Getting started with OpenShift Origin on Azure

OpenShift is a container deployment and management tool developed by Red Hat. It is built on top of Docker containers and uses Kubernetes as its container orchestrator. OpenShift Origin is the open source upstream community OpenShift project; Red Hat also sells OpenShift Container Platform, which is an enterprise-grade container also developed and supported by Red Hat.

In this lab, you will get a taste for creating and deploying applications using OpenShift running on Azure infrastructure. You will create a Node.js application with a MongoDB database, push updates to the code base, and see updates deploy in real time with minimal work needed.

Prerequisites:

Note: There will be parts of this lab that require copy/paste. In order for copy/paste to work as expected, we suggest using the web browsers within the provided VM.

For this lab, you will need the following:

1. A GitHub account (if you don't have one, this lab becomes significantly less interesting - you won't be able to use the fancy automated Git deployment that ties together VSCode, GitHub, and OpenShift)

   • We strongly suggest signing up for a GitHub account. You can sign up for a GitHub account here. It takes less than a minute!

2. Visual Studio Code installed (already done for you in the lab machine)

3. An OpenShift Origin cluster (predeployed for you)

   For the purposes of this lab, we have predeployed 6 OpenShift Origin clusters on Azure. They are available at:

   • aka.ms/openshift1
   • aka.ms/openshift2
   • aka.ms/openshift3
   • aka.ms/openshift4
   • aka.ms/openshift5
   • aka.ms/openshift6

   Pick a cluster from the list above and proceed.

   Note: You will receive a security warning when you open the link above. This is because we are using a self-signed certificate for the OpenShift clusters for the purposes of this lab. Accept the warnings and proceed to continue with the lab

Part 1: Starting with OpenShift on Azure

Login to your OpenShift cluster with the following credentials (see Prerequisites above for link):

    Username: clusteradmin
    Password: DoNotCheckMeIn!

Once you have logged in, you will see all the images available to you. Note that Open Service Broker has already been configured so that you can also deploy Azure services from within OpenShift!

Play around with the UI if you want or continue to part 2.

Part 2: Starting with GitHub

A fork in Git is a copy of a repository which allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project. Most commonly, forks are used to either propose changes to someone else's project or to use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea (Source).

• Fork the project from https://github.com/asinn826/openshift-oscon-2018-nodejs to your own GitHub account by clicking the Fork button on the top right of the repository
  • You will see a dialog asking you where to fork this repository. Select your Github account.
• You will be redirected to your fork of the repository afterward. Clone the forked project onto your local machine.

  • Click the green "Clone or download" button on the top right of the page and copy the URL to your clipboard

    • You will want to do this step in the Lab VM so that copy/paste works as expected

  • Click the Ubuntu icon on the taskbar or the Desktop, and change cirectory to an easy-to-remember directory

    • We suggest cd /mnt/c/Users/LabUser/Desktop

  • Type git clone and paste the URL from the clipboard

    • Right click the mouse button within the Ubuntu window to paste from clipboard. If you didn't use a web browser within the VM you may have to type out the repository link directly.
    • When prompted for your username for GitHub, type your GitHub username and GitHub password into the prompt

    

If you don't have a GitHub account, you can just clone the project above without forking it, and skip the last step

Part 3: Starting with Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform code editor developed by Microsoft that supports a wide selection of languages and features. One cool feature within VSCode is native Git integration. We will be using the Git integration during this lab.

• Open the cloned project in VSCode by clicking "Open folder..." from the Welcome screen that shows up and navigating to your cloned directory
• Click on Select folder to open the project
• Play with it if you want
  • The only file we will be editing in this lab will be the index.html file located within the views directory

Part 4: Deploying an image to a container

Now we will deploy an image to a container within OpenShift Origin

• Go back to OpenShift
• Deploy any NodeJS + MongoDB image
  • Ephemeral image means that your application database will be lost if the host VM is rebooted
• Under "Add to Project", select "Create Project" and give your project a name you will remember
• Leave all the options as they are, except for the Git Repository URL
• When asked for a Git repository, put in the link to your forked repository from Part 3 above.
  • If you don't have a GitHub account, just use the link provided above
• Click Create, then click the "Continue to project overview" link that pops up to go to the configurations
• Navigate to Builds -> Builds and click on the name of the build
• Navigate to Configuration and copy the GitHub Webhook URL (skip this step if you don't have a GitHub account)
• Go back to the Overview page (top left), expand the Deployment Config, and click on the *.nip.io link on the top right if you want to see your application live
  • Your deployment may still be running - give it a minute or two

Part 5: Play with the source to image workflow

NOTE: you will not be able to do this entire part if you don't have a GitHub account

• Go to your forked GitHub repository, and go to Settings -> Webhooks (in the menu on the left)

  • You will be asked for your Github password since modifying webhooks is a powerful operation. You will soon see an example of how powerful this is!

• Click the "Add webhook" button on the top right

• Paste the URL you copied in Part 4 into the Payload URL box

• Change the Content type to "application/json"

• Disable SSL verification (the OpenShift cluster deployed uses self-signed certificates, so this verification will need to be disabled)

• Click "Add webhook"

• Go back to VSCode and open up the file views/index.html

• Make a change to the HTML (You will have to do a lot of scrolling to pass the inline CSS - make your edits anywhere after line 208)

  • You could try adding an extra sentence to a title somewhere - something small but something you will remember

• Save the file

• Press Ctrl + ` on your keyboard and click Terminal in the pane that pops up

• Type git config user.email "<Your GitHub Email Here>" and press enter

• Open the Source Control view from the left pane in VSCode

• Note the changed files; click the "+" button that appears when you hover over them to add them to staging

• Type your commit message in the "Message" text box, then ctrl+enter to commit

  • A commit message is usually a description of the changes you made when you have finished editing files

• You have 2 options to do a git push: You can use the 3 dots on the top right or use bash in the built-in terminal

  • 3 dots: See screenshot below
  • Terminal:
    • Press ctrl + ` and select bash
    • Navigate to your repo directory
    • git push

  Note regarding git push: If you are using your existing Github account with 2 factor authentication enabled, you will need to get a token from Github and use that as your password to push to your repository

• Go back to your project overview in OpenShift, and notice a new build has started

• Once the build has completed, go to the *.nip.io link and refresh - note that it has updated to show your changes without you needing to do anything!

Congratulations, you have finished Lab 4!