dispatchframework/dispatch-events-vcenter repository overview

⁠Event Driver for VMware vCenter

This repo implements vCenter event driver that is compatible with both Knative and Dispatch.

1. Using the driver with Knative⁠
2. Using the driver with Dispatch⁠

⁠Using the driver as an Event Source in Knative

⁠Install Knative Serving w/ Istio

If you have installed Knative Serving & Istio components you can skip this topic. Otherwise, follow the latest instructions here⁠ to install dependencies of Eventing.

⁠Install Knative Eventing

If you have already installed eventing & eventing sources, you can skip this topic.

The following command installs the Eventing version v0.2.1:

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing/releases/download/v0.2.1/release.yaml

This driver also specifically requires the Knative Eventing Sources component. Eventing Sources implements the support for a generic controller that can handle a ContainerSource CRD which is utilized by this driver.

Install Eventing Sources

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing-sources/releases/download/v0.2.1/release.yaml

⁠Install Kafka Broker & Channel Provisioner

If you have already installed channel provisioner you can skip this topic.

A Channel in Eventing acts like a conduit for event transport. A Channel is an http endpoint to which an event source can POST events and is managed by the channel provisioner. The default installation of Eventing provides an in-memory channel provisioner but provisioner must not be used for production. Hence, in this step we will install a Kafka based Channel Provisioner that is more reliable. Before you install the provisioner, you must have access to an existing kafka cluster. If not, follow these instructions⁠ to deploy a kafka cluster.

Note: If you followed the above instructions, the kafka broker URL will be kafkabroker.kafka:9092.

Install a Kafka Channel Provisioner

Note: Below yaml assumes the kafka broker URL as kafkabroker.kafka:9092.

kubectl apply --filename https://github.com/knative/eventing/releases/download/v0.2.1/kafka.yaml

For a more detailed installation or additional configuration options check here⁠.

⁠Create a Channel

Creates a channel that uses the kafka channel provisioner

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-channel.yaml
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Channel
metadata:
  name: vcenter-kafka-channel
spec:
  provisioner:
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
    kind: ClusterChannelProvisioner
    name: kafka
EOF
kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-channel.yaml

⁠Install the vCenter Driver as an Event Source

Note: Modify the YAML below to add your credentials.

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-source.yaml
apiVersion: sources.eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: ContainerSource
metadata:
  labels:
    controller-tools.k8s.io: "1.0"
  name: vcenter-source
spec:
  image: dispatchframework/dispatch-events-vcenter:latest
  args:
   - '--debug'
  env:
    - name: HOST
      value: vcenter.example.com
    - name: USERNAME
      value: "inputYourCreds"
    - name: PASSWORD
      value: "inputYourCreds"
  sink:
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
    kind: Channel
    name: vcenter-kafka-channel
EOF

kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-source.yaml

⁠Create a subscription

Now, you can create a subscription to your knative service by customizing the following yaml with the name of the service:

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter-subscription.yaml
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: vcenter-subscription
spec:
  channel:
    kind: Channel
    name: vcenter-kafka-channel
    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
  subscriber:
    ref:
      kind: Service
      name: <your_service>
      apiVersion: serving.knative.dev/v1alpha1
EOF

kubectl apply --filename ./vcenter-subscription.yaml

⁠[Optional] Service Entry for vCenter host

By default, istio blocks outbound connections from the cluster. If this is the case with your cluster, you can add a service entry like below to allow outbound connections to you vCenter host domain.

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3
kind: ServiceEntry
metadata:
  name: vcenter-ext
spec:
  hosts:
  - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
  ports:
  - number: 443
    name: https
    protocol: HTTPS
  location: MESH_EXTERNAL
---
apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3
kind: VirtualService
metadata:
  name: vcenter-ext
spec:
  hosts:
  - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
  tls:
  - match:
    - port: 443
      sni_hosts:
      - "*.vmwarevmc.com"
    route:
    - destination:
        host: "*.vmwarevmc.com"
        port:
          number: 443
      weight: 100

⁠Using the driver with Dispatch

NOTE: Dispatch version 0.1.20 and older have vcenter driver built-in. Only use this driver with newer versions of Dispatch

⁠1. Get vCenter URL

Create connection string for your vCenter, in the form of:

export VCENTERURL="username:[email protected]"

Replace username, password and vcenter.example.com with respective values for your environment.

Then create a secret file:

$ cat <<EOF > vcenter_secret.json
{
    "vcenterurl": "$VCENTERURL"
}
EOF

Next, create a Dispatch secret which contains vcenter credentials:

$ dispatch create secret vcenter vcenter_secret.json
Created secret: vcenter

`

⁠2. Create Event driver type in Dispatch

Create a Dispatch event driver type with name vcenter:

$ dispatch create eventdrivertype vcenter dispatchframework/dispatch-events-vcenter
Created event driver type: vcenter

⁠3. Create Event driver in Dispatch

When creating vCenter event driver, remember to set the secret you have created in step 1.

$ dispatch create eventdriver vcenter --secret vcenter
Created event driver: holy-grackle-805996

⁠4. Create Subscription in Dispatch

To make events from eventdriver be processed by Dispatch, the last step is to create Dispatch subscription which sends events to a function. For example, to create a vm.being.created event subscription (bind to function hello-py):

$ dispatch create subscription hello-py --event-type="vm.being.created"
created subscription: innocent-werewolf-420270

event-type should be the VCenter event type that the subscription will be listening to. Please refer to vSphere Web Services API reference⁠ (with version respective to your vCenter environment) for full list of available events. Note that event topic in Dispatch is transformed so that Event named VmBeingCreatedEvent becomes vm.being.created in Dispatch.

⁠Building event driver

$ docker build -t dispatch-events-vcenter .
``