xApp Deployment - General Guidelines

Pre-requisites

Hosting Files on a Web Server

The xApp descriptor files (config.json) must be hosted on a webserver when we use the xapp-onboarder to deploy xApps. To host these files we use Nginx to create a web server.

Configuring the Nginx Web server

First, we need to install Nginx and check if it is in active (running) state.

sudo apt-get install nginx
sudo systemctl status nginx

Unlink the default Configuration file and check if it is unlinked

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo unlink default
cd ../

Now we create some directories which can be accessed by the server and where the config files can be hosted

cd ../../var/www
sudo mkdir xApp_config.local
cd xApp_config.local/
sudo mkdir config_files

Create a Custom Configuration File and define file locations

cd ../../../etc/nginx/conf.d
sudo vim xApp_config.local.conf

Paste the following content in the conf file.

server {
    listen 5010 default_server;
    server_name xApp_config.local;
    location /config_files/ {

        root /var/www/xApp_config.local/;
    }

}

Save the configuration file and check if there are any errors in the configuration file.

sudo nginx -t

Hosting the config Files

Copy the xApp config file to this directory. Reload Nginx once this has been done

sudo cp <path_to_config_file>/config-file.json /var/www/xApp_config.local/config_files/
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Now, you can check if the config file can be accessed from the newly created server. Place all files you want to host in the config_files directory

curl http://<machine_ip_addr>:5010/config_files/config-file.json

Tip

  • Place all files you want to host in the config_files directory.

  • Make sure all files have a unique name

Creating xApp Docker Image

We create the xapp image using the given Dockerfile within the xApp repository.

docker build . -t xApp-registry.local:5008/<xapp-image-name>:<version> (Example : xappkpimon:1.0.0).

What we are essentially doing here is that we are storing our built image in a local docker repository. This is done to keep things simple. We could use cloud servers too (in that case the image needs to be pushed to the respective server using docker push).

xApp Onboarder Deployment

Getting Variables ready

export KONG_PROXY=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt -l app.kubernetes.io/name=kong -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export APPMGR_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-appmgr-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`
export ONBOARDER_HTTP=`sudo kubectl get svc -n ricplt --field-selector metadata.name=service-ricplt-xapp-onboarder-http -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.clusterIP}'`

Get helm charts and check if the current xApp is one of them. If there is no helm chart, then we are good to go. Otherwise, we have to use the existing chart or delete it and then proceed forward.

curl --location --request GET "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/onboard/api/v1/charts"

Now, we need to indicate in the xapp descriptor config-file.json to use the image we built in the previous step. To do this, in the image section edit the registry field to xApp-registry.local:5008, name to <xapp-image-name> and tag to <version>. An example is given below

 "image": {
        "registry": "xApp-registry.local:5008",
        "name": "<xApp-image-name>",
        "tag": "<version>"
}

Save the xApp descriptor file and host it in the Nginx server we previously created. Also, perform the check to see if the config-file is hosted on the server.

Next, we need to create a .url file to point the xApp-onboarder to the Ngnix server to get the xApp descriptor file and use it to create a helm chart and deploy the xApp.

vim <xApp-name>-onboard.url

Paste the following in the onboard.url file. Substitue the <machine_ip_addr> with the IP address of your machine. You can find this out through ifconfig.

{"config-file.json_url":"http://<machine_ip_addr>:5010/<xApp-name->config-file.json"}

Save the file. Now we are ready to deploy the xApp.

curl -L -X POST "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/onboard/api/v1/onboard/download" --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary "@<xApp-name>-onboard.url"
curl -L -X GET "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/onboard/api/v1/charts"
curl -L -X POST "http://$KONG_PROXY:32080/appmgr/ric/v1/xapps" --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-raw '{"xappName": "scp-kpimon"}'

Verify if the xApp is deployed. There should be a <xApp-name> pod in “ricxapp” namespace

sudo kubectl get pods -A

We can check the xApp logs using

kubectl logs -f -n ricxapp -l app=<xApp-pod-name>

DMS-CLI Deployment