪ action :install
↪ end
Next, we set the JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables to reference OpenJDK.
↪ # Set Java environment variables
↪ ENV['JAVA_HOME'] = "/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64"
↪ ENV['PATH'] = "#{ENV['PATH']}:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/bin"
Next, we'll install the Tomcat web server.
↪ # Install Tomcat 7
↪ apt_package 'tomcat7' do
↪ action :install
↪ end
At this point, all of our dependencies will be installed, so we can start configuring the applications.
Next, we need to set the port that Tomcat will run our purchasing application on. This uses a script resource to invoke a regular expression to update the /etc/tomcat7/server.xml file. The "not_if" action is a guard statement – if the code in the "not_if" action returns true, the resource won't execute. This lets us make sure the script will only run if it needs to run. Another thing to note: We are referencing an attribute called #{node['tomcat']['mrp_port']}. We haven't defined this value yet, but we will in the next exercise! With attributes, you can set variables, so the purchasing application can run on one port on one server, or a different port on a different server. If the port changes, you see that it uses "notifies" to invoke a service restart.
↪ # Set tomcat port
↪ script 'tomcat_port' do
↪ interpreter "bash"
↪ code "sed -i 's/Connector port=\".*\" protocol=\"HTTP\\/1.1\"$/Connector port=\"#{node['tomcat']['mrp_port']}\" protocol=\"HTTP\\/1.1\"/g' /etc/tomcat7/server.xml"
↪ not_if "grep 'Connector port=\"#{node['tomcat']['mrp_port']}\" protocol=\"HTTP/1.1\"$' /etc/tomcat7/server.xml"
↪ notifies :restart, "service[tomcat7]", :immediately
↪ end
Now we can download the purchasing application and start running it in Tomcat. If we get a new version, it signals the Tomcat service to restart.
↪ # Install the MRP app, restart the Tomcat service if necessary
↪ remote_file 'mrp_app' do
↪ source 'node['purchasing']['blob']
↪ path 'node['tomcat']['webapp_dir'] + node['purchasing']['app_war']
↪ action :create
↪ notifies :restart, "service[tomcat7]", :immediately
↪ end
We can define the Tomcat servce's desired state, which is "running". This will cause the script to check the Tomcat service, and start it if it isn't running. We can also signal this resource to "restart" with "notifies" (see above).
↪ # Ensure Tomcat is running
↪ service 'tomcat7' do
↪ action :start
↪ end
Step 13. Now that the recipe is written, we can upload the cookbooks to the Chef server. From the command line, run:
c:\chef-repo\cookbooks>knife cookbook upload apt cron logrotate chef_handler windows chef-client purchasing
Now that we have a recipe created and all of the dependencies installed, we can upload our cookbooks and recipes to the Chef server with the knife upload command.
###Task 5: Create a Role In this exercise, you will use the Chef Console to create a role to define a baseline set of cookbooks and attributes that can be applied to multiple servers.
At the start of this task, you should be logged in to the Chef Console in a web browser.
Step 1. Click on the "Policy" tab.
Step 2. Click on the "Roles" tab.
Step 3. Click the "Create" button.
Step 4. Enter the role name purchasing.
Step 5. Click Next.
Step 6. Under Available Recipes, find the purchasing recipe.
A run list is a series of recipes to apply. We're defining a role that can be applied to as many servers as we want that will run the MRP application.
Step 7. Drag the purchasing recipe to the Current Run List box.
Step 8. Repeat for the chef-client::service recipe.
Step 9. The run list should be:
1. purchasing
2. chef-client::service
Step 10. Click Next.
Step 11. In the Default Attributes box, paste the text:
{
"tomcat": {
"mrp_port": 9080
}
}
In the previous exercise, we referenced an attribute called ['tomcat']['mrp_port'] in our recipe. This was referencing a JSON object. Now we can define default value to provide.
Step 12. Click Next.
Step 13. Paste the following JSON in the Override Attributes box:
{
"chef_client": {
"interval": "60",
"splay": "1"
}
}
The second recipe we added to the run list was chef-client:: service. This recipe ensure that the Chef client will run on a regular basis to ensure that the environment is in sync with what is defined in our recipe. However, the default value for the chef client service is to sync every 30 minutes. We can override that value here and set it to a more frequent interval.
Step 14. Click Create Role.
###Task 5: Create an Environment
Step 1. We will prepare the purchasing app deployment package first. We need to set the location deployment package as an attribute of the environment in Chef server.
Download the purchasing.war & upload it to your Azure Storage account
*Note*: This is just a temporary step to check if the rest of the steps are correct. You can upload the war using PowerShell scripts if that’s your preferred method.
i) Copy the war file generated on your Linux VM (ROOT.war) to your Windows VM.
ii) Download the [Azure Storage explorer](https://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/). It helps you manage your storage account, and blobs.
iii) Upload the war file “purchasing.war” as a blob.
iv) Note the following details for the blob from the azure management portal under the storage account -> dashboard -> “manage access keys”
a. Storage Account name
b. Container name
c. Blob name
These details are required in the environment attribute details
Step 2. Create environment
i) Click on the "Policy" tab.
ii) Click on the "Environment" in left pane.
iii) Click the "Create" button.
iv) Enter the name *chef_demo*.
v) Click **Next**, Skip **Constraints**, Click **Next**, Under "Default Attributes", Add following.
{
"purchasing": {
"blob": "https://<yourstorage>.blob.core.windows.net/<container>/purchasing.war",
"app_war": "purchasing.war"
}
}
Add the Azure blob storage url of the war file. For the demo, public access to the blob is assumed. Add the following default attributes to the environment. You can skip the constraints and override attribute part.
###Task 6: Install Knife-Reporting In this exercise, you will configure your Chef Workstation to use the Knife-Reporting plugin to determine the run status
Step 1. Install Knife-Reporting:
c:\chef-repo>chef gem install knife-reporting
###Task 7: Add your linux vm as a Chef 'Node'.
**Step 1.**Bootstrap your linux VM with chef-client and associate the run-list create in previous exercise. How to Bootstrap Linux node.
c:\chef-repo>knife bootstrap ADDRESS --ssh-user USER --ssh-password 'PASSWORD' --sudo --use-sudo-password --node-name node1 --run-list 'role[puchasing]' -E ENVIRONMENT
You'll see that the node gets bootstrapped and chef cookbook associated with run-list gets exectued.The script will take approximately 5 minutes to run. You will see it do the following things:
- Update the packages apt
- Intall tomcat on the VM and
- Execute the purchasing recipe.
Step 2. Click around the site and observe that it functions normally.
https://yourcloudservice.cloudapp.net:9080/purchasing
###Task 7: Setup continuous delivery using Build and Release definitions
Step 1. Clone this repo and build directly or clone and psuh it to your VSO account
For example,
git clone https://github.com/RoopeshNair/purchasing.git
cd purchasing/
git remote add vso <url_to_repository>
git push -u vso --all
Step 2. Setup Chef Enpoint connection in VSO
Fill in the details for the chef connection from the “chef-repo/.chef/knife.rb” file.
i) Chef server url: Should include the organisation name, just as is specified in the knife.rb file
ii) Node name is specified in the knife.rb file as well.
iii) Copy all the contents from the client key file. Name should be <node name>.pem.
Step 2. Setup your Build definition in VSO and queue Build Start with an empty build definition, setup your repository info
Step 3. Setup your Release definition and trigger release Start with an empty release definition, add Azure File Copy & Chef Task, Configure release definition with Azure Storage details
Parameters for Chef Task:
Chef Connection: <Chef Endpoint name>
Environment: <chef_demo or your env name>
Environment Attribute: {"default_attributes.purchasing.blob":"$(AzureContainerUri)/Rel$(Release.ReleaseId)/dist/purchasing.war"}
Step 4. Trigger release with new Ant based build from Step 2
Step 3. Go to the Chef Console in your web browser on your workstation and click on the Reports tab. This will take you to the dashboard where you can see statistics about your deployments.
Step 4. Click Run History.
Step 5. Observe that the node has a first successful run that executed.