Chapter 14. Creating a site on a local system using the Skupper CLI


Using the skupper command-line interface (CLI) allows you to create and manage Skupper sites from the context of the current user.

A typical workflow is to create a site, link sites together, and expose services to the application network.

A local system includes Docker, Podman or Linux system.

If you require more than one site, specify a unique namespace when using skupper, for example skupper --namespace second-site ....

14.1. Checking the Skupper CLI and environment

Installing the skupper command-line interface (CLI) provides a simple method to get started with Skupper.

  1. Follow the instructions for Installing Skupper.
  2. Verify the installation.

    skupper version
    
    COMPONENT               VERSION
    cli                     2.1.1
  3. For podman sites:

    Make sure the Podman socket is available. To enable it:

    systemctl --user enable --now podman.socket

    Enable lingering to ensure the site persists over logouts:

    loginctl enable-linger <username>

Prerequisites

  • The skupper CLI is installed.

Procedure

  1. Set the SKUPPER_PLATFORM for type of site you want to install:

    • podman
    • docker
    • linux
  2. Install the controller for Podman and Docker sites:

    skupper system install

    This runs a container to support site, link and service operations. This feature is not available on Linux local system sites (systemd).

  3. Create a site:

    skupper site create <site-name>

    For example:

    skupper site create my-site
    
    Waiting for status...
    Site "my-site" is ready.

    While the site is created, the site is not running at this point. To run the site:

    skupper system start

By default, all sites are created with the namespace default. On non-Kubernetes sites, you can create multiple sites per-user by specifying a namespace, for example you can create multiple sites with different platforms as follows:

skupper site create systemd-site -p linux -n linux-ns
skupper site create docker-site -p docker -n docker-ns

Prerequisites

  • The skupper CLI is installed.

Procedure

  1. Enter the following command to delete a site:

    skupper site delete <sitename>
    skupper system stop
  2. You can also uninstall the controller after deleting all existing sites:

    skupper system uninstall

Sometimes, you might want to create all the configuration for a site and apply it automatically to a remote host. To support this, Skupper allows you create a .tar.gz file with all the required files and an install.sh script to start the remote site.

Prerequisites

  • The skupper CLI is installed. The CLI is not required on the remote site.

Procedure

  1. Set the SKUPPER_PLATFORM for type of site you want to install:

    • podman
    • docker
    • linux
  2. Install the controller for Podman and Docker sites:

    skupper system install

    This runs a container to support site, link and service operations. This feature is not available on Linux local system sites (systemd).

  3. Create a site:

    skupper site create <site-name>

    For example:

    skupper site create remote-site
    
    Waiting for status...
    Site "remote-site" is ready.

    While the site is created, the site is not running and that is not a requirement for this usecase.

  4. Create the bundle:

     skupper system generate-bundle remote-site

    The output shows the location of the generated .tar.gz file, for example:

    Site "remote-site" has been created (as a distributable bundle)
    Installation bundle available at: /home/user/.local/share/skupper/bundles/remote-site.tar.gz
    Default namespace: default
    Default platform: podman
  5. Transfer the bundle file to the remote location and uncompress the file in an appropriate location:

    tar -xzvf remote-site.tar.gz
  6. Start the site:

    install.sh

    The site is now running, you can verify with skupper site status if the CLI is installed at that location.

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