README.md

Prepare application

The Docker Compose setup (e.g. from avivasolutions/sitecore-docker) needs to be translated into a Kubernetes setup. Where Docker Compose uses mostly one YAML config file, a Kubernetes setup will have about one file per Deployment / Service.

You could use Kompose to convert a docker-compose.yml to a Kubernetes YAML file, but doing it manually is more educational and about as much work.

Storage

There are two options for file storage in AKS:

• Azure Disk
• Azure Files

We use Azure Disk for our SQL and Solr databases and a Kubernetes Secret for the Sitecore license file.

Sitecore license

Create a Kubernetes secret from your license.xml file:

PS> kubectl create secret generic sitecore-license --from-file=license.xml

Verify that it present:

PS> kubectl describe secrets sitecore-license

This will create a storage (named license) and secret (named azure-licenseshare-secret) that can be used in a Kubernetes YAML file as follows:

    container:
      ...
      volumeMounts:
          - mountPath: "/license"
            name: license
            readOnly: true
    ...
    volumes:
        - name: license
          secrete:
            secretName: sitecore-license

Configure external HTTPS, internal HTTP

In order to dynamically assign domain names and sign certificates its easiest to let the Ingress controller handle HTTPS and internally use HTTP. As the cluster internal network is private using HTTP is okay.

To remove an existing HTTPS binding and replace it by a HTTP binding, you can use the following Powershell commands:

Get-WebBinding -Name $bindingName -Protocol 'https' -Port 443 | Remove-WebBinding
New-WebBinding -Name $bindingName -HostHeader '*' -IPAddress * -Protocol 'http' -Port 80

This change is necessary for the Commerce Business tools, Identity server.

Enable reverse proxy support

Identity Server 9.1 does not have reverse-proxy support out-of-the-box. To enable reverse proxy support add this plugin.

Update CORS config

Update all CORS allowed origins:

• for the Identity Server (e.g. all files in directory C:\inetpub\wwwroot\identity\Config\production)
• In the Commerce container modify all configs that are changed by the UpdateHostname.ps1 script at start-up

Update Sitecore config

Update Commerce engine URLs in Y.Commerce.Engine\Sitecore.Commerce.Engine.Connect.config

Run application

Once all Kubernetes YAML spec files are prepared, it is simply a matter of applying all these:

PS> kubectl apply -f ./xc9

and wait for the Pods to be running.

Inspect the Pod states by performing:

PS> kubectl get pods -o wide

Connect to containers in cluster

For troubleshooting exec-ing into a Pod is very useful. To open a powershell in a Pod:

PS> kubectl exec -ti <pod> powershell

If necessary there are options to use SSH and RDP to inspect a Pod.