Deploy Production Workloads with Managed Consul and Kubernetes Take Home Lab

Prerequisites

• Your own Azure subscription
• The following binaries installed on the development host
  • jq
  • kubectl 1.18.0+
  • helm 3.2.1+
  • Azure CLI
  • Consul 1.8.x

Download the Helm repository

helm repo add hashicorp https://helm.releases.hashicorp.com && helm repo update

Install the HCS Azure CLI extension

az extension add --source https://releases.hashicorp.com/hcs/0.3.0/hcs-0.3.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Login to Azure

az login

Set an environment variable for your resource group name

export RESOURCE_GROUP=<your-resource-group-name> && echo $RESOURCE_GROUP

Create a resource group

az group create -l westus2 -n $RESOURCE_GROUP

Create an AKS cluster (this may take up to 10 minutes)

az aks create -g $RESOURCE_GROUP -n $RESOURCE_GROUP-aks

Create an HCS Datacenter (This may take up to 15 minutes)

az hcs create -g $RESOURCE_GROUP --name $RESOURCE_GROUP-managed-hcs --datacenter-name dc1 --email [email protected] --external-endpoint enabled

Create a VNet

az network vnet create -g $RESOURCE_GROUP -n $RESOURCE_GROUP-vnet

Confirm your resources

az resource list --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP -o table

Set an environment variable to the name of your AKS cluster

export AKS_CLUSTER=$(az aks list --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[] | .name') && echo $AKS_CLUSTER

Set an environment variable to the name of your HCS managed app

export HCS_MANAGED_APP=$(az hcs list --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[] | .name') && echo $HCS_MANAGED_APP

Set an environment variable to the name of your HCS managed app's resource group

export HCS_MANAGED_RESOURCE_GROUP=${$(az hcs list --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[] | .managedResourceGroupId')##*/} && echo $HCS_MANAGED_RESOURCE_GROUP

Add remote AKS kubeconfig to local kubconfig

az aks get-credentials --name $AKS_CLUSTER --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP

Bootstrap ACLs and store the token as a Kubernetes secret

az hcs create-token --name $HCS_MANAGED_APP --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --output-kubernetes-secret | kubectl apply -f -

Generate Consul key/cert and store as a Kubernetes secret

az hcs generate-kubernetes-secret --name $HCS_MANAGED_APP --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | kubectl apply -f -

Export the config file to pass to helm during install

az hcs generate-helm-values --name $HCS_MANAGED_APP --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --aks-cluster-name $AKS_CLUSTER > config.yaml

Enable the AKS specific setting exposeGossipPorts

sed -i -e 's/^ # \(exposeGossipPorts\)/ \1/' config.yaml

Configure the development host to talk to the public endpoint

export CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR=$(az hcs show --name $HCS_MANAGED_APP --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r .properties.consulExternalEndpointUrl) && echo $CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR

Set the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN on the development host to authorize the CLI

export CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN=$(kubectl get secret $HCS_MANAGED_APP-bootstrap-token -o jsonpath={.data.token} | base64 -d) && echo $CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN

Set the CONSUL_HTTP_SSL_VERIFY flag to false on the development host

export CONSUL_HTTP_SSL_VERIFY=false && echo $CONSUL_HTTP_SSL_VERIFY

Verify that the development host can see the Consul servers

consul members

Create a peering from the HCS Datacenter's vnet to the AKS Cluster's vnet

az network vnet peering create \
  -g $HCS_MANAGED_RESOURCE_GROUP \
  -n hcs-to-aks \
  --vnet-name $(az network vnet list \
    --resource-group $HCS_MANAGED_RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[0].name') \
  --remote-vnet $(az network vnet list \
    --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[0].id') \
  --allow-vnet-access

Create a peering from the AKS Cluster's vnet to the HCS Datacenter's vnet

az network vnet peering create \
  -g $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  -n aks-to-hcs \
  --vnet-name $(az network vnet list \
    --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[0].name') \
  --remote-vnet $(az network vnet list \
    --resource-group $HCS_MANAGED_RESOURCE_GROUP | jq -r '.[0].id') \
  --allow-vnet-access

Install the Consul clients to the AKS Cluster

helm install hcs hashicorp/consul -f config.yaml --wait

Verify the installation

consul members

Deploy the application to AKS

kubectl apply -f hashicups/ --wait

Create a config entry for an ingress gateway

consul config write hashicups/ingress-gateway.hcl

Add the ingress gateway to the helm configuration file

sudo tee -a ./config.yaml <<EOF
ingressGateways:
  enabled: true
  defaults:
    replicas: 1
  gateways:
    - name: ingress-gateway
      service:
        type: LoadBalancer
EOF

Upgrade the installation to deploy the ingress gateway

helm upgrade -f ./config.yaml hcs hashicorp/consul --wait

Create all necessary inter-service intentions

consul intention create ingress-gateway frontend && \
consul intention create frontend public-api && \
consul intention create public-api products-api && \
consul intention create products-api postgres

Retrieve the public IP/Port for the ingress gateway

kubectl get svc