Example: Deploying PHP Guestbook application with Redis
This tutorial shows you how to build and deploy a simple, multi-tier web application using Kubernetes and Docker. This example consists of the following components:
- A single-instance Redis master to store guestbook entries
- Multiple replicated Redis instances to serve reads
- Multiple web frontend instances
Objectives
- Start up a Redis master.
- Start up Redis slaves.
- Start up the guestbook frontend.
- Expose and view the Frontend Service.
- Clean up.
Before you begin
You need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using minikube or you can use one of these Kubernetes playgrounds:
To check the version, enter kubectl version
.
Start up the Redis Master
The guestbook application uses Redis to store its data. It writes its data to a Redis master instance and reads data from multiple Redis slave instances.
Creating the Redis Master Deployment
The manifest file, included below, specifies a Deployment controller that runs a single replica Redis master Pod.
application/guestbook/redis-master-deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1 # for versions before 1.9.0 use apps/v1beta2
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: redis-master
labels:
app: redis
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: redis
role: master
tier: backend
replicas: 1
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: redis
role: master
tier: backend
spec:
containers:
- name: master
image: k8s.gcr.io/redis:e2e # or just image: redis
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 100Mi
ports:
- containerPort: 6379
Launch a terminal window in the directory you downloaded the manifest files.
Apply the Redis Master Deployment from the
redis-master-deployment.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/redis-master-deployment.yaml
Query the list of Pods to verify that the Redis Master Pod is running:
kubectl get pods
The response should be similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
redis-master-1068406935-3lswp 1/1 Running 0 28s
Run the following command to view the logs from the Redis Master Pod:
kubectl logs -f POD-NAME
Note: Replace POD-NAME with the name of your Pod.
Creating the Redis Master Service
The guestbook application needs to communicate to the Redis master to write its data. You need to apply a Service to proxy the traffic to the Redis master Pod. A Service defines a policy to access the Pods.
application/guestbook/redis-master-service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: redis-master
labels:
app: redis
role: master
tier: backend
spec:
ports:
- name: redis
port: 6379
targetPort: 6379
selector:
app: redis
role: master
tier: backend
Apply the Redis Master Service from the following
redis-master-service.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/redis-master-service.yaml
Query the list of Services to verify that the Redis Master Service is running:
kubectl get service
The response should be similar to this:
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kubernetes ClusterIP 10.0.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 1m
redis-master ClusterIP 10.0.0.151 <none> 6379/TCP 8s
Note: This manifest file creates a Service named
redis-master
with a set of labels that match the labels previously defined, so the Service routes network traffic to the Redis master Pod.
Start up the Redis Slaves
Although the Redis master is a single pod, you can make it highly available to meet traffic demands by adding replica Redis slaves.
Creating the Redis Slave Deployment
Deployments scale based off of the configurations set in the manifest file. In this case, the Deployment object specifies two replicas.
If there are not any replicas running, this Deployment would start the two replicas on your container cluster. Conversely, if there are more than two replicas running, it would scale down until two replicas are running.
application/guestbook/redis-slave-deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1 # for versions before 1.9.0 use apps/v1beta2
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: redis-slave
labels:
app: redis
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: redis
role: slave
tier: backend
replicas: 2
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: redis
role: slave
tier: backend
spec:
containers:
- name: slave
image: gcr.io/google_samples/gb-redisslave:v3
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 100Mi
env:
- name: GET_HOSTS_FROM
value: dns
# Using `GET_HOSTS_FROM=dns` requires your cluster to
# provide a dns service. As of Kubernetes 1.3, DNS is a built-in
# service launched automatically. However, if the cluster you are using
# does not have a built-in DNS service, you can instead
# access an environment variable to find the master
# service's host. To do so, comment out the 'value: dns' line above, and
# uncomment the line below:
# value: env
ports:
- containerPort: 6379
Apply the Redis Slave Deployment from the
redis-slave-deployment.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/redis-slave-deployment.yaml
Query the list of Pods to verify that the Redis Slave Pods are running:
kubectl get pods
The response should be similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
redis-master-1068406935-3lswp 1/1 Running 0 1m
redis-slave-2005841000-fpvqc 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 6s
redis-slave-2005841000-phfv9 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 6s
Creating the Redis Slave Service
The guestbook application needs to communicate to Redis slaves to read data. To make the Redis slaves discoverable, you need to set up a Service. A Service provides transparent load balancing to a set of Pods.
application/guestbook/redis-slave-service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: redis-slave
labels:
app: redis
role: slave
tier: backend
spec:
ports:
- port: 6379
selector:
app: redis
role: slave
tier: backend
Apply the Redis Slave Service from the following
redis-slave-service.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/redis-slave-service.yaml
Query the list of Services to verify that the Redis slave service is running:
kubectl get services
The response should be similar to this:
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kubernetes ClusterIP 10.0.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 2m
redis-master ClusterIP 10.0.0.151 <none> 6379/TCP 1m
redis-slave ClusterIP 10.0.0.223 <none> 6379/TCP 6s
Set up and Expose the Guestbook Frontend
The guestbook application has a web frontend serving the HTTP requests written in PHP. It is configured to connect to the redis-master
Service for write requests and the redis-slave
service for Read requests.
Creating the Guestbook Frontend Deployment
application/guestbook/frontend-deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1 # for versions before 1.9.0 use apps/v1beta2
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: frontend
labels:
app: guestbook
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: guestbook
tier: frontend
replicas: 3
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: guestbook
tier: frontend
spec:
containers:
- name: php-redis
image: gcr.io/google-samples/gb-frontend:v4
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 100Mi
env:
- name: GET_HOSTS_FROM
value: dns
# Using `GET_HOSTS_FROM=dns` requires your cluster to
# provide a dns service. As of Kubernetes 1.3, DNS is a built-in
# service launched automatically. However, if the cluster you are using
# does not have a built-in DNS service, you can instead
# access an environment variable to find the master
# service's host. To do so, comment out the 'value: dns' line above, and
# uncomment the line below:
# value: env
ports:
- containerPort: 80
Apply the frontend Deployment from the
frontend-deployment.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/frontend-deployment.yaml
Query the list of Pods to verify that the three frontend replicas are running:
kubectl get pods -l app=guestbook -l tier=frontend
The response should be similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
frontend-3823415956-dsvc5 1/1 Running 0 54s
frontend-3823415956-k22zn 1/1 Running 0 54s
frontend-3823415956-w9gbt 1/1 Running 0 54s
Creating the Frontend Service
The redis-slave
and redis-master
Services you applied are only accessible within the container cluster because the default type for a Service is ClusterIP. ClusterIP
provides a single IP address for the set of Pods the Service is pointing to. This IP address is accessible only within the cluster.
If you want guests to be able to access your guestbook, you must configure the frontend Service to be externally visible, so a client can request the Service from outside the container cluster. Minikube can only expose Services through NodePort
.
Note: Some cloud providers, like Google Compute Engine or Google Kubernetes Engine, support external load balancers. If your cloud provider supports load balancers and you want to use it, simply delete or comment out
type: NodePort
, and uncommenttype: LoadBalancer
.
application/guestbook/frontend-service.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: frontend
labels:
app: guestbook
tier: frontend
spec:
# comment or delete the following line if you want to use a LoadBalancer
type: NodePort
# if your cluster supports it, uncomment the following to automatically create
# an external load-balanced IP for the frontend service.
# type: LoadBalancer
ports:
- port: 80
selector:
app: guestbook
tier: frontend
Apply the frontend Service from the
frontend-service.yaml
file:kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/guestbook/frontend-service.yaml
Query the list of Services to verify that the frontend Service is running:
kubectl get services
The response should be similar to this:
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
frontend NodePort 10.0.0.112 <none> 80:31323/TCP 6s
kubernetes ClusterIP 10.0.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 4m
redis-master ClusterIP 10.0.0.151 <none> 6379/TCP 2m
redis-slave ClusterIP 10.0.0.223 <none> 6379/TCP 1m
Viewing the Frontend Service via NodePort
If you deployed this application to Minikube or a local cluster, you need to find the IP address to view your Guestbook.
Run the following command to get the IP address for the frontend Service.
minikube service frontend --url
The response should be similar to this:
http://192.168.99.100:31323
Copy the IP address, and load the page in your browser to view your guestbook.
Viewing the Frontend Service via LoadBalancer
If you deployed the frontend-service.yaml
manifest with type: LoadBalancer
you need to find the IP address to view your Guestbook.
Run the following command to get the IP address for the frontend Service.
kubectl get service frontend
The response should be similar to this:
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
frontend ClusterIP 10.51.242.136 109.197.92.229 80:32372/TCP 1m
Copy the external IP address, and load the page in your browser to view your guestbook.
Scale the Web Frontend
Scaling up or down is easy because your servers are defined as a Service that uses a Deployment controller.
Run the following command to scale up the number of frontend Pods:
kubectl scale deployment frontend --replicas=5
Query the list of Pods to verify the number of frontend Pods running:
kubectl get pods
The response should look similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
frontend-3823415956-70qj5 1/1 Running 0 5s
frontend-3823415956-dsvc5 1/1 Running 0 54m
frontend-3823415956-k22zn 1/1 Running 0 54m
frontend-3823415956-w9gbt 1/1 Running 0 54m
frontend-3823415956-x2pld 1/1 Running 0 5s
redis-master-1068406935-3lswp 1/1 Running 0 56m
redis-slave-2005841000-fpvqc 1/1 Running 0 55m
redis-slave-2005841000-phfv9 1/1 Running 0 55m
Run the following command to scale down the number of frontend Pods:
kubectl scale deployment frontend --replicas=2
Query the list of Pods to verify the number of frontend Pods running:
kubectl get pods
The response should look similar to this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
frontend-3823415956-k22zn 1/1 Running 0 1h
frontend-3823415956-w9gbt 1/1 Running 0 1h
redis-master-1068406935-3lswp 1/1 Running 0 1h
redis-slave-2005841000-fpvqc 1/1 Running 0 1h
redis-slave-2005841000-phfv9 1/1 Running 0 1h
Cleaning up
Deleting the Deployments and Services also deletes any running Pods. Use labels to delete multiple resources with one command.
Run the following commands to delete all Pods, Deployments, and Services.
kubectl delete deployment -l app=redis
kubectl delete service -l app=redis
kubectl delete deployment -l app=guestbook
kubectl delete service -l app=guestbook
The responses should be:
deployment.apps "redis-master" deleted
deployment.apps "redis-slave" deleted
service "redis-master" deleted
service "redis-slave" deleted
deployment.apps "frontend" deleted
service "frontend" deleted
Query the list of Pods to verify that no Pods are running:
kubectl get pods
The response should be this:
No resources found.
What’s next
- Add ELK logging and monitoring to your Guestbook application
- Complete the Kubernetes Basics Interactive Tutorials
- Use Kubernetes to create a blog using Persistent Volumes for MySQL and Wordpress
- Read more about connecting applications
- Read more about Managing Resources