Installing on Kubernetes#

You can install UrbanCode™ Velocity onto a Kubernetes cluster.

The ID that you use to install the product must be able to make changes to the host environment. The tools required by all installation scenarios include the following items:

In addition to the requirements for all installation scenarios, the following items are required for Kubernetes or Minikube installation:

Get a key. The key enables you to complete installation. Visit the UrbanCode Velocity web portal to obtain your key. After completing the form, you can copy the access key. Store the key in a readily-available location; you use it during installation.

Note: Make sure that you select a key for the product version that you want to install. Keys for the Standard Edition do not work with the Community Edition and vice-versa.

You install the product into Kubernetes cluster using Helm commands. The commands pull the UrbanCode Velocity node images from a GitHub repository and place them into the cluster defined in the Helm chart.

  1. Download the installation file for your environment.

    Note: For macOS and Linux installations, set the appropriate permissions before running the file: sudo chmod +x.

    Visit the FlexNet download center and select the file for your environment. Or you can download the installation file diretly from the following URLs:

  2. Complete installation by responding to the prompts described in the following steps.

    When the script starts, you are prompted to accept the license. You can explicitly accept the license without viewing it by appending the following parameter to the command:

    ./<velocity-installation-file\> **--license=accept**

    1. At the Please enter your Velocity access key prompt, enter your SE version access key.

      If you previously installed an SE version, the already-configured key is the default value.

      Note: Make sure that you enter the key for the right version.

    2. At the Choose the platform prompt, select Kubernetes.

    3. At the Enter the location where the Velocity files will be installed prompt, enter the location where you want to install the product files.

      Files are copied to the specified directory in a subdirectory named product_version_number.

    4. At the Please enter the hostname where you will run Velocity prompt, enter the host name where users can access the Web UI.

      The host name must resolve to a name on your DNS server, or in the server's hosts file. On Linux, the file location is etc/hosts; on Windows, the location is C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

      Note: You cannot use localhost as the hostname. If you do not have any host names defined, you can use 127.0.0.1.nip.io, which will redirect back to 127.0.0.1.

  3. Ensure that the helm chart is installed in the specified location.

    The file name is velocity-<version>-helm.tgz.

  4. If you do not have a MongoDB database installed, install one now. Follow the instructions at the MongoDB GitHub repository.

    Below is a sample command for installing the MongoDB:

    helm install \ --set database.password=mongo \ --set database.user=mongo \ --set database.name=velocity \ --name velocity-mongo ibm-stable/ibm-mongodb-dev

    If you use the default HCL MongoDB, grant the user admin permissions. Log on to the MongoDB and use a command similar to this one to grant admin permissions to the user: helm status velocity-mongo

    db.grantRolesToUser( "mongo", ["readWriteAnyDatabase", "dbAdminAnyDatabase", "clusterAdmin"] )

    The first command runs a MongoDB client container and provide shell access to it. See the MongoDB documentation for more information.

  5. Create an SSL certificate and key and store them in the velocity-secret.yml file.

    1. Create the velocity-secret.yml file.

      Paste the following code fragment into you file:

      apiVersion: v1 data: tls.crt: <BASE64 Encoded> tls.key: <Base64 Encoded> kind: Secret metadata: name: velocitytls namespace: default type: Opaque

    2. Generate a public key and a private certificate.

      You can use OpenSSL to generate the certificate and key. The following example creates a certificate named certificate.pem:

      openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout key.pem -x509 -days 365 -out certifcate.pem

    3. Encrypt the certificate.

      The following code fragment illustrates how to encrypt the certificate on Linux:

      cat certificate.pem | base64

    4. Copy the encrypted certificate and then paste it into the tls.crt field in the velocity-secret.yml file.

    5. Encrypt the private key and paste it into the tls.key field in the velocity-secret.yml file.

    6. Apply velocity-secret.yml file to your installation.

      You can use the kubectl command to apply your secret:

      kubectl apply -f velocity-secret.yml

      If the process is successful, you will see a message similar to the following one:

      secret/velocitytls created

  6. Enable your ingress and ensure that it points to your host by completing these steps:

    1. For a full Kubernetes installation, you can use the following commands:

      kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/master/deploy/static/mandatory.yaml kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/ingress-nginx/master/deploy/static/provider/cloud-generic.yaml

    2. Use the following command to enable the Minikube ingress: minikube addons enable ingress.

    3. In the /velocity/templates/ingress.yaml file, change the host: property to point to your host, and then save the file.

    4. Use the following kubectl command to apply the new ingress to Minikube: kubectl apply -f ingress.yaml.

  7. Determine the configuration properties for the helm install command.

    The following code fragment displays a typical command:

    helm install \ --set access.key=my\_access\_key \ --set url.domain=my\_hostname \ --set mongo.url=mongodb://mongo:mongo@velocity-mongo-ibm-mongodb-dev:27017/velocity \ --name uc-velocity ./velocity-1-2-6-helm.tgz

    Properties depend on your environment. The following properties are required. The optional properties are given later.

    • access.key

      The product access key obtained earlier.

    • url.domain

      The hostname of your node or the Ingress host name.

    • mongo.url

      The URL of the MongoDB. Specify the following parameters.

      • username

        The user ID to authenticate with the MongoDB database.

      • password

        The associated password to authenticate with the MongoDB database.

      • port

        The port number for the MongoDB database. Use the value shown in the example, which is 27017.

      • service_name

        The MongoDB URL or the MongoDB service name if it is running within the Kubernetes cluster.

      • database_name

        The name of the database to be used by UrbanCode™ Velocity.

      Note: If you used the install command in the previous step to install the MongoDB, use the following values for the mongo.url property.

      mongodb://mongo:mongo@velocity-mongo-ibm-mongodb-dev:27017/admin

      If you use the default HCL MongoDB, make sure to grant the MongoDB user full write privileges.

    • name

      The name space where the Helm chart is applied, and the name of Helm chart.

      --name uc-velocity ./velocity-1-1-0-helm.tgz

  8. Run the helm install command to install the UrbanCode Velocity images into your Minikube Kubernetes cluster.

    After you run the command, Minikube displays status information about the installation.

    Refer to the displayed NOTES section for the location of the Minikube administrator dashboard. You manage your Minikube installation on the admin dashboard.

When all the containers have the status of running, the installation is complete and you can access UrbanCode Velocity at the URL you specified in the helm chart. You can refresh the status display by using the following kubectl command: kubectl get pods. The default admin user name is admin and the default password is admin.

The following Helm chart parameters are optional:

Parent topic: Installation