Quickstart/Local Setup

iFIX Quickstart - this is not for a production

Quickstart installation helps you jump-start with the iFIX basic installation with limited functionalities.‌

iFIX is a distributed microservice-based platform that comprises many containerized services. Depending upon the required features, the specific services can be run on any container-supported orchestration platform like docker-compose, Kubernetes, etc.‌

The Quickstart guide covers the installation steps for basic services to get the platform up. Before setting up iFIX, create a lightweight Kubernetes cluster called k3d on a local machine with specified hardware requirements. The hardware requirements are listed below to ensure before we proceed further.‌

iFIX - Quickstart/local setup

1. Infra Setup

To provision a lightweight Kubernetes cluster, follow the instructions below in context to your OS and install the k3d on your machine.‌

Hardware or VM Size

• min 4 vCPUs (recommended 8)

• min 8GiB of RAM (recommended 16)

• min 30GiB of HDD (recommended 30+)

Tools

• Linux distribution running in a VM or bare metal

  • Ubuntu 18.04 or Debian 10 (VM or bare metal)

  • Install Docker​
  • ​Install kubectl on Linux
  • Open the terminal and Install k3d on Linux using the below command

  wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rancher/k3d/main/install.sh | bash

• OSX or Mac

  • ​Docker Desktop local Kubernetes cluster enabled
  • ​Install kubectl on Mac
  • Install k3d on Mac, on terminal use Homebrew (Homebrew is available for MacOS) using the below command

  brew install k3d

• Windows 10 or above

  • ​Docker Desktop for windows need to be installed
  • ​Install kubectl on Windows
  • ​Install Chocolatey package manager for windows
  • Install GitBash as an alternative command prompt that allows most of the Linux commands on Windows.
  • Open gitbash and Install k3d on Windows using the below command

  choco install k3d

Infra (Kubernetes Cluster) Creation

Once the above prerequisites are met, run the following tasks depending on your OS.‌

• login/ssh into the machine, go to terminal/command prompt and run the following commands as an admin user.

• Create /Kube directory and change permission. To use this directory for persistent data mount. This means data from all container logs will be stored here.

 mkdir /kube
 chmod 777 /kube

 #if you are unable to create the /kube folder in the root
 # you can create it in your user directory and provide the absolute path below

• Create a cluster with a single master node and 2 agents (Worker Nodes) and mount the pre-created directory (for data persistence).

k3d cluster create --k3s-server-arg "--no-deploy=traefik" --agents 2 -v "/kube:/kube@agent[0,1]" -v "/kube:/kube@server[0]" --port "80:80@loadbalancer"

• ‌When cluster creation is successful, get the kubeconfig file, that allows you to connect to the cluster at any time.

k3d kubeconfig get k3s-default > k3dconfig
kubectl config use-context k3d-k3s-default --kubeconfig=k3dconfig

• Verify the cluster creation by running the following commands from your local machine where the kubectl is installed. It gives you the sample output as below

root@ip:/# kubectl cluster-info

Output:
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://0.0.0.0:33931
CoreDNS is running at https://0.0.0.0:33931/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy
Metrics-server is running at https://0.0.0.0:33931/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/https:metrics-server:/proxy


root@ip:/# k3d cluster list
NAME          SERVERS   AGENTS   LOADBALANCER
k3s-default   1/1       2/2      true

• You can verify the workers' nodes created by using the following command.

kubectl get nodes

Output:
NAME                       STATUS   ROLES                  AGE     VERSION
k3d-k3s-default-agent-0    Ready    <none>                 3d18h   v1.21.1+k3s1
k3d-k3s-default-agent-1    Ready    <none>                 3d18h   v1.21.1+k3s1
k3d-k3s-default-server-0   Ready    control-plane,master   3d18h   v1.21.1+k3s1


kubectl top nodes

Output:
W0625 07:56:24.588781   12810 top_node.go:119] Using json format to get metrics. Next release will switch to protocol-buffers, switch early by passing --use-protocol-buffers flag
NAME                       CPU(cores)   CPU%   MEMORY(bytes)   MEMORY%   
k3d-k3s-default-agent-0    547m         6%     1505Mi          9%        
k3d-k3s-default-agent-1    40m          0%     2175Mi          13%       
k3d-k3s-default-server-0   59m          0%     2286Mi          14%

‌Once the above steps are completed successfully, your Cluster is now up and running ready to proceed with the DIGIT Deployment.‌

2. iFIX Setup

‌Now that we have the Infra setup to proceed with the DIGIT Deployment. Below are the tools (in the Pre-requisites section) that need to be installed on the machine before proceeding with the deployment of DIGIT Services.‌

What we'll deploy in Quickstart:‌

• iFIX core platform services

Pre-requisites

1. iFIX uses golang (required v1.13.3) automated scripts to deploy the builds onto Kubernetes - Linux, Windows or Mac​
2. All iFIX services are packaged using helm charts Installing Helm​
3. ​kubectl is a CLI to connect to the Kubernetes cluster from your machine
4. Install CURL for making API calls
5. ​Install Visualstudio IDE Code for better code/configuration editing capabilities
6. The iFix services deployment configurations are in GitRepo which needs to install git and then git clone it to your local.
7. ​Install Postman to run some DIGIT bootstrap scripts.

root@ip:/# git clone -b quickstart https://github.com/misdwss/iFix-DevOps

‌After cloning the repo CD into the folder iFix-DevOps, type the "code ." This command will open the visual editor and all the files from the repo iFix-DevOps

root@ip:/# cd iFix-DevOps
root@ip:DIGIT-DevOps# code .

Check the sample deployment config file that needs to be configured as per any specific values according to your needs. (For a quick start you can run as it is)

https://github.com/misdwss/iFix-DevOps/blob/quickstart/deploy-as-code/helm/environments/quickstart-config.yaml

Add the following entries in your host file /etc/hosts depending on your OS, instructions can be found here.

127.0.0.1 quickstart.local.digit

‌3. Deployment

‌Once the prerequisite setup is complete, go to the following repo, run the command and follow the instructions.

root@ip:# cd iFix-DevOps/deploy-as-code/egov-deployer

root@ip:# go run ifix_setup.go

#Be prepared for the following questions
1. Do you have the Kubernetes Setup?
2. Provide the path of the intended env kubeconfig file
3. Which version of the DIGIT that you want to install - Choose "Quickstart"
4. What mGramSeva modules that you choose to install
5. All, done, Now do you want to preview the deployment manifests 
6. Are you good to proceed with the DIGIT Installation

All Done.

Test the DIGIT application status in the command prompt/terminal using the below command.

curl -Is http://quickstart.local.digit/employee/login |  head -n 1HTTP/2 200