Overview of Rocket Chat Deployment with Docker and Kubernetes

Overview of Deploying Rocket Chat on Kubernetes

In this Blog, We will Cover How to Build Slack like Online Chat using Rocket Chat and Deploy on Containers using Docker and Kubernetes. Before This, We are Using Rocket Chat application on OpenStack Instances on On-Premises Deployment. So We Migrated our Existing On-Premises Cloud Infrastructure to Containers based on Docker and Kubernetes. As per official Docker Documentation, Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications, whether on laptops, data center VMs, or the cloud. Kubernetes is container orchestration layer on top of container runtime/engine to manage and deploy Containers effectively.

An open-source container orchestration engine and also an abstraction layer for managing full-stack operations of hosts and containers. Click to explore about, Kubernetes Architecture and its Components

Requirements for Rocket Chat Deployment on Kubernetes

For Deployment you need

Kubernetes
Shared Persistent Storage - Option are GlusterFS, Ceph FS, AWS EBS, AzureDisk etc.
Rocket Chat Application
Dockerfile
Container-Registry
Kubectl

Kubernetes is for automating deployment, scaling, management, the orchestration of containerized applications. We can use kubernetes cluster or for testing purpose we can also use minikube for Kubernetes. For Shared Persistent Storage, we are using GlusterFS.GlusterFS is a scalable network file system. Rocket Chat is a Web-based Chat Server, developed in JavaScript, using the Meteor full stack framework. Dockerfile is a text document that contains all the information/commands that what we need to configure any application in the respective container. The Registry is an online storage for container images and lets you distribute Container images. We can use any of following Container Registry for storing.

Kubectl is command line tool to manage Kubernetes cluster remotely. Notes - If you are using an official image of Rocket Chat and MongoDB then you can skip Step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and move forward to Storage Volume (Step 7).

an open-source system, developed by Google, an orchestration engine for managing containerized applications over a cluster of machines. Click to explore about, Kubernetes Deployment Tools and Best Practices

What are the steps for Deploying Rocket Chat on Kubernetes?

The steps for Rocket Chat deployment on Kubernetes are listed below:

Create a Rocket Chat Container Custom Image

Create a file name “Dockerfile” for Rockets Chat Container Image. $ touch Dockerfile Now Add the Following content to the dockerfile of Rocket Chat application

FROM node: 4 - slim
MAINTAINER XenonStack
COPY bundle / /app/
RUN cd / app / programs / server\ && npm install
ENV PORT = 3000\
ROOT_URL = http: //localhost:3000
 EXPOSE 3000
CMD["node", "/app/main.js"]

This Rocket Chat Application is based on NodeJS so we need to use NodeJS docker image from docker hub as a base image for Rocket Chat application. After then we put our custom code of the Rocket Chat application to docker container and install all the required dependencies of rocket chat application to docker container.

Build Rocket Chat Docker Custom Image

$ docker build -t rocketchat:v1.0

Create a MongoDB Container Custom Image

Create a file name “Dockerfile” for MongoDB Container Image in new Folder named MongoDB. $ mkdir mongodb && cd mongodb $ touch Dockerfile Now Add the Following content to the dockerfile of Mongo -

FROM ubuntu
MAINTAINER XenonStack
RUN apt - key adv--keyserver hkp: //keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 7F0CEB10 && \
 echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu   trusty/mongodb-org/3.0 multiverse" | tee / etc / apt / sources.list.d / mongodb - org - 3.0.list && \
 apt - get update && \
 apt - get install - y mongodb - org
VOLUME["/data/db"]
WORKDIR / data
EXPOSE 27017
CMD["mongod"]

This MongoDB image has a base image of Ubuntu but we can also use official docker image of MongoDB. We have created this dockerfile for MongoDB Version 3.0 for some compatibility reasons with Rocket Chat Application. Next, we mount Volume “/data/db” for persistent storage of container. Next, we expose 27017 port for incoming requests to MongoDB server. Then, we start MongoDB server in dforeground mode so that we can see logs in “stdout” of container.

Building a MongoDB Docker Custom Image

$ docker build -t mongo:v3.0

Adding Container Registry to Docker Daemon

If you are using docker registry other than docker hub to store images then you need to add that container registry to your local docker daemon and kubernetes Docker Nodes also. There are so many ways to add container registry to docker daemon as per different operating systems. So i will explain one of them which i'm using daily basis.

$ docker version
Client:
 Version: 17.03 .1 - ce
API version: 1.27
Go version: go1 .7 .5
Git commit: c6d412e
Built: Mon Mar 27 17: 14: 09 2017
OS / Arch: linux / amd64(Ubuntu 16.04)

Now we need to Create a “daemon.json” in below mentioned location $ sudo nano /etc/docker/daemon.json And add the following content to it. { "insecure-registries": ["<name of your private registry>"] } Now Run the following commands to reload systemctl and restart docker daemon. $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload $ sudo service docker restart To verify that your container registry is added to local docker daemon, use the below mentioned steps. $ docker info In output of above you get your container registry like this Insecure Registries: <your container registry name> 127.0.0.0/8

Pushing Custom PostgreSQL Container Image to Container Registry

Let's start to uploading our custom images to container registry like

Private Docker Hub
AWS ECR
Docker Store
Google Container Registry

If you have authentication enabled on container registry then you need to login first then we can upload or download images from container registry. To Login follow below mentioned command $ docker login <name of your container registry> Username : xxxx

Password: xxxxx

For AWS ECR you will get registry url, username and password from respective cloud provider when you launch container registry on cloud. Here is shell script that will add your aws credentials for Amazon ECR.

#!/bin/bash
pip install--upgrade--user awscli
mkdir - p~/.aws && chmod 755 ~/.aws

cat << EOF > ~/.aws/credentials [
 default
]
aws_access_key_id = XXXXXX
aws_secret_access_key = XXXXXX
EOF

cat << EOF > ~/.aws/config [
 default
]
output = json
region = XXXXX
EOF

chmod 600~/.aws/credentials

ecr - login = $(aws ecr get - login--region XXXXX)
$ecr - login

Now we need to tag rocketchat images and push them to any of the above mentioned container registry. To Tag images $ docker tag rocketchat:v1.0 <name of your registry>/rocketchat:v1.0 $ docker tag mongo:v3.0 <name of your registry>/mongo:v3.0 To Push Images $ docker push <name of your registry>/rocketchat:v1.0 $ docker push <name of your registry>/mongo:v3.0 Similarly we can push images to any of above mentioned container registry like aws ecr , google container registry or azure container registry etc.

Continuous delivery concentrates on automating the software delivery process so that teams can quickly and confidently deploy their code to production at any point. Click to explore about, Kotlin Application Deployment with Kubernetes

Create a Storage Volume (Using GlusterFS)

Using below mentioned command we create a volume in GlusterFS cluster for MongoDB. As we are using glusterfs as persistent volume to mongodb container so we need to create volume in GlusterFS. We need to add the IP Address or DNS instead of node1 and node2 as you specified in your installation of glusterfs.

$ gluster volume create apt - cacher replica 2 transport tcp k8 - master: /mnt/brick
1 / mongodb - disk k8 - 1: /mnt/brick
1 / mongodb - disk
$ gluster volume start mongodb - disk
$ gluster volume info mongodb - disk

Figure - Information of Gluster Volume

Deploy MongoDB on Kubernetes

Deploying MongoDB Single Node on Kubernetes have following prerequisites -

Docker Image: We have created a Docker Image for MongoDB in Step 4 and pushed to docker hub or private docker registry.
Persistent Shared Storage Volume: We have created a Persistent Shared Storage Volume of glusterfs in Step 6
Deployment & Service Files: Next, we will create Deployment & Service Files for Kubernetes.

let`s create a Deployment file name “mongodb.deployment.yml” for MongoDB. $ touch mongodb.deployment.yml Now Add the Following content to the deployment file of MongoDB -

apiVersion: extensions / v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
 name: mongodb3
namespace: production
spec:
 replicas: 1
template:
 metadata:
 labels:
 k8s - app: mongodb3
spec:
 containers:
 -name: mongodb3
image: dr.xenonstack.com: 5050 / mongo: v3 .0
imagePullPolicy: "IfNotPresent"
ports:
 -containerPort: 27017
volumeMounts:
 -mountPath: /data/db
name: mongodisk1
volumes:
 -name: mongodisk1
glusterfs:
 endpoints: glusterfs - cluster
path: mongodb - disk
readOnly: false

In deployment file contains information about namespace , replicas set , docker image name , port number and persistent volumes we are going to use in kubernetes. We also need to create a service file named “mongodb.service.yml” for MongoDB. $ touch mongodb.service.yml Now Add the Following content to the service file of MongoDB -

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
Metadata:
 labels:
 k8s - app: mongodb3
name: mongodb3
namespace: production
spec:
 type: NodePort
Ports:
 -port: 27017
selector:
 k8s - app: mongodb3

In service file contains information about namespace , type of port and external ip if want to assign any public ip to container in kubernetes. Now we Just need to launch MongoDB as a Standalone instance in Kubernetes Cluster using Kubectl. $ kubectl create -f mongodb.deployment.yml $ kubectl create -f mongodb.service.yml Now we check MongoDB deployment and service either using kubernetes dashboard or kubectl command line. Using Dashboard of Kubernetes

Figure - Kubernetes Dashboard for MongoDB Using Kubectl (CommandLine) $ kubectl get po --namespace=testing | grep mongodb3 $ kubectl get svc --namespace=testing | grep mongodb3

Deploy Rocket Chat on Kubernetes

Deploying Rocket Chat on Kubernetes have following prerequisites -

Docker Image: We have created a Docker Image for Rocket chat in Step 2.
Deployment & Service Files: In the below mentioned steps, we will create Deployment & Service Files.

As we are using MongoDB for storing files of Rocket Chat so we don`t need to mount any volume to Rocket Chat container. Now let’s create a Deployment file name “rocketchat.deployment.yml” for Rocket Chat. $ touch rocketchat.deployment.yml Now Add the Following content to the deployment file of Rocket Chat -

apiVersion: extensions / v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
 name: rocketchat
namespace: production
spec:
 replicas: 1
template:
 metadata:
 labels:
 k8s - app: rocketchat
spec:
 containers:
 -name: rocketchat
image: dr.xenonstack.com: 5050 / rocketchat: v1 .0
imagePullPolicy: "IfNotPresent"
ports:
 -containerPort: 3000
env:
 -name: MONGO_URL
value: "mongodb://mongodb3:27017/rocketchat"

In deployment file contains information about namespace, replicas set, docker image name, port number and persistent volumes we are going to use in Kubernetes. We also need to create a Service file name “rocketchat.service.yml” for Rocket Chat. $ touch rocketchat.service.yml Now Add the Following content to the service file of Rocketchat :-

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
 labels:
 k8s - app: rocketchat
name: rocketchat
namespace: production
spec:
 type: NodePort
ports:
 -port: 3000
selector:
 k8s - app: rocketchat

In service file contains information about namespace, type of port and external ip if want to assign any public ip to container in Kubernetes. Now we Just need to launch Rocketchat as instance in Kubernetes Cluster using Kubectl. $ kubectl create -f rocketchat. deployment.yml $ kubectl create -f rocketchat. service.yml Now we check MongoDB deployment and service either using Kubernetes dashboard or kubectl command line. Using Dashboard of kubernetes

Figure - Kubernetes Dashboard for Rocket Chat Using Kubectl (CommandLine) $ kubectl get po --namespace=testing | grep rocketchat $ kubectl get svc --namespace=testing | grep rocketchat Now you have successfully deployed Rocket Chat on Kubernetes with MongoDB.

Test MongoDB Database

Use the below-mentioned command to connect MongoDB database $ mongo --host <cluster ip> --port 27017

Test Rocket Chat Application

Open Cluster-IP with 3000 port in your browser to check Rocket Chat is running or not. Testing Rocket Chat on Kubernetes

Troubleshooting of Rocket Chat Application Container

Check Logs of Rocket Chat Application and MongoDB Pods.
Check the NameSpace of both Containers/Pods/Service of MongoDB and RocketChat is in same.
Try to Connect MongoDB from local Mongo Client using Cluster IP Address.
Check Network Connectivity from Rocketchat to MongoDB Pods.

Notes - I haven't tested Rocketchat application with MongoDB authentication enabled.

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Summarizing Rocket Chat Deployment on Kubernetes

With Container Architecture, Midsize and Small Enterprises Build their own On-Premises Cloud Infrastructure using Docker and Kubernetes for Continuous Integration and Delivery pipeline for Application Development environments with Different Programming languages like Java, .NET, Python, Node.js and also Build Testing Environment for Microservices. At XenonStack, We help Enterprises to Plan, Build, Monitor and Manage Continuous Delivery Pipeline using Docker and Kubernetes Solution.Reach Us for Deployment and Consulting on DevOps, Kubernetes and Docker Cloud Solutions. We Provide Consulting and Deployment for DevOps for Big Data and Data Science.

A Holistic Strategy

Enterprises across the globe are monitoring and managing continuous delivery pipeline using Docker and Kubernetes solution. There are many service companies that can help enterprises to perform this task. But before that, you are advised to take below steps for better understanding of this deployment concept: