Kubernetes-Ready RAD (K8SRAD)

Rapid Application Development is a software development principle to use pre-given and frequently needed components of a software application to accelerate the software development process massively. These components are for example functions for user authentication and authorization, user management (self-registration of a user, deactivating an account) but also application designs. With the usage of pre-given component, a lot of development tasks are omitted what rapidly accelerates the software development.

YOTRON put this development principles one step ahead and uses a Kubernetes-ready Rapid Application Development framework. The Kubernetes deployment is integrated part of the software development, means the software we provide for you is Kubernetes-Ready out-of-the-box.

This is the default application, which is the starting point of the Rapid Application Development. Please see the description.

URLs

The project contains code, build packages, container ... . Below an overview:

Installation

We provide two installation methods. A native installation on any OS which supports Python3 and a installation in Kubernetes via HELM. Per default, K8SRAD runs on a sqlite database. Sqlite is recommended only for testing and on a standalone installation.

In production, you should use a PostgreSQL database for a better data persistency and to allow a HA setup with more K8SRAD nodes.

The K8SRAD has no TLS-termination ("https"). We recommend to use a Reverse Proxy like NGINX or Apache Web Server in front of K8SRAD Web App for TLS termination.

The HELM project of K8SRAD for Kubernetes contains all needed and recommended components. You can optionally install a NGINX Reverse Proxy and a PostgreSQL database with the project, but you can also use separated applications.

Native

Prerequisites

• Python3
• Python-pip for dependency installation
• OpenLDAP for LDAP authentication
• SSL for secured LDAP authentication
• recommended: python3-venv to create a virtual environment for Python3
• recommended: PostgreSQL database for the K8SRAD metadata
• recommended: A reverse proxy with TLS termination (e.g. NGINX).

Prerequisites Python and pip

K8SRAD supports all current Python3 versions. It is tested with Python 3.9.x and 3.10.x

To check which Python version is running:

vagrant@bullseye:~$ python3 -V
Python 3.9.2

To check which Pip version is running:

vagrant@bullseye:~$ pip3 -V
pip 20.3.4 from /home/vagrant/k8srad/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pip (python 3.9)

It is possible, that in your distribution Python must be called with python and pip.

If you need a Python installation from the scratch. Python3, Pip3 and python3-venv are available in the main OS distribution.

For Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-venv

For RedHat/CentOS: sudo yum install python3 python3-pip python3-venv

Prerequisites OpenLDAP and SSL

For authentication packages for authentication like OpenLDAP and SSL are needed
For Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install libsasl2-dev python-dev libldap2-dev libssl-dev

For RedHat/CentOS: sudo yum install python-devel openldap-devel

Installation

There are a lot of variants how to start a Python web project. We use a Python virtual environment for setting up K8SRAD on a virtual environment. Depend on your environment and knowledge in Python the process can be different.

1. Create a virtual environment of Python

   1. Create a virtual environment for K8SRAD

      vagrant@bullseye:~$ python3 -m venv venv
      

   2. Activate your virtual environment

      This steps is to repeat every time you want to restart K8SRAD.

      vagrant@bullseye:~$ source venv/bin/activate
      (venv) vagrant@bullseye:~$
      

2. Install all Python dependencies needed for the project:

   (k8srad) vagrant@bullseye:~$ pip install k8srad --upgrade
   

3. Start K8SRAD server

   (k8srad) vagrant@bullseye:~$ k8srad-run --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080
   2022-10-06 15:21:07,382:INFO:flask_appbuilder.base:Registering class View on menu 
   ...
   2022-10-10 11:18:22,385:INFO:flask_appbuilder.baseviews:Registering route / ('GET',)
   2022-10-10 11:18:22,424:INFO:waitress:Serving on http://0.0.0.0:8080
   

4. Open Browser and start K8SRAD with one of the IPs mentioned above:

   

   Your will automatically redirected to http://x.x.x.x:8080/login

5. Login as a admin user

   The default credentials for the admin user are:

   Username: admin

   Password: admin

   

   Please see the manual to allow access to buckets.

HELM

You find the installation instructions for Kubernetes here

Manual

The manual for K8SRAD you find here

Configuration

The dotenv file and K8SRAD_CONF_FILE variable

You can customize K8SRAD with a setting defined in a dotenv file. The dotenv file can be chosen freely and you can put the file in a folder of your choice but the file must be reachable by the K8SRAD App.

Additionally, you need a environment variable K8SRAD_CONF_FILE with the path to your config file.

For example, for Linux you can set the environment variable with:

export K8SRAD_CONF_FILE=/etc/k8srad/.k8srad

with .k8srad as the dotenv file name.

The file contains setting to the following topics:

• customization of your K8SRAD
• Authentication

The parameter of the config file

Kubernetes RAD

Authentication general

Example of a role mapping

AUTH_ROLES_MAPPING = {
    "cn=k8suser,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com": ["Public"],
    "cn=k8sradadmins,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com": ["Admin"],
}

Authentication LDAP

To allow authentication with LDAP, a LDAP group must be mapped onto one the K8SRAD Role Public or Admin .

You find further information about how to configure LDAP against Microsoft AD or OpenLDAP here.

The start parameter

To start of the K8SRAD server simply call k8srad-run as shown above. You have has the following parameter:

With k8srad-run -h you get the possible configuration:

(k8srad) vagrant@bullseye:~$ k8srad-run -h
...
usage: k8srad-run [-h] [-s HOST] [-p PORT] [-t THREADS]
Start parameter for the K8SRAD web server.
optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-s HOST, --host HOST  Listener Host IP. Default: 0.0.0.0
-p PORT, --port PORT  Listener Host Port. Default: 8080.
-t THREADS, --threads THREADS  Threads for parallelization. Default: 4.