CloudRunner.IO Command Line Tool and Server Agent

Copyright (c) 2013-2014 CloudRunner.IO

About

CloudRunner.IO is a simple yet powerful framework for remote server management. It's key features include:

• Execute scripts in your choice(bash, python, ruby, puppet and chef-solo recipes)

• Pass environment variables between servers and between different script languages (works for a limited number of languages, but can be extended with a plugin)

• Secure communication using SSL certificates

• Fast and reliable, using ZeroMQ as a transport backend(although a different backend can be used as a plugin)

• CloudRunner.IO also offers a commercial server, that performs a lot of useful tasks, including:

  • User management: assign roles for different users on different remote servers(how to impersonate an user on a server)
  • Library management: store, re-use scripts into different kind of stores - GitHub, ButBucket, SVN, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, etc.
  • Workflow management - run multi-step scripts on different servers, with the ability to restart a script from arbitrary step, while keeping the environment context as it was in the first run.
  • Web dashboard for performing different operational tasks and for monitoring latest activities using filters.
  • Execution of scheduled tasks (using Cron)
  • Triggers - invoke stored script execution when a specific pattern appear in the activity logs.
  • Highly customizable platform - write your own plugins(in Python) for different kind of workflow management.
  • Multi-tenancy - supports isolated group of users who can access servers in a shared environment (including public clouds).
  • HA and Multi-server routing - install master servers in different locations(subnets, public clouds, etc.) and access all your servers from a single access point. No need to attach to different master server to access a remote server into directly inaccessible network. All you need is to allow the master servers to see each other.

  For more details see www.cloudrunner.io or ask for details at [email protected]

Developing CloudRunner

CloudRunner CLI/Agent is an open-source project under the Apache 2 license. See the code at www.github.com/cloudrunner. Everyone is welcome to contribute.

Documentation

1. Command line tool installation

First, install and configure the CLI tool with setting the needed certificates and paths:

pip install cloudrunner
cloudrunner-exec configure

Note: you might need to install some packages before installing with pip. Cloudrunner depends on ZeroMQ, M2Crypto and httplib2. Install them using:

pip install pyzmq
pip install m2crypto
pip install httplib2

Note: Use python2 and pip2(python2-pip) for Arch Linux, CloudRunner only supports Python 2 at the moment, but this will change in future!

You can install them usign pip, but make sure you have already installed:

* C++ compiler: gcc-c++ (CentOS, Fedora) or gcc (Arch Linux) or g++ (Debian, Ubuntu)
* Python Dev libraries: python-devel (CentOS, Fedora) or python2 (Arch Linux) or python-dev (Debian)
* OpenSSL Dev libraries: libssl-dev (Debian) openssl-devel (Centos) or openssl (Arch Linux)
* Swig package (swig) on some Linuxes

Note: to be able to use autocomplete, do the following:

pip install argcomplete
source cloudrunner-autocomplete

Then run a simple script on your local machine:

$ cloudrunner
(bash)[local]$ hostname
(bash)[local]$

========== JOB: @user local ==========
user@localhost$
my_computer_name

Get the CLI details(will be used in next step):

$ cloudrunner-exec details
Certificate fingerprint        BF1AF11AFCA7E3D334A2AECD4B00B36635F560B0
CLI cert CN                    my_computer_name

2. Server node installation

Install and configure a the cloudrunner-node package:

pip install cloudrunner
cloudrunner-node configure

Make sure to open port 5552 on the server(this can be configured in config)

• using ufw:

  ufw allow 5552
  

• using iptables:

  iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 5552 -j ACCEPT
  

Register the CLI details to allow access to this server using the details from the CLI above:

cloudrunner-node register_cli -cn my_computer_name -fp BF1AF11AFCA7E3D334A2AECD4B00B36635F560B0

And finally start the server agent:

# In debug mode:
cloudrunner-node run

# In daemon mode - use start|stop|restart with the --pidfile option to control the process
cloudrunner-node start --pidfile cr-node.pid

3. Finally connect CLI with Server and start playing

From CLI start the cloudrunner tool:

$ cloudrunner
(bash)[local]:

Let's do a simple test. Export a variable and print it:

(bash)[local]: MY_VAR="the myvar content"

Then print it:

(bash)[local]: echo $MY_VAR
========== JOB: @user local ==========
user@localhost$
the myvar content

And it's now time to run some code remotely, using the directive switch [server_name]:

(bash)[local]: switch my_server_name

Someone might prefer to write in Python:

(bash)[my_server_name]: lang python
(python)[my_server_name]: import os
(python)[my_server_name]: print "Printing the MY_VAR content: ", os.environ['MY_VAR']

One more thing: attach a file using the directive attach_file:

(python)[my_server_name]: attach_file path/to/file

Let's print the file contents on the server::

(python)[my_server_name]: print "File contents:", open('path/to/file').read()

Click double [Enter] to execute:

(python)[my_server_name]:
(python)[my_server_name]:

And voila - here is the result:

========== JOB: @user 2390bfae ==========
user@my_server_name$
Printing the MY_VAR content: the myvar content
File contents: [ -- the contents of the file follows --]

(python)[my_server_name]:

Now you have the basic knowledge how to use the CloudRunner.IO CLI and Server agent. Use your imagination (and the help command of course) to do more and more!