Rancher is an an Adeptia enables you to deploy the Adeptia Connect application using Rancher which is useful when you want to use your own VMs for Kubernetes cluster instead of using a managed Kubernetes cluster such as AKS.

Rancher is an open-source multi-cluster orchestration platform that makes it easy for you to deploy and manage an application on Kubernetes cluster created by Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE2).

Adeptia packages Rancher and Security focused Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE2) along with Adeptia Connect application and other components in Ansible Playbook. You need to download, extract,and run this package that deploys Adeptia Connect Rancher package. This package helps you deploy the followings in the same order.

RKE2 – Security focused KubernetesRancher Kubernetes Engine to set up Kubernetes environment.
Rancher UI – UI to centrally manage a multi-cluster Kubernetes environment.
Longhorn – Cloud native To implement distributed block storage for Kubernetes.
Prometheus including Grafana – For centralized monitoring
Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana (EFK) – For centralized logging
Kubernetes Event Driven Autoscaler (KEDA) – For pods autoscaling
Adeptia Connect application (can be deployed in HA mode with each microservice running 2 replicas)

Prerequisites and configurations for Playbook execution

Before you begin to run Ansible Playbook, ensure that you have,

At least three Linux VMs, each with the following minimum configuration:
- RAM – 32 GB
- Processor cores – 8
- Hard disk – 250 GB
One Jumpbox with internet access and SSH connectivity with the above 3 Linux VM machines.
Ansible 2.5 (or higher) installed on Jumpbox.
You can install Ansible on Ubuntu OS by running the following command:
Code Block
language powershell
$ sudo apt install ansible
Load Balancer on top of 3 Linux VM nodes.
Administrative privileges on Jumpbox and each Linux VM node.
SSH Private key in PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) format for communication between the VMs.

Info
You can use the PEM file with or without passphrase protection.

The following inbound ports opened on Load Balancer and 3 Linux VM:
- 9345 - required for RKE2 nodes clustering
- 6443 - required for Kubernetes API
DNS domain for accessing Rancher UI.
DNS domain for accessing Adeptia Connect portal.

=================================================================================

DNS

We need 2 different DNS (pointing to Load Balancer) for Ingress traffic routing to different components:

1st DNS for:

managing the RKE2 cluster
routing traffic to the Rancher GUI portal

2nd DNS for routing traffic to:

AC Portal
AC API Gateway (for REST and SOAP API calls)
Kibana dashboard for logging
Grafana dashboard for monitoring

==============================================================================================

Once you have met the prerequisites, update the following files containing the details of VMs, Load Balancer, ports, DNS, SSH connectivity, and other configuration details required for Adeptia Connect installation. These files are available in Ansible Playbook package that you have downloaded and extracted.

inventory file – Defines the hosts (or group of hosts) on which the Playbook runs.
general-config.yaml - Contains the configuration variables to run the Playbook for Adeptia Connect installation.
vault-config.yaml - Contains sensitive information, such as passwords, required to validate and run the Playbook.

Steps to update inventory file

Open the inventory file.
Add the domain name or IP address of the three VMs under the [servers] group as shown in the example code snippet below.

Info
RKE2 server (or master) will be deployed on these nodes.

Code Block

language	powershell

# rke2 cluster master/server nodes #
[servers]
xxx.xx.xx.xx
xxx.xx.xx.xx
xxx.xx.xx.xx

# rke2 cluster worker/agent nodes #
[agents]
xxx.xx.xx.xx

[k8s:children]
servers
agents

[servers:vars]
rke2_type=“server”

[agents:vars]
rke2_type=“agent”

[all:vars]
ansible_user={{ ssh_user }}
ansible_ssh_private_key_file={{ ssh_key_path }}

You can also add the domain name or IP address of an RKE2 agent under the [agents] group if you have one.

Info
RKE2 agent (or worker) will be deployed on these nodes.

Steps to update general-config.yaml

Navigate to /vars in the Ansible Playbook extracted folder.
Open the general-config.yaml file.
Update the following properties.

...

Property

...

Description

...

ssh_key_path

...

Name of SSH private key (pem) file.

...

rancher_lb_domain

...

Domain name of Rancher

...

app_lb_domain

...

Domain name of Adeptia Connect application

...

rke2_token

...

Secret token for node registration.

...

execute_static_job

...

AC installation mode.

Set the value for this property to true for fresh installation and false in case you are upgrading from a lower AC v4.x environment.

...

ac_ha_mode

...

Enable/Disable High Availability (HA) mode.

Possible values are:

true
false

...

backend_db_type

...

Backend database type.

Possible values are:

MySQL
SQL-Server
Oracle

...

backend_db_url

...

Value for Azure SQL Database

jdbc:sqlserver://<DB Hostname>:<Port Number>;database=<Backend Database Name>

Value for Oracle Database

jdbc:oracle:thin:@<hostName>:<portNumber>:<S ID/ServiceName>

Value for Azure MySQL Database

jdbc:mysql://<hostName>:<portNumber>/<DBName>?useSSL=true

...

log_db_type

...

Log database type.

Possible values are:

MySQL
SQL-Server
Oracle

...

log_db_url

...

Value for Azure SQL Database

jdbc:sqlserver://<DB Hostname>:<Port Number>;database=<Log Database Name>

Value for Oracle Database

jdbc:oracle:thin:@<hostName>:<portNumber>:<S ID/ServiceName>

Value for Azure MySQL Database

jdbc:mysql://<hostName>:<portNumber>/<DBName>?useSSL=true

...

tlsCrt

...

TLS signed certificate in base64 encoding (for Ingress)

...

tlsKey

...

TLS private key of certificate in base64 encoding (for ingress)

Steps to update vault-config.yaml

Navigate to /vars in the Ansible Playbook extracted folder.
Open the vault-config.yaml file.
Provide the sensitive information, such as RKE2 token, in the respective properties.

...

Property

...

Value

...

vault_ansible_sudo_pass

...

...

vault_rancher_gui_password

...

...

vault_rke2_token

...

...

vault_backend_db_username

...

...

vault_backend_db_password

...

...

vault_log_db_username

...

...

vault_log_db_password

...

...

vault_quartz_db_username

...

...

vault_quartz_db_password

...

...

vault_log_archive_db_username

...

...

vault_log_archive_db_password

...

Encrypting/Decrypting vault-config.yaml

You can encrypt the sensitive information specified in the vault-config.yaml file by using Ansible Vault.

To encrypt the file, run the following command:

...

Code Block

language	powershell

$ ansible-vault encrypt vault-config.yaml

You will be prompted to provide and confirm a password for the file. Once you have confirmed the password, a message “Encryption successful” confirming the encryption will be displayed.

To decrypt the file, run the following command:

...

Code Block
$ ansible-vault decrypt vault-config.yaml

You will be prompted to enter the encryption password that you had set for the file. Once you enter the password, the file will be decrypted and you will see a message confirming the decryption.

Executing the Ansible Playbook

After you have met all the prerequisites and configured the inventory, general-config.yaml, and vault-config.yaml files, you are ready to run the Ansible Playbook by executing the adeptia-connect.sh shell file (with appropriate arguments). Here are the steps to run the adeptia-connect.sh file in default mode by which all the components including RKE2, Rancher, Longhorn, Prometheus, EFK, KEDA, and Adeptia Connect get installed.

Log in to the Jumpbox.
Run the following command to set Read/Write permission on the SSH private key file (PEM):
Code Block
$ chmod 0600 <pem file>
Run the following command to set executable permission on the adeptia-connect.sh shell file:
Code Block
$ chmod +x adeptia-connect.sh
Run the following command to execute the shell file, adeptia-connect.sh, available in the Ansible Playbook:
Code Block
$ ./adeptia-connect.sh

You can use the tag argument while running the command to execute the shell file to install different components as per your requirement. For example, if you want to install all the components except for the Adeptia Connect application, run the following command:

Code Block
$ ./adeptia-connect.sh --tag=install-basic

Tip

To run multiple tags, provide comma separated values as shown below:

$ ./adeptia-connect.sh --tag=install-basic,install-ac

Following table contains the the list describing some tags that you can use:

...

Tag

...

Description

...

--tag=install-all

...

Installs all the components including RKE2, Rancher, Longhorn, Prometheus, EFK, KEDA, and Adeptia Connect in one go.

Info
This is the default tag considered by the system when you do not use any tag while executing the adeptia-connect.sh file.

...

--tag=install-basic

...

Installs all the components (RKE2, Rancher, Longhorn, Prometheus, EFK, KEDA) except for the Adeptia Connect application.

...

--tag=install-ac

...

Installs Adeptia Connect application only.

...

--tag=install-rke2

...

Installs RKE2 (server/agent) only.

...

--tag=install-prometheus

...

Installs Prometheus (including Grafana) only

...

--tag=install-efk

...

Installs EFK only.

Uninstalling the Ansible Playbook

Here are the steps to uninstall all the components including RKE2, Rancher, Longhorn, Prometheus, EFK, KEDA, and Adeptia Connect.

Log in to the Jumpbox.
Run the following command to set Read/Write permission on the SSH private key file (PEM):
Code Block
$ chmod 0600 <pem file>
Run the following command to set executable permission on the adeptia-connect.sh shell file:
Code Block
$ chmod +x adeptia-connect.sh
Run the following command to execute the shell file, adeptia-connect.sh, available in the Ansible Playbook:
Code Block
$ ./adeptia-connect.sh --tag=uninstall-all

This uninstalls all the components. If you want to install different components based on your requirement, you can use the tag argument while executing the shell file. For example, if you want to uninstall Adeptia Connect application only, run the following command:

Code Block
$ ./adeptia-connect.sh --tag=uninstall-ac

Tip

To run multiple tags, provide comma separated values as shown below:

$ ./adeptia-connect.sh --tag=uninstall-basic,uninstall-ac

...

bgColor	#FFFAE6

Important!

If you are using encrypted vault-config.yaml file, you need to pass the argument --ask-vault-pass while executing the shell file (during install or uninstall) as shown in the example below:

...

To monitor the system and its execution environment holistically, for example, CPU usage.
Elasticsearch, Fluentd, and Kibana (EFK) – To view the logs for each microservice.
Adeptia Connect application

To deploy the application and the other components, you need to refer to the following pages sequentially.

Versions Compared

Old Version 7

New Version Current

Key

Prerequisites and configurations for Playbook execution

=================================================================================

DNS

Steps to update inventory file

Steps to update general-config.yaml

Steps to update vault-config.yaml

Encrypting/Decrypting vault-config.yaml

Executing the Ansible Playbook

Uninstalling the Ansible Playbook

Page Comparison

Versions Compared

Old Version 7

New Version Current

Key

Prerequisites and configurations for Playbook execution

=================================================================================

DNS

Steps to update inventory file

Steps to update general-config.yaml

Steps to update vault-config.yaml

Encrypting/Decrypting vault-config.yaml

Executing the Ansible Playbook

Uninstalling the Ansible Playbook