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.

Create a new sub-chart

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.

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

Update the component details

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:

  - 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

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

Sample Chart definition

##############################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 )

Clone the repo

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

kubectl create namespace expertflow

Create TLS Certificate for the ingress resources

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

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

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

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 )

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

Apply Conversation Controller ConfigMaps

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:-

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.

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

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

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

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 )

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

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

go get -u github.com/databus23/schelm

export the required environment variables for go-lang

export GOPATH=$(go env GOPATH)

add the go-lang in your PATH 

export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

export all the rendered charts into /root/rendered  folder

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