AB Lab Server Environment

Automatically deploys any number of lab servers with tools in place to run Docker and Kubernetes Labs.

These lab server deployments are to be used with the AlphaBravo ABLabs Training Materials and Sessions.

CAUTION This release is a Beta public release as it was originally intended to be deployed internal only. There will be costs involved with deploying this, there will be problems when installing this that the end user may need to troubleshoot, and there will be breaking changes introduced in the future. Use at your own risk.

Items Automatically Installed / Deployed

• Docker
• Code Server
• Rancher MCM UI
• K3d / K3s / RKE2
• Virtual Machines
• Wildcard cert specific to each host via LetsEncrypt

Basic Deployment (AWS On-Demand Instances, Cloudflare DNS, LetsEncrypt)

• Clone this repo
• cd ab-lab-server
• Copy secrets.yml.dist to secrets.yml and fill in with required fields. Annotations in the secrets.yml.dist file explain what each field is for.
• Copy variables.yml.dist to variables.yml and fill in with required fields (number of servers desired, size of servers etc). Annotations in the variables.yml.dist file explain what each field is for.
• Type make environment and this will drop you into a Docker container with all the required tools (Ansible, Terraform, etc).
• Type make setup-aws. Additional options for aws-spot and digitalocean will be defined in the future once they are fully tested.

Additional Deploy Options

There are currently a few options available for how / where to deploy the lab components.

1. Cloud Provider Options: AWS, AWS-Spot, DigitalOcean
2. DNS Provider Options: Cloudflare, Route53, None (Host File Only)
3. SSL Certificate: LetsEncrypt, UserProvided (WIP), SelfSigned (WIP)

Deploy on AWS-Spot

Coming Soon

Deploy on DigitalOcean

Coming Soon

Deploy DNS on Route53

Changing the dns.service option in variables.yml file will switch from the default cloudflare DNS deployment to route53 DNS.

Deploy with no DNS and only Host File records

Coming Soon

Deploy with User Provided Certs

Coming Soon

Deploy with auto generated, self-signed certs

Coming Soon

Post Deploy

• Verify deployment by checking links in ./ansible/files/deployment_name/lab-server-info.txt
• Use the ./ansible/files/deployment_name/lab-server-info.txt file to distribute access info to students. Make sure to provide them with the generated private ssh key for this deployment located under ./ansible/files/deployment_name/deploymentname-private-key.pem.

Accessing the Environments

• Access Code-Server: go to https://code-yourbranchname-lab1.yourdomain.tld to login code server. Use the PW you defined in the secrets.yml file
• Access to Rancher: go to https://rancher-yourbranchname-lab1.yourdomain.tld to login rancher server. Use the PW you defined in the secrets.yml file
• Access to Portainer: go to https://portianer-yourbranchname-lab1.yourdomain.tld to login Portianer server. Use the PW you defined in the secrets.yml file

Delete the lab-server environments

• From within the make environment container, run make teardown. Warning, this will destroy ALL LAB SERVERS for this particular branch. Use at your own risk.

Ansible Command Examples

• Only run the playbook against the group "haproxy_server" ansible-playbook -i inventory/yourbranchname/yourbranchname-inventory main.yml --limit "haproxy_server

• Only run the playbook against the tag "labs" ansible-playbook -i inventory/yourbranchname/yourbranchname-inventory main.yml --tags "labs"

About Alphabravo

AlphaBravo provides products, training and services for Cloud and DevSecOps adoption and acceleration.

Contact AB today to learn how we can help you.

• Web: https://alphabravo.io
• Email: info@alphabravo.io
• Phone: 301-337-8141