HYPER KUBE

Hyperkube provides a collection of utilities, libraries, and configurations to operate Hyperleder Fabric as a Kube-native platform.

This project is very new and currently in genesis / experimental status. Contributions, feedback, and reviews are both welcome and encouraged.

Overview:

Hyperkube provides:

• Reference patterns for deployment to provider-agnostic Kubernetes clusters.
• Simplified operational practices for common fabric activities (network, channel, and chaincode lifecycle.)
• A common, unified approach for configuration, connection profiles, and remote administration.
• Kube Native (but not Kube Only) operational practices.
• A Fabric reference network, equivalent to test-network, suitable for local application development.
• A focused environment for development and management of external chaincode smart contracts.

Objectives:

• Build and maintain momentum for a migration from Docker (compose/swarm/virtualbox) to Kubernetes
• Provide vendor-agnostic patterns for running Fabric on Kubernetes.
• Study of fabric configuration : catalog for fragmented configuration files, utilities, and patterns.
• Constrain / eliminate reliance on local Docker daemon (and docker-in-docker) to advance chaincode as a service deployment practices.
• Provide near-term value with local, CLI-based Kubernetes control interfaces.
• Provide long-term value by aligning with the kube-native "Operator Pattern"

Mechanics:

Hyperkube provides the fabctl command for instantiating and manipulating hyperledger networks running somewhere "in the cloud." In traditional fabric networks, a network administrator is responsible for crafting a configuration, determining port mappings, managing crypto certificates and key specs, managing the lifecycle of application components, and running a series of peer CLI binaries to reflect updates and configuration across a collection of machines. This administration burden is tremendous!

fabctl reduces the complexity of operations by providing a single entrypoint for common fabric objectives, communicating entirely with the Kubernetes API Controller to affect changes in a remote cluster. By implementing fabric activities as Kube API calls, the system is entirely vendor-agnostic, language-neutral, and compatible with community best practices for remote cluster management.

Hyperkube is NOT a Kubernetes Operator. In early genesis, this project is an assembly area for cataloging reference practices, codifying an API bridge to k8s, and providing a practical gateway for interacting with a remote Fabric network. With this in mind, it is a stated goal of this project to align with the operator pattern, such that the routines and functionality implemented by fabctl may be refactored into a first-class controller and collection of K8s CRDs.

The general structure of fabctl divides Fabric administration activities into three functional sub-areas:

• network
• channel
• chaincode

To affect changes in a fabric network, the administrator applies a series of local configuration files, selects a connection profile, and issues fabctl commands to reflect the change in a remote cluster. All API updates to k8s are made via a Kubernetes API client, inheriting the current kubectl context and configuration.

Notes / Scratch / TODO:

• Developed in golang as a go neophyte. (Would consider Java + Fabric8 for rapid development, but chose to align with Fabric patterns.)
• Hyperkube will use the Tekton Operator to run Tasks on K8s. (Currently k8s batch Job CRDs)
• Consider using Argo Workflows to run Workflows on K8s (not Jobs, not tkn Tasks, ...)
• Hyperkube uses KIND as a development platform. Write a KIND.md or QUICKSTART.md
• Start with test-network-kind and use fabctl to emulate network.sh
• Install asset-exchange-basic and integrate with rest-sample-application to illustrate high-level dev activities.
• Supplement / Pattern on Fabric Getting Started - Run Fabric - reduce to minimal fabctl activities.
• Link up with practices from weft for management and conversion of fabric connection descriptors.
• Link up with IDE integration (e.g. VSCode extension)
• Link up with ephemeral Fabric instances on cloud (e.g. fab-playground)