CoreOS in Action: Running Applications on Container Linux

by Matt Bailey

Overview

Summary

CoreOS in Action is a clear tutorial for deploying container-based systems on CoreOS Container Linux.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Technology

Traditional Linux server distributions include every component required for anything you might be hosting, most of which you don't need if you've containerized your apps and services. CoreOS Container Linux is a bare-bones distro with only the essential bits needed to run containers like Docker. Container Linux is a fast, secure base layer for any container-centric distributed application, including microservices. And say goodbye to patch scheduling; when Container Linux needs an update, you just hot-swap the whole OS.

About the Book

CoreOS in Action is a clear tutorial for deploying container-based systems on CoreOS Container Linux. Inside, you'll follow along with examples that teach you to set up CoreOS on both private and cloud systems, and to practice common sense monitoring and upgrade techniques with real code. You'll also explore important container-aware application designs, including microservices, web, and Big Data examples with real-world use cases to put your learning into perspective.

Summary

• Handling scaling and failures gracefully
• Container-driven application designs
• Cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployment
• Smart logging and backup practices

About the Reader

Written for readers familiar with Linux and the basics of Docker.

About the Author

Matt Bailey is currently a technical lead at ZeniMax. He has worked in higher education and with scientific computing, medical, and networking technology companies, as well as a few startups. You can find him online via https://mdb.io.

Table of Contents

PART 1 - GETTING TO KNOW COREOS
1. Introduction to the CoreOS family
2. Getting started on your workstation
3. Expecting failure: fault tolerance in CoreOS
PART 2 - APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE
4. CoreOS in production
5. Application architecture and workflow
6. Web stack application example
7. Big Data stack
PART 3 - COREOS IN PRODUCTION
8. CoreOS on AWS
9. Bringing it together: deployment
10. System administration

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781638351672
Publisher:	Manning
Publication date:	05/11/2017
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Matt Bailey is currently a technical lead at ZeniMax. He has worked in higher education and with scientific computing, medical, and networking technology companies, as well as a few startups. You can find him online via http://mdb.io.
Matt Bailey is currently a technical lead at ZeniMax. He has worked in higher education and with scientific computing, medical, and networking technology companies, as well as a few startups. You can find him online via https://mdb.io.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xiii

Preface xv

About this book xvi

Part 1 Getting to Know CoreOS 1

1 Introduction to the CoreOS family 3

1.1 Meet CoreOS 4

The CoreOS family 5

Etcd and the distributed configuration state 6

Fleet and the distributed service state 7

Systemd as CoreOS's inil system 7

Docker and/or rkt, your container runtimes 7

Initial configuration with cloud-config 8

1.2 Fitting together the core services 9

The CoreOS workflow 9

Creating and running services 10

Creating your unit files 11

Service topology and failover 13

1.3 Summary 16

2 Getting started on your workstation 17

2.1 Setting up Vagrant 18

Requirements and setup 19

Gelling Vagrant up and running 20

Getting a CoreOS cluster running in Vagrant 24

2.2 Tooling for interacting with CoreOS 24

Fleetctl 26

Etcdctl 30

The Toolbox container 32

Conceptual shift for Linux admins 33

2.3 Summary 34

3 Expecting failure: fault tolerance in CoreOS 35

3.1 The current state of monitoring 36

What's lacking 37

What CoreOS does differently 38

3.2 Service scheduling and discovery 39

Deploying production NGINX and Express 40

Using elcd for configuration 40

3.3 Breaking things 46

Simulating a machine failure 46

Self repair 47

3.4 Application architectures and CoreOS 48

Common pitfalls 48

Greenfield and legacy systems 49

Configuration management 49

3.5 Summary 49

Part 2 Application Architecture 51

4 CoreOS in production 53

4.1 Planning and deployment options 54

Amazon Web Services 54

Using in-house VM infrastructure 56

On bare metal 57

4.2 Networking considerations 57

How programmable is your network? 58

Up and running with flannel 59

4.3 Where is your mass storage? 62

Data systems background 63

NAS and storage outsourcing 64

Ceph 65

4.4 Summary 69

5 Application architecture and workflow 70

5.1 Your application and the twelve-factor methodology 70

CoreOS's approach 71

The architecture checklist 73

5.2 The software development cycle 74

Codebase and dependencies 74

Environment logic and microservices 75

The application edge 77

5.3 Summary 77

6 Web stack application example 78

6.1 Scope of the example 79

What does this app do? 80

App architecture overview 81

The target environment 82

6.2 Setting up persistence layers 83

Couchbase setup 84

Setting up memcached 86

6.3 Application layer 88

The worker 88

The web application 93

6.4 Where to from here? 99

Responding to failure 99

What's missing? 100

6.5 Summary 101

7 Big Data stack 102

7.1 Scope of this chapter's example 103

Adding to the architecture 103

New data, source 104

7.2 New stack components 105

Twitter scraper 105

Orchestrating Couchbase 107

Startup and verification 115

Starting your workers 116

7.3 Breaking your stack 118

Watching the failure 118

Restoring the machine 119

7.4 Summary 120

Part 3 $$$ 121

8 CoreOS on AWS 123

8.1 AWS background 124

AWS regions and uptimes 125

AWS services 125

Chapter requirements 126

CloudFormotion template 126

Cloud-config in AWS 137

Deployment 141

8.2 Summary 144

9 Bringing it together: deployment 145

9.1 New CloudFormation objects 147

Parameter and output 147

AWS Lambda 148

API Gateway 150

Updating your stack 151

9.2 Deploying the app! 152

Web sidekick 152

Initial deployment 153

9.3 Automated deployment 155

Docker Hub setup 155

Pushing a change 156

9.4 Summary 157

10 System administration 158

10.1 Logging and backups 159

Setting up logs 159

Updating cloud-config 160

Awslogs in units 161

Viewing logs 162

Backing up data 163

10.2 Scaling systems 165

Scaling your cluster 165

Scale partitioning 167

Migrating services 168

10.3 CoreOS horizon 169

New toys 169

Rkt 170

10.4 Summary 174

Index 175