About

This repository holds a helm chart for geOrchestra. This README file aims to present some of the features and/or implementation choices.

Maintainers

How to create a new chart release

IMPORTANT: Don't create too many versions, test your changes using git submodules for example. Create new versions with a batch of features if possible.

Change and push the version in the Chart.yaml.
Please follow https://semver.org, if you are adding a new feature bump the MINOR version, otherwise if it's a bugfix bump the PATCH version.
Write a changelog in the CHANGELOG.md
Execute git tag 1.X.X (with the same version as the chart)
Execute git push --tags

Usage

Install

Quick start

Install a Ingress Controller if you don't already have one.
NGINX Ingress controller is a good example:

helm upgrade --install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx \
  --repo https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx \
  --namespace ingress-nginx --create-namespace

Execute these commands for installing the georchestra chart:
```
helm repo add georchestra https://charts.georchestra.org
helm repo update
helm install georchestra georchestra/georchestra --set fqdn=YOURDOMAIN
```
Note: For the domain you can use georchestra-127-0-1-1.traefik.me, just replace 127-0-1-1 with the IP address of your server.
Go to https://YOURDOMAIN

Customized installation

Create a new separate 'values' file (or edit the existing one, not recommended).
Edit the parameters like fqdn, database or ldap if needed.

Install a Ingress Controller if you don't already have one.
NGINX Ingress controller is a good example:

helm upgrade --install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx \
  --repo https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx \
  --namespace ingress-nginx --create-namespace

Execute these commands for installing the georchestra chart:

helm repo add georchestra https://charts.georchestra.org
helm repo update
helm install -f your-values.yaml georchestra georchestra/georchestra

Go to https://YOURDOMAIN

Upgrade

Apply only for a customized installation.

helm upgrade -f your-values.yaml georchestra georchestra/georchestra

geOrchestra Datadir bootstrap

The helm chart provides the possibility to clone the datadir from a remote repository using git. A secret SSH key can be provided to do so.

JMX monitoring

A flag can be set in the values.yaml so that a collectd-based container is running next to the main Java one, on the following deployments:

geoserver
geonetwork
security-proxy

If the flag is set to true (e.g. georchestra.webapps.proxy.jetty_monitoring: true), then a collectd process along with a minimal configuration to scrape common Java and Jetty specific exposed JMX metrics will be configured. The following annotations will be set on the deployed pod as well:

    prometheus.io/path: /metrics
    prometheus.io/port: "9103"
    prometheus.io/scrape: "true"

Some podMonitor objects will be created as well for each concerned pods (sp, gn, gs).

As a result, if the prometheus operator is deployed into the cluster, it will configure itself and be able to scrape the exposed metrics.

Mapstore2 / geOrchestra datadir

On the mapstore2 webapp, we are using the following strategy:

the georchestra_datadir is bootstrapped from a git repository the same way as the other geOrchestra components
we mount the mapstore dynamic datadir onto /mnt/mapstore2

CAS 6 theme customizations

An initContainer will take care of overriding the themes and templates subdirectory from the webapp classpath, if such ones exist into the georchestra data directory.

As a result, it is possible to override the default georchestra theme by creating a cas/themes and a cas/templates subdirectory into the georchestra datadir.

About livenessProbes

The healthchecks for the different webapps have been implemented using livenessProbes and startupProbes. Checking in the logs how long the webapps needed to bootstrap themselves, then multiplying the needed time per 3, to keep a safety margin.

Here is an example with the analytics webapp:

2022-02-21 20:53:49.500:INFO:oejs.AbstractConnector:main: Started ServerConnector@587d1d39{HTTP/1.1, (http/1.1)}{0.0.0.0:8080}
2022-02-21 20:53:49.500:INFO:oejs.Server:main: Started @2865ms

If we round the 2865ms to 3 seconds, then multiplying per 3 gives us 9 seconds. Let's round it to 10 seconds.

It gives the following yaml specification:

livenessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /analytics/
    port: 8080
  periodSeconds: 10
startupProbe:
  tcpSocket:
    port: 8080
  failureThreshold: 5
  periodSeconds: 10

Actually, the container will benefit from 5 trials of 10 seconds before failing to start. Afterwards, the containers will be tested every 10 seconds onto its /analytics/ endpoint during its lifetime, to check if it still alive. If not, after 2 other trials (failurethreshold being set to 3), the container will be considered as failing and be restarted.

CAS takes 26 seconds to boot. Multiplying per 3 might be a bit overkill, considering 60 seconds instead. The threshold will allow 5 60-second trials anyway.

GeoNetwork is particular, as the httpGet request can take longer than expected depending on the wro4j cache. A custom timeoutSeconds has been set to 5 seconds.

About the livenessProbes, we kept the default failureThreshold to 3, meaning that 3 successive failing attempts will need to be performed before the container is considered as failing.

The mapstore docker image is making use of Tomcat instead of Jetty, so we will use a startupProbe based on httpGet, similar to the one used for livenessProbe, instead of a tcpSocket one which is used on the other Jetty-based containers.

The ldap deployment object has been configured with only a livenessProbe, as we cannot tell if the ldap database has already been initialized or not. Doing some tries with a single pod, it has been estimated that 30 seconds should be sufficient to populate the database initially.

The datafeeder (backend) requires now a valid account passed as a base64-encoded HTTP header (the sec-user header, maybe some others). As a result, testing via a HTTP request for liveness is not easy. We still can pass some headers to the request, but if it requires a valid account, then maybe we shall stick to a simpler tcpSocket one.

Update strategy

The default update strategy in kubernetes being RollingUpdate, we can fall into a situation where new containers are created but never started because waiting for the volumes to be released from the former pods.

As a result, several containers run with a .strategy.type set to recreate instead of RollingUpdate. This is basically the case for every deployments which are making use of Persistent volumes:

elasticsearch (used by GeoNetwork4)
geonetwork
geoserver
mapstore
openldap

georchestra / helm-georchestra

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