Deployment · Minds Docs

Minds deploys with GitLab, making use of Docker & Kubernetes.

Docker Containers

FPM

docker build -t minds/fpm:latest -f containers/php-fpm/Dockerfile .

Runners

docker build -t minds/runners:latest -f containers/php-runners/Dockerfile .

Getting connected to the staging environment

Prerequisties

Your AWS access keys setup in settings.php
- AWS_ACCESS_KEY={Your access key provided by Mark}
- AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY={Your secret access key provided by Mark}
- AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
Your AWS user must have access to AWS EKS
Helm and Kubernetes installed

Connecting

aws eks update-kubeconfig --name=sandbox

export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kube/config

Then you should be able to see all available pods with:

kubectl get pods

Review Apps

The review apps make use of Helm and Kubernetes. Our helm charts can be found here and you can inspect the review app auto deployment in our .gitlab-ci.yml file.

A kubernetes environment can be created by running:

helm upgrade \
    --install \
    --reuse-values \
    --set cassandra.deploy=true \
    --set elasticsearch.deploy=true \
    --set redis.deploy=true \
    --wait \
    my-minds-stack \
    ./helm-charts/minds

If you wish to use shared databases, due to resource constraints, first deploy your services and then set deploy=false like so:

helm upgrade \
    --install \
    --reuse-values \
    --set cassandra.deploy=false \
    --set elasticsearch.deploy=false \
    --set redis.deploy=false \
    --wait \
    my-mini-minds-stack \
    ./helm-charts/minds

Managing review app settings

When a pod gets deployed, Helm charts writes in the values by parsing configMap.yaml.

To have your values persist across builds, you must extend the settings.php script in configMap.yaml.

Do not hard code the values in the configMap, reference them via .Values.key.subkey:

 // Twillio configuration
    $CONFIG->set('twilio', [
        'account_sid' => '{{ .Values.twilio.sid }}',
        'auth_token' => '{{ .Values.twilio.token }}',
        'from' => '{{ .Values.twilio.from }}'
    ]);

And add the values to the correponding yaml files:

Why so many values and templating?

Because it enables us to do something really cool, like dynamically override configuration values for your staging environment - useful for turning on your feature flags.

You can test your local changes and manipulate the staging environments by using the helm-charts repo. Create your branch, make your changes and then, inside your helm-charts repository branch, run:

  helm upgrade --reuse-values --recreate-pods --set new.key='new value' --wait
  {your.staging.site.subdomain} ./minds

So changing an existing configuration value is as simple as:

helm upgrade --install --recreate-pods --reuse-values --set max_video_length=12600 feat-max-video-size-1506 ./minds/

Adding a new value requires a bit more leg work. Create a new branch in helm charts and add your values to configMap.yaml and values.yaml. Then, you can:

helm upgrade --install --recreate-pods --reuse-values feat-max-video-size-1506 ./minds/

We don't need to specify a set value here because the value doesn't exist. However, once you set it, it will continue to be inherited from the last release because of --reuse-values and you'll need to update it with set.

If you hose anything, you can always re-run the pipeline which will rebuild the pods with the latest configuration in master and start over.

Interacting with the staging environment

You can get access to the pods by using kubectl. Note, pods are read-only and ephemeral, so you can't go hacking things on the container.

Get a list of all pods

kubectl get pods

Shell into a pod using the name from get pods (read only)

kubectl exec -it {your.staging.site.subdomain}-{pod.type}-{kubernetes-suffix} sh

Production

The Minds production environment is deployed directly from the CI flow found here. Minds currently uses Docker/ECS, but plans to move to Kubernetes as soon as possible.

Getting Access to Read Only Prod Elastic Search

We can access elastic search for querying the feeds and diagnostics and such. You will need to have kubernetes setup and your AWS environment variables set as in the Getting connected to the staging environment above.

Then you can follow these commands to get connected.

Run Once aws eks update-kubeconfig --name=io --kubeconfig=~/.kube/config-io --role-arn=arn:aws:iam::324044571751:role/eks-io--com-bridge --alias=io--com-bridge

This exports the kubernetes configuration to your local machine.

Run when you want to connect

export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.kube/config-io
kubectl get pods -n com-bridge

To get access to ES

kubectl port-forward deployment.apps/es-bridge -n com-bridge 9200:9200