Event Driver for VMware vCenter

This repo implements vCenter event driver that is compatible with both Knative and Dispatch.

1. Using the driver with Knative
2. Using the driver with Dispatch

Using the driver as an Event Source in Knative

Install Knative Serving w/ Istio

If you have installed Knative Serving & Istio components you can skip this topic. Otherwise, follow the latest instructions here to install dependencies of Eventing.

Install Knative Eventing

If you have already installed eventing & eventing sources, you can skip this topic.

The following command installs the Eventing version v0.2.1:

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing/releases/download/v0.2.1/release.yaml

This driver also specifically requires the Knative Eventing Sources component. Eventing Sources implements the support for a generic controller that can handle a ContainerSource CRD which is utilized by this driver.

Install Eventing Sources

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing-sources/releases/download/v0.2.1/release.yaml

Install Kafka Broker & Channel Provisioner

If you have already installed channel provisioner you can skip this topic.

A Channel in Eventing acts like a conduit for event transport. A Channel is an http endpoint to which an event source can POST events and is managed by the channel provisioner. The default installation of Eventing provides an in-memory channel provisioner but provisioner must not be used for production. Hence, in this step we will install a Kafka based Channel Provisioner that is more reliable. Before you install the provisioner, you must have access to an existing kafka cluster. If not, follow these instructions to deploy a kafka cluster.

Note: If you followed the above instructions, the kafka broker URL will be kafkabroker.kafka:9092.

Install a Kafka Channel Provisioner

Note: Below yaml assumes the kafka broker URL as kafkabroker.kafka:9092.

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing/releases/download/v0.2.1/kafka.yaml

For a more detailed installation or additional configuration options check here.

Create a Channel

Creates a channel that uses the kafka channel provisioner

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-channel.yaml
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Channel
metadata:
  name: vcenter-kafka-channel
spec:
  provisioner:
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
    kind: ClusterChannelProvisioner
    name: kafka
EOF
kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-channel.yaml

Install the vCenter Driver as an Event Source

Note: Modify the YAML below to add your credentials.

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-source.yaml
apiVersion: sources.eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: ContainerSource
metadata:
  labels:
    controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
  name: vcenter-source
spec:
  image: dispatchframework/dispatch-events-vcenter:latest
  args:
   - '--debug'
  env:
    - name: HOST
      value: vcenter.example.com
    - name: USERNAME
      value: "inputYourCreds"
    - name: PASSWORD
      value: "inputYourCreds"
  sink:
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
    kind: Channel
    name: vcenter-kafka-channel
EOF

kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-source.yaml

Create a subscription

Now, you can create a subscription to your knative service by customizing the following yaml with the name of the service:

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-subscription.yaml
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: vcenter-subscription
spec:
  channel:
    kind: Channel
    name: vcenter-kafka-channel
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
  subscriber:
    ref:
      kind: Service
      name: <your_service>
      apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1alpha1
EOF

kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-subscription.yaml

[Optional] Service Entry for vCenter host

By default, istio blocks outbound connections from the cluster. If this is the case with your cluster, you can add a service entry like below to allow outbound connections to you vCenter host domain.

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3
kind: ServiceEntry
metadata:
  name: vcenter-ext
spec:
  hosts:
  - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
  ports:
  - number: 443
    name: https
    protocol: HTTPS
  location: MESH_EXTERNAL
---
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
  name: vcenter-ext
spec:
  hosts:
  - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
  tls:
  - match:
    - port: 443
      sni_hosts:
      - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
    route:
    - destination:
        host: "*.vmwarevmc.com"
        port:
          number: 443
      weight: 100

Using the driver with Dispatch

NOTE: Dispatch version 0.1.20 and older have vcenter driver built-in. Only use this driver with newer versions of Dispatch

1. Get vCenter URL

Create connection string for your vCenter, in the form of:

export VCENTERURL="username:[email protected]"

Replace username, password and vcenter.example.com with respective values for your environment.

Then create a secret file:

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter_secret.json
{
    "vcenterurl": "$VCENTERURL"
}
EOF

Next, create a Dispatch secret which contains vcenter credentials:

$ dispatch create secret vcenter vcenter_secret.json
Created secret: vcenter

`

2. Create Event driver type in Dispatch

Create a Dispatch event driver type with name vcenter:

$ dispatch create eventdrivertype vcenter dispatchframework/dispatch-events-vcenter
Created event driver type: vcenter

3. Create Event driver in Dispatch

When creating vCenter event driver, remember to set the secret you have created in step 1.

$ dispatch create eventdriver vcenter --secret vcenter
Created event driver: holy-grackle-805996

4. Create Subscription in Dispatch

To make events from eventdriver be processed by Dispatch, the last step is to create Dispatch subscription which sends events to a function. For example, to create a vm.being.created event subscription (bind to function hello-py):

$ dispatch create subscription hello-py --event-type="vm.being.created"
created subscription: innocent-werewolf-420270

event-type should be the VCenter event type that the subscription will be listening to. Please refer to vSphere Web Services API reference (with version respective to your vCenter environment) for full list of available events. Note that event topic in Dispatch is transformed so that Event named VmBeingCreatedEvent becomes vm.being.created in Dispatch.

Building event driver

$ docker build -t dispatch-events-vcenter .
``