Infrastructure deployment to Azure using DevOps tools

Infraestructure to deploy

What is used

Main tools

Tool/Service	Use	Version
Azure	As a cloud provider where we are going to deploy infraestructure	azure-cli (latest)
Terraform	IaC tool to make the deploy to Azure	latest
Ansible	Automating configuration and application deployment in VMs	2.9
Kubernetes	Orchestration software for deploying, managing, and scaling containers	latest

Kubernetes Config

Service	Managed by
Runtime	CRI-O
Network plugin	CNI (Container Networking Interface)
SDN	Calico (Canal)
SDN (Local)	Calico (Project tigera)
Ingress Controller	HAProxy Ingress

Aplication deployed

Aplication	Website path	PV mount	Kubernetes Namespace
Simple Website	nos.by:<80:nodeport>/app	from NFS server /mnt/nfs -> to /var/www/public	app-web

Aplication's server deployed in Kubernetes containers

Image	SO	Server
nos22/debian10-apache	Debian 10	Apache

What to use as a local host

I recommend using a Linux system as a host but if you are using Windows, you can use the "unofficial" CentOS Stream 8 WSL or any other Linux WSL distro and adapt the process when needed.

How to deploy

1. Installing tools

   If you are using other versions of Linux you will have to adapt the process to your system

   Azure Cli

   # Microsoft keys repository
   sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
   # Check updates
   sudo dnf update
   # Add repo needed for RHEL8 & CentOs Stream 8
   sudo dnf install https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/8/packages-microsoft-prod.rpm -y 
   # Installing Azure
   sudo dnf install azure-cli -y 

   Terraform

   # Install yum utils
   sudo yum install yum-utils -y
   # Add Hashicorp Repository
   sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo
   # Install Terraform
   sudo yum install terraform -y

   Ansible

   # Install Ansible via pip at version 2.9.27
   python3 -m pip install ansible==2.9.27

2. Generating SSH local pair

   It is necessary to generate them now because when creating the VMs with Terraform we must indicate the public key from which the connections can be made. And above all so that, later, Ansible can make the connections to the deployed VMs and make the relevant configurations.

   ssh-keygen -m PEM -t rsa -b 4096 # SSH pair with RSA encryption and 4096 bit length

3. Get Image to be deployed in VMs

   We will use CentOS Stream 8 image

   # Download image
   az vm image list -f centos-8-stream-free -p cognosys --all --output table 
   # Visualice Terms of Use
   az vm image terms show --urn cognosys:centos-8-stream-free:centos-8-stream-free:22.03.28 
   # Accept Terms of Use
   az vm image terms accept --urn cognosys:centos-8-stream-free:centos-8-stream-free:22.03.28  

4. Connect Terraform to Azure Cli

   # Logging Azure from local host
   az login 
   
   # See subscription used in account
   az account list 

5. Infraestructure deploy with Terraform

   Be sure you are in /terraform before running commands

   # Initialice the deployment
   terraform init
   # You can run a plan just to make sure there is no problem in code
   terraform plan
   # Execute the deployment to Azure
   terraform apply
   # In case you need to destroy it
   terraform destroy

6. Set automate configuration using Ansible

   Be sure you are in /ansible before running commands

   • Automation of inventory file "hosts" is not set yet, so you need to manually indicate IPs for manage nodes every time you do a new deploy to Azure (as IPs are set dynamically)

      # To see public IP and private IP set by Azure 
      terraform output vm_private_ip
      terraform output vm_public_ip

   • Now change those in /ansible/hosts ini file to get it like this:

      [master]
      20.254.91.164 domain_name=kubmaster private_ip=10.0.2.22
      
      [workers]
      51.142.101.112 domain_name=kubworker private_ip=10.0.2.23
      
      [nfs]
      51.142.102.135 domain_name=nfsserver private_ip=10.0.2.30

   • Its the time to run Ansible

      # playbook.yml runs every step in order
      ansible-playbook -i hosts playbook.yml

7. Now you can access your deployed VMs via SSH

   ssh azureadmin@{private_ip}

   And see if Kubernetes is working correctly

   kubectl get nodes
   kubectl get pods -A

   There is also a website application deployed in namespace app-work that you can check using:

   # To get Nodeport associate to port 80 in the Ingress Controller
   kubectl get svc -A 
   # Check via curl (private ip and nodeport needed)
   curl -I -H 'Host: nos.by' 'http://<master_private_ip>:<80:nodeport>/app'
   # Check via web browser (nodeport needed)
   nos.by:<80:nodeport>/app

Annotations

• Make sure that variables like "Azure location" are set as your preference before running Terraform.
• Timezone change in /ansible/roles/common/vars/main.yml is set to "Europe/Madrid", change it to your desire before running Ansible.
• You can also deploy this project locally. To do that be sure that you change hosts in /ansible/hosts and care that in /ansible/roles/master/tasks/main.yml you need to change the task 'SDN' to sdn-local.yml