Helm Charts for Expertflow CX Solution - Developer Edition

Instructions for Developers

Component Chart

A general Chart has a hierarchy like below

^chart-name/
^{├── charts}
^{├── Chart.yaml}
^{├── templates}
^{│ ├── configmap.yaml}
^{│ ├── deployment.yaml}
^{│ ├── _helpers.tpl}
^{│ ├── hpa.yaml}
^{│ ├── ingress.yaml}
^{│ ├── NOTES.txt}
^{│ ├── serviceaccount.yaml}
^{│ └── service.yaml}
^{└── values.yaml}

Chart.yaml contains metadata about the chart, like its version, appVersion and related information. Whenever there is a change in the application , the appVersion is incremented using semantic versioning. The chart version is incremented when there is a change in the chart. In simpler words a single appVersion can be maintained across different chart version and vice a versa

templates directory contains actual deployment contents for the component, with every single file being evaluated by a certain variable or function in the values file ( details given below )

values.yaml file for component is main file where end-user is allowed to change/update their required parameters and based on those evaluations are made when generating templates.

Meta Chart ( ef-cx )

For Expertflow Solution, a global Chart is created which on its own doesn't do any thing except it

Create a generic FQDN variable which will be used across all the sub-charts
defines a global registry variable to provide offline deployments
creates commonEFConnection configmap which is populated in component charts where needed.
creates Image Pull Secret for the images to be pulled from a certain registry
creates SSL certificate as secrete required for all ingress routes.
declares sub-charts.

details are given below for actions performed by the meta-chart.( values.yaml ).

Generally, below given parameters are evaluated when the Chart is deployed.

{{ .Release.Name }} is replaced with the release name of the helm install command

{{ .Release.Namespace }} refers to the current namespace where the solution is to be deployed.

{{ .Values.global.ingressRouter }} will be replaced with the corresponding value from the values.yaml file.

Global Chart Details

In addition to sub-chart details, below given are the details for this meta chart. Any key:value pair present in this file supersedes the values file in sub-chart's values file.

Section	Item	Details	default
global	ingressRouter	FQDN used for the EF-CX Solution	“devops.ef.com”
	imageRegistry	default container registry to pull images from	"gitimages.expertflow.com"
	ingressCertName	default ingress certificate secret name. must be created before install	"ef-ingress-tls-secret"
	ingressClassName	ingress class name	“nginx”
	commonIngressAnnotations	common annotations for all ingress resources	““
	efCommonVars_IS_WRAP_UP_ENABLED	Common Environment Variable	true
	efCommonVars_WRAPUP_TIME	Common Environment Variable	"60"
	efCommonVars_DEFAULT_ROOM_NAME	Common Environment Variable	CC
	efCommonVars_DEFAULT_ROOM_LABEL	Common Environment Variable	CC
	efCommonVars_DEFAULT_ROOM_DESCRIPTION	Common Environment Variable	Contact Center Room
	efCommonVars_CONVERSATION_SEARCH_WINDOW_HRS	Common Environment Variable	"24"
	efCommonVars_TZ	Common Environment Variable	UTC
	efCommonVars_MASK_ATTRIBUTES_PATH	Common Environment Variable	/sensitive.js
	efCommonVars_LOGGING_CONFIG	Common Environment Variable	/logback/logback-spring.xml
	efCommonVars_ROOM_IS_USER_ID	Common Environment Variable	false
clusterDomain		root domain for the cluster DNS	“cluster.local”
imageCredentials	registry	container image registry, must be same as global.imageRegistry	gitimages.expertflow.com
	username	username for the registry	efcx
	password	password for the user of the registry	RecRpsuH34yqp56YRFUb
	email	email address for the registry config	devops@expertflow.com
efConnectionVars		Contains list of all the sub-charts related connection parameters	list of parameters.
sub-chart
sub-chart	enabled	enable of disable a sub-chart deployment. true \| false	true

Image Pull Secret is created at runtime based on these variables, a valid dockerconfig in JSON format is created at runtime and added to the kubernetes engine as secret with the name of ef-gitlab-secret

All sub-charts are named after the component name for which it is developed and its values are evaluated from its values.yaml file

Create a new sub-chart

All sub-charts and their corresponding values.yaml files are present for validation purposes. All values are being inherited from the global chart’s values.yaml file, nothing is implemented at the sub-chart level.

To create a new sub chart, copy the kubernetes/helm/TEMPLATE folder as the target component name. Replace all the occurences of <COMPONENET-NAME> to appropriate name.

CODE

cd cim-solution/kubernetes/helm/Core
cp -rvp ../TEMPLATE  charts/<COMPONENT-NAME>

Update the component details

CODE

sed -i -e  's@___COMPONENT___NAME___@<COMPONENET-NAME>@g'  charts/<COMPONENT-NAME>/values.yaml  charts/<COMPONENT-NAME>/Chart.yaml

Add the component to the global chart’s Chart.yaml with an entry like below:

CODE

  - name: <COMPONENET-NAME>
    version: 1.0.0
    condition: <COMPONENET-NAME>.enabled
    repository: file://charts/<COMPONENET-NAME>

All sub-charts must adhere to semvers conventions used and should be updated whenever there is a change in the chart's structure like env, cm, svc or deployment is changed.

Change the version of the chart to next available semver number
update the sub-chart's version in global chart's Chart.yaml

Update the dependancies for the global chart by running

CODE

rm -f Chart.lock charts/*.tgz ;helm dependency update .;helm dependency build .

Sample Chart definition

Sample sub-chart definition

CODE

##############################360-connector##############################
360-connector:
   enabled: true
   replicaCount: 1
   image:
      repository: cim/360-connector
      tag: 4.5.5_f-CIM-14675
   efConnectionVars: true
   efEnvironmentVars: false
   containerPorts:
      - name: "http-360c-8080"
        containerPort: 8080
   extraEnvVars:
      - name: TZ
        value: "{{ .Values.global.efCommonVars_TZ }}"
      - name: LOGGING_CONFIG
        value: '{{ .Values.global.efCommonVars_LOGGING_CONFIG }}'
      - name: MASKING_LAYOUT_CLASS
        value: '{{ .Values.global.efCommonVars_MASKING_LAYOUT_CLASS }}'
      - name: CCM_URL
        value: "http://{{ .Release.Name }}-ccm-svc.{{ .Release.Namespace }}.svc.{{ .Values.clusterDomain }}:8081"
      - name: FILE_ENGINE_URL
        value: "http://{{ .Release.Name }}-file-engine-svc.{{ .Release.Namespace }}.svc.{{ .Values.clusterDomain }}:8080"
      - name: MASKING_LAYOUT_CLASS
        value: "com.ef.connector360.utility.MaskingPatternLayout"
   service:
      enabled: true
      port: 8080
      portName: "http-360c-8080"
      targetPort: "http-360c-8080"
   ingress:
      enabled: true
      annotations:
        nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: /$2
        nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/use-regex: "true"
      path: /360-connector(/|$)(.*)
      pathType: ImplementationSpecific
   extraVolumes:
      - name: ef-logback
        configMap:
           name: ef-logback-cm
   extraVolumeMounts:
      - name: ef-logback
        mountPath: /logback

Deploy the solution using helm ( local method )

This procedure expects that CX External components are already deployed using CX Deployment on Kubernetes

Clone the repo

CODE

git clone -b CX-4.6-helm-v1  https://efcx:RecRpsuH34yqp56YRFUb@gitlab.expertflow.com/cim/cim-solution.git CX-4.6-helm-v1
cd CX-4.6-helm-v1/kubernetes

Create expertflow namespace

CODE

kubectl create namespace expertflow

Create TLS Certificate for the ingress resources

CODE

kubectl -n ef-external create secret tls ef-ingress-tls-secret  \
--key pre-deployment/certificates/server.key \
--cert pre-deployment/certificates/server.crt

Transfer the Mongo and Redis Certificates from ef-external namespace

CODE

kubectl get secret mongo-mongodb-ca -n ef-external  -o yaml | sed 's/namespace: ef-external/namespace: expertflow/' | kubectl create -f -
kubectl get secret redis-crt -n ef-external  -o yaml | sed 's/namespace: ef-external/namespace: expertflow/' | kubectl create -f -
kubectl get secret ef-postgresql-crt -n ef-external  -o yaml | sed 's/namespace: ef-external/namespace: expertflow/' | kubectl create -f -

Setup default translation file for Agent Desk

CODE

kubectl -n expertflow  create configmap ef-app-translations-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/app-translations/unified-agent/i18n

Setup default canned messages translations file for Agent Desk

CODE

kubectl -n expertflow  create configmap ef-canned-messages-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/app-translations/unified-agent/canned-messages

Apply CRM ConfigMap for Agent Desk ( Option, only when Agent-Desk embedding in CRM is required )

CODE

kubectl -n expertflow create configmap ef-crm-service-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/crm-service/

Apply Conversation Controller ConfigMaps

CODE

kubectl -n expertflow create configmap ef-conversation-controller-actions-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/conversation-Controller/actions
kubectl -n expertflow create configmap ef-conversation-controller-actions-utils-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/conversation-Controller/utils
kubectl -n expertflow create configmap ef-conversation-controller-actions-pycache-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/conversation-Controller/__pycache__

Apply ConfigMap to enable log masking for all components in expertflow namespace:-

CODE

kubectl apply -f pre-deployment/logback/
kubectl -n expertflow create configmap ef-logback-cm --from-file=pre-deployment/logback/logback-spring.xml

For development purposes, developers can update the global chart’s values.yaml file with the required changes and then deploy the CX solution on their local system using. Replace the <FQDN> with domain.

CODE

cd helm/Core
helm upgrade --install --namespace expertflow --create-namespace  --set global.ingressRouter=<FQDN>   --debug --values values.yaml ef-cx  .

Troubleshooting Steps.

Rendering Helm charts without installing them

As a developer of helm charts, You can also render the changes without installing the helm chart directly by

CODE

helm install --namespace expertflow  --set global.ingressRouter=<FQDN>   --dry-run --debug   "ef-cx"  .

Or Just to render the templates ( inside the chart directory )

CODE

helm template --debug  --values values.yaml .

there are certain scenarios where the YAML is not rendered correctly ( due to incorrect spaces or tab characters ) You can disable the api-validation using ( inside the chart directory )

CODE

helm install --namespace <namespace>   <release-name>  --dry-run --disable-openapi-validation  --debug --values values.yaml .

Dumping all the rendered manifests to a folder

You can also dump all the generated/rendered manifests into a folder for evaluation using

Check if the Go language is installed on your system

CODE

go version

if go-lang is not installed, you can install the go-lang by following instruction on https://go.dev/doc/install

once go-lang is installed, run this command to fetch the required go module

CODE

go get -u github.com/databus23/schelm

export the required environment variables for go-lang

CODE

export GOPATH=$(go env GOPATH)

add the go-lang in your PATH

CODE

export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

export all the rendered charts into /root/rendered folder

CODE

helm install --namespace <namespace>   <release-name>  --set global.ingressRouter=<FQDN> --dry-run   --debug .|schelm /root/rendered