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

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

• RKE2 – Security focused Kubernetes

• Rancher UI – UI to centrally manage a multi-cluster Kubernetes environment

• Longhorn – Cloud native 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:

  $ 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.

• 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.

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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

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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

1. Open the inventory file.

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

# 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.

Steps to update general-config.yaml

1. Navigate to /vars in the Ansible Playbook extracted folder.

2. Open the general-config.yaml file.

3. Update the following properties.

Steps to update vault-config.yaml

1. Navigate to /vars in the Ansible Playbook extracted folder.

2. Open the vault-config.yaml file.

3. Provide the sensitive information, such as RKE2 token, in the respective properties.

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:

$ 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:

$ 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.

1. Log in to the Jumpbox.

2. Run the following command to set Read/Write permission on the SSH private key file (PEM):

   $ chmod 0600 <pem file>

3. Run the following command to set executable permission on the adeptia-connect.sh shell file:

   $ chmod +x adeptia-connect.sh

4. Run the following command to execute the shell file, adeptia-connect.sh, available in the Ansible Playbook:

   $ ./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:

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

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

Uninstalling the Ansible Playbook

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

1. Log in to the Jumpbox.

2. Run the following command to set Read/Write permission on the SSH private key file (PEM):

   $ chmod 0600 <pem file>

3. Run the following command to set executable permission on the adeptia-connect.sh shell file:

   $ chmod +x adeptia-connect.sh

4. Run the following command to execute the shell file, adeptia-connect.sh, available in the Ansible Playbook:

   $ ./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:

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