Run Bookinfo with Kubernetes

This module shows you an application composed of four microservices written in different programming languages: productpage, details, ratings and reviews. We call the composed application Bookinfo, and you can learn more about it on the Bookinfo example⁶ page.

The Bookinfo example⁶ shows the final state of the application, in which the reviews microservice has three versions: v1, v2, v3. In this module, the application only uses the v1 version of the reviews microservice. The next modules enhance the application by deploying newer versions of the reviews microservice.

Deploy the application and a testing pod

1. Set the MYHOST environment variable to hold the URL of the application:

   $ export MYHOST=$(kubectl config view -o jsonpath={.contexts..namespace}).bookinfo.com
   

2. Skim bookinfo.yaml⁷. This is the Kubernetes deployment spec of the app. Notice the services and the deployments.

3. Deploy the application to your Kubernetes cluster:

   $ kubectl apply -l version!=v2,version!=v3 -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-1.18/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml
   service/details created
   serviceaccount/bookinfo-details created
   deployment.apps/details-v1 created
   service/ratings created
   serviceaccount/bookinfo-ratings created
   deployment.apps/ratings-v1 created
   service/reviews created
   serviceaccount/bookinfo-reviews created
   deployment.apps/reviews-v1 created
   service/productpage created
   serviceaccount/bookinfo-productpage created
   deployment.apps/productpage-v1 created
   

4. Check the status of the pods:

   $ kubectl get pods
   NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   details-v1-6d86fd9949-q8rrf     1/1     Running   0          10s
   productpage-v1-c9965499-tjdjx   1/1     Running   0          8s
   ratings-v1-7bf577cb77-pq9kg     1/1     Running   0          9s
   reviews-v1-77c65dc5c6-kjvxs     1/1     Running   0          9s
   

5. After the four pods achieve the Running status, you can scale the deployment. To let each version of each microservice run in three pods, execute the following command:

   $ kubectl scale deployments --all --replicas 3
   deployment.apps/details-v1 scaled
   deployment.apps/productpage-v1 scaled
   deployment.apps/ratings-v1 scaled
   deployment.apps/reviews-v1 scaled
   

6. Check the pods status. Notice that each microservice has three pods:

   $ kubectl get pods
   NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   details-v1-6d86fd9949-fr59p     1/1     Running   0          50s
   details-v1-6d86fd9949-mksv7     1/1     Running   0          50s
   details-v1-6d86fd9949-q8rrf     1/1     Running   0          1m
   productpage-v1-c9965499-hwhcn   1/1     Running   0          50s
   productpage-v1-c9965499-nccwq   1/1     Running   0          50s
   productpage-v1-c9965499-tjdjx   1/1     Running   0          1m
   ratings-v1-7bf577cb77-cbdsg     1/1     Running   0          50s
   ratings-v1-7bf577cb77-cz6jm     1/1     Running   0          50s
   ratings-v1-7bf577cb77-pq9kg     1/1     Running   0          1m
   reviews-v1-77c65dc5c6-5wt8g     1/1     Running   0          49s
   reviews-v1-77c65dc5c6-kjvxs     1/1     Running   0          1m
   reviews-v1-77c65dc5c6-r55tl     1/1     Running   0          49s
   

7. After the services achieve the Running status, deploy a testing pod, sleep⁸, to use for sending requests to your microservices:

   $ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/release-1.18/samples/sleep/sleep.yaml
   

8. To confirm that the Bookinfo application is running, send a request to it with a curl command from your testing pod:

   $ kubectl exec $(kubectl get pod -l app=sleep -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -c sleep -- curl -sS productpage:9080/productpage | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   

Enable external access to the application

Once your application is running, enable clients from outside the cluster to access it. Once you configure the steps below successfully, you can access the application from your laptop’s browser.

Configure the Kubernetes Ingress resource and access your application’s webpage

1. Create a Kubernetes Ingress resource:

   $ kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
   apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
   kind: Ingress
   metadata:
     name: bookinfo
     annotations:
       kubernetes.io/ingress.class: istio
   spec:
     rules:
     - host: $MYHOST
       http:
         paths:
         - path: /productpage
           pathType: Prefix
           backend:
             service:
               name: productpage
               port:
                 number: 9080
         - path: /login
           pathType: Prefix
           backend:
             service:
               name: productpage
               port:
                 number: 9080
         - path: /logout
           pathType: Prefix
           backend:
             service:
               name: productpage
               port:
                 number: 9080
         - path: /static
           pathType: Prefix
           backend:
             service:
               name: productpage
               port:
                 number: 9080
   EOF
   

Update your /etc/hosts configuration file

1. Get the IP address for the Kubernetes ingress named bookinfo:

   $ kubectl get ingress bookinfo
   

2. In your /etc/hosts file, add the previous IP address to the host entries provided by the following command. You should have a Superuser⁹ privilege and probably use sudo¹⁰ to edit /etc/hosts.

   $ echo $(kubectl get ingress istio-system -n istio-system -o jsonpath='{..ip} {..host}') $(kubectl get ingress bookinfo -o jsonpath='{..host}')
   

Access your application

1. Access the application’s home page from the command line:

   $ curl -s $MYHOST/productpage | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   

2. Paste the output of the following command in your browser address bar:

   $ echo http://$MYHOST/productpage
   

   You should see the following webpage:

   

3. Observe how microservices call each other. For example, reviews calls the ratings microservice using the http://ratings:9080/ratings URL. See the code of reviews¹¹:

   private final static String ratings_service = "http://ratings:9080/ratings";
   

4. Set an infinite loop in a separate terminal window to send traffic to your application to simulate the constant user traffic in the real world:

   $ while :; do curl -s $MYHOST/productpage | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"; sleep 1; done
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   <title>Simple Bookstore App</title>
   ...
   

You are ready to test the application¹².