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README.md

solarwinds Web Help Desk

This is a Dockerized version of WebHelpDesk. This is based on the RHEL rpm installed on a CentOS 6 base.

The primary purpose of the document is to explain the steps involved in deploying WHD Docker image on to Docker store/hub. This could be first step in exploring the feasibility of moving other products (related and non-related) to Containers to cut down the build and deploy time for products that are under maintenance. Please refer Docker Best Practices for creating Docker file.

Objective

The initial objective was to create a WHD Docker image with preinstalled Web Help desk configured and ready to go with the embedded PostgreSQL. This would be offered only on RHEL Based Linux Containers since the WHD RPM is built for RHEL based Linux version. Hence, currently CentOS is being used as the base line OS image for WHD Containers. However, as the second step, PostgreSQL can be hosted on its own container and in that way, WHD can scale horizontally and need not be updated when new version of WHD is released. Also, Database containers can be backed up independent of WHD container and scaled.

Running behind a proxy

While the default WHD port is 8081, you may wish to run WHD behind a network proxy in order to expose a different port to your users (e.g. 80). You'll want WHD to send user notifications (e.g. tickets) using the proxy port (e.g. 80). To manipulate which port WHD uses when sending notifications, set the URL_DEFAULT_PORT (an environment variable) to your desired port. You may set the environment variable at runtime, when deploying a new container using the -e command like so:

-e URL_DEFAULT_PORT=<port>

Full example:

docker run -d -p 8081:8081 -e URL_DEFAULT_PORT=80 --name=whdinstance solarwinds/whd-embedded:latest

Options

Option - 1: Docker Image with Embedded PostgreSQL database

#Docker File - Embedded PostgreSQL

# Version: 0.0.9

FROM centos:latest

MAINTAINER Solarwinds "[email protected]"

ARG EMBEDDED

ENV CONSOLETYPE=serial PRODUCT_VERSION=12.7.1 PRODUCT_NAME=webhelpdesk-12.7.1.538-1.x86_64.rpm.gz GZIP_FILE=webhelpdesk.rpm.gz RPM_FILE=webhelpdesk.rpm EMBEDDED=${EMBEDDED:-true} WHD_HOME=/usr/local/webhelpdesk

RUN echo Environment :: $EMBEDDED

ADD functions /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions 
ADD http://downloads.solarwinds.com/solarwinds/Release/WebHelpDesk/$PRODUCT_VERSION/Linux/$PRODUCT_NAME /$GZIP_FILE
RUN gunzip -dv /$GZIP_FILE && yum clean all && yum update -y && yum install -y python-setuptools && easy_install supervisor && yum install -y -v /$RPM_FILE  && rm /$RPM_FILE && yum clean all && cp $WHD_HOME/conf/whd.conf.orig $WHD_HOME/conf/whd.conf && sed -i 's/^PRIVILEGED_NETWORKS=[[:space:]]*$/PRIVILEGED_NETWORKS=0.0.0.0\/0/g' $WHD_HOME/conf/whd.conf
ADD whd_start_configure.sh $WHD_HOME/whd_start_configure.sh
ADD whd_start.sh $WHD_HOME/whd_start.sh
ADD whd_configure.sh $WHD_HOME/whd_configure.sh
ADD setup_whd_db.sh $WHD_HOME/setup_whd_db.sh
ADD whd-api-config-call.properties $WHD_HOME/whd-api-config-call.properties
ADD whd-api-create-call.properties $WHD_HOME/whd-api-create-call.properties
ADD run.sh /run.sh
ADD supervisord.conf /home/docker/whd/supervisord.conf
ADD whd $WHD_HOME/whd
ADD whd_bin $WHD_HOME/bin/whd
RUN chmod 744 /run.sh && chmod 644 $WHD_HOME/*.properties && chmod 755 $WHD_HOME/whd && chmod 744 $WHD_HOME/*.sh && chmod 755 $WHD_HOME/bin/whd 
EXPOSE 8081

ENTRYPOINT ["/run.sh"]

Here is the docker build command that is used to create WHD Docker image. The tag or image name should match the namespace or username/respository name created on the docker hub account.

#Docker Build

docker build -t solarwinds/whd-embedded:latest .

The command to login and push the image to docker hub repository is provided below.

#Docker Push

docker login --username={username}

This will prompt you to enter the docker hub account password. On successfully logging in, you will be able to push the image to the repository

docker push solarwinds/whd-embedded:latest

#Docker Pull

docker pull solarwinds/whd-embedded[:latest]

Once the docker image is built or pulled from docker hub, Here is the docker run command to start the container. This will create WHD container and start the PostgreSQL and start Web Help desk web application on 8081 port. This will run the container in the daemon mode.

#Docker Run

docker run -d -p 8081:8081 --name=whdinstance solarwinds/whd-embedded:latest

Ideally you would want the Data to be stored outside the Application container. So that when the container is upgraded or removed, the data still exists on the host. In order to create a seperate mount point for the Data directory, create a data volume to store data on the host

docker volume create --name whd-data-volume

Use the following Docker run command to mount volume when launching the container instance

#Docker Run with mount

docker run -d -p 8081:8081 --name=whdinstance -v whd-data-volume:/usr/local/webhelpdesk/bin/pgsql/var/lib/pgsql/9.2/data  solarwinds/whd-embedded:latest

-v whd-data-volume:/usr/local/webhelpdesk/bin/pgsql/var/lib/pgsql/9.2/data means we mount whd-data-volume as a volume. This is very important. It's safe to keep database files in the host.

Configure WHD Through Browser:

Web Help Desk is automatically configured to run Embedded PostgreSQL Database that comes with the WebHelpDesk RPM. PostgreSQL is configured to run on the port 20293 and runs on the same container as the WebHelpDesk Application.

Steps that happens when the container is launched

PostGreSQL is automatically installed and started by WebHelpDesk RPM on the same container and uses port 20293 WebhelpDesk gets installed on the same container with image named solarwinds/whd-embedded and exposes port 8081 for external use. The Database name whd and DB Admin and Users are created automatically from solarwinds/whd-embedded container. The WebhelpDesk application is started on the port 8081 and a API call is made to configure WHD Application to use embedded postgresql DB.

Option - 2: Docker Image with PostgreSQL database on a separate Container

WHD Docker image with Web Help desk configured and ready to go with the PostgreSQL that runs on the seperate container. This would be offered only on RHEL Based Linux Containers since the WHD RPM is built for RHEL based Linux version. Hence, currently CentOS is being used as the base line OS image for WHD Containers. However, PostgreSQL is hosted on its own container and uses Alpine as the base OS image and in that way, WHD can scale horizontally and need not be updated when new version of WHD is released. Also, Database containers can be backed up independent of WHD container and scaled. This is the docker compose YAML file that will be used by Engineering to build whd image. Basically, the main difference between option 1 and 2 is the environment variable "EMBEDDED". When you are creating the solarwinds/whd-embedded image, it sets EMBEDDED to true and as a result the container will start the PostgreSQL with in the same container. While building solarwinds/whd image using the compose, it sets the EMBEDDED to false and build the solarwinds/whd image using the same Dockerfile. When this is used to build the image, it does not start the PostgreSQL with in the same container and establishes port connectivity between PostgreSQL container that runs on alpine Linux and WHD container that runs tomcat on CentOS.

#Docker Compose YAML file to be used by Engineering for solarwinds/whd Image

version: "2.0"
services:
   db:
     container_name: postgres-whd
     image: postgres:alpine
   whd:
      container_name: whdinstance
      environment:
         EMBEDDED: 'false'
      build:
         context: .
         args:
            EMBEDDED: 'false'
      image: solarwinds/whd
      ports:
      - "8081:8081"
      depends_on:
      - db

Here is the docker build command that is used to create WHD Docker image. The tag or image name should match the namespace or username/respository name created on the docker hub account.

#Docker-Compose Build

docker-compose build -t solarwinds/whd:latest .

#Docker-Compose Build and Run

docker-compose up --build -t solarwinds/whd:latest .

The command to login and push the image to docker hub repository is provided below.

#Docker Push

docker login --username={username}
-- This will prompt you to enter the docker hub account password. On successfully logging in, you will be able to push the image to the repository 
docker push solarwinds/whd:latest

#Docker Pull

docker pull solarwinds/whd[:latest]

#YAML file to be run on the Customer Docker instance

docker-compose.yaml to be run on the Customer Docker Instance

version: "2.0"
services:
   db:
     container_name: postgres-whd
     image: postgres:alpine
   whd:
      container_name: whdinstance
      environment:
         EMBEDDED: 'false'
      image: solarwinds/whd
      ports:
      - "8081:8081"
      depends_on:
      - db

Copy the above lines and create an YAML file on the linux server containing docker instance and use the docker-compose up command.

#Docker-Compose Run

docker-compose up --build -t solarwinds/whd:latest .

Ideally you would want the Data to be stored outside the Application or postgreSQL container. So that when the container is upgraded or removed, the data still exists on the host. In order to create a seperate mount point for the Data directory, create a Volume to store data on the host

docker volume create --name whd-data-volume

Use the following Docker run command to mount volume when launching the container instance

#YAML file to be run on the Customer Docker instance using external mount

docker-compose.yaml to be run on the Customer Docker Instance using the mount point that stores Data on the host

version: "2.0"

services:
  db:
    container_name: postgres-whd
    image: postgres:alpine
    volumes:
      - whd-data-volume:/var/lib/postgresql/data
  whd:
    container_name: whdinstance
    image: solarwinds/whd
    ports:
      - "8081:8081"
    depends_on:
      - db

volumes:
  whd-data-volume:
    driver: local

volumes:

  • whd-data-volume:/var/lib/postgresql/data

means we mount /var/lib/postgresql/data on the docker volume named whd-data-volume. This is very important. It's safe to keep database files seperate from postgres Container.

The other option is to create volume outside of docker-compose using docker volume create option and then use the volumes: by adding a external keyword on the docker-compose YAML file

volumes:
  whd-data-volume:
    external: true

Configure WHD Through Browser:

Web Help Desk is automatically configured to connect to standalone PostgreSQL Database container on port 5432. i.e PostgreSQL is configured to run on the port 5432.and runs on the separate container different from the WebHelpDesk Application.

Note

However there is one caveat with mounted data volumes. Especially when you upgrade or remove and create Web Help Desk Application Container. The Web Console prompts you to select "Custom Database". This will be worked out in the future releases though. But you need to configure the Database Connection one more time. Please enter the container instance name "postgres-whd" for Host Name and Leave the port number as 5432. This is just one time configuration setup to connect back to the same Container Volume.

Steps that happens when the container is launched

PostGreSQL is automatically installed and started on a seperate container container that uses alpine:linux as base OS image and uses port 5432. WebhelpDesk gets installed on the different container with image named solarwinds/whd and exposes port 8081 for external use. The Database name whd and DB Admin and Users are created automatically from solarwinds/whd container. The WebhelpDesk application is started on the port 8081 and a API call is made to configure WHD Application to use postgresql DB.

Important

Please allow couple of minutes after you launch the container to Start PostgreSQL and WHD Instance and create System Catalogs to keep the Database ready.