SWE590 CLOUD COMPUTING APPLICATIONS TERM PROJECT

Zulip Chat App Kubernetes Deployment

Lami Kaan Kosesoy
Ali Kenan Yagmur

The aim of this project is to deploy Zulip Chat App on Kubernetes. The application is deployed on a Kubernetes cluster with 1 master and 2 worker nodes. Currently, the application is up and running at https://k8s.uzmankaza.com.

Installation, Configuration and Deployment

1. Install Docker and Kubernetes on Ubuntu Server

Install docker and kubernetes on your master and worker nodes. You can use the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker.io
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https curl
curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb http://apt.kubernetes.io/ kubernetes-xenial main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kubernetes.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl
sudo apt-mark hold docker-ce kubelet kubeadm kubectl

2. Create Kubernetes Cluster

On your master node, run the following command to create a kubernetes cluster.

sudo kubeadm init --pod-network-cidr=10.244.0.0/16

Note down the kubeadm join command with the token and the master IP address. You will need this to join the worker nodes to the cluster.

Setup local kubeconfig:

mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

Install a pod network (Flannel):

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/flannel/master/Documentation/kube-flannel.yml

On each worker node, join the cluster:

sudo kubeadm join [master-ip]:6443 --token [token] --discovery-token-ca-cert-hash [hash]

Test if the nodes are joined to the cluster:

kubectl get nodes

3. Deploy Application

Save your Kubernetes configuration files (zulip.rc.yml and zulip-svc.yml) in the master node.

kubectl apply -f ./

Verify that the pods are running:

kubectl get pods

4. Verify Deployment

See the logs of the zulip pod:

kubectl describe pod [pod-name]

5. Setup Reverse Proxy via Nginx

Install nginx on the master node:

sudo apt-get install nginx

Install certbot:

sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-nginx

Obtain a certificate:

sudo certbot certonly -d site.com

This will create a new directory in /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.com and store the certificate files in that directory.

Create a new nginx configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/conf.d/site.com.conf

Add the following configuration to the file:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/site.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass https://35.229.151.156:30443; # this ip changes every time I restart the vm
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Enable the new configuration:

systemctl reload nginx

5. Debugging

If you have any problems with the deployment, you can delete the cluster and start over.

kubeadm reset

For debugging, you can use the following commands:

kubectl pods describe [pod-name]

kubectl logs [pod-name]

6. Accessing the Application Containers

You can access the application containers using the following command:

kubectl exec -it [pod-name] -- /bin/bash

akyagmur / SWE590-k8s