Lab 4.4 - Install our iControl LX RPM

Let’s try to install our iControl LX RPM on BIG-IP.

To install the iControl LX Extension, you’ll first need to copy the iControl LX package onto your BIG-IP device into the correct folder. It should be in the following directory: /var/config/rest/downloads.

Use your BIG-IP SSH session and run the following command:

mv /var/config/rest/iapps/RPMS/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm /var/config/rest/downloads/

Since the RPM package was already on the BIG-IP we just had to move it to the correct folder. You can verify the transfer was successful by checking the folder /var/config/rest/downloads.

Task 1 - Review the installed iControl LX Packages

First let’s take a look at the packages installed on the BIG-IP.

Perform the following steps to complete this task:

  1. From your Xubuntu Server run the following command:

    curl -k -u admin:admin https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/shared/iapp/global-installed-packages | jq .

    Response:

    {
  "items": [],
  "generation": 0,
  "kind": "shared:iapp:global-installed-packages:installedpackagecollectionstate",
  "lastUpdateMicros": 0,
  "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/global-installed-packages"
}
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  2. We can see here that no RPM has been installed on this system.

Task 2 - Install our RPM

Installation is performed via the iControl REST API package-management-tasks service. Performing an HTTP POST to this service with the INSTALL operation, the location and the name of the iControl LX package is all that is necessary to install it.

Here is the syntax:

POST /mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks
{
 "operation": "INSTALL",
 "packageFilePath": "/var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm"
}
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Perform the following steps to complete this task:

  1. From your Xubuntu Server run the following command:

    curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -u admin:admin -X POST -d '{"operation": "INSTALL","packageFilePath": "/var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm"}' https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks | jq .

  2. The output should look like this:

    {
  "packageFilePath": "/var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm",
  "operation": "INSTALL",
  "id": "4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f",
  "status": "CREATED",
  "userReference": {
   "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
  },
  "identityReferences": [
   {
     "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
   }
  ],
  "ownerMachineId": "2865e578-0460-44f4-910a-8dc7f220fce1",
  "generation": 1,
  "lastUpdateMicros": 1508331598385044,
  "kind": "shared:iapp:package-management-tasks:iapppackagemanagementtaskstate",
  "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks/4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f"
}
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  3. Note the id. If you now query the package-managment-tasks resource and append the id, you can view the status of the install.

    From your terminal:

    curl -k -u admin:admin  https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks/4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f | jq .

    Note

    Once again be sure to replace the ID in the curl command (4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f) with your own id

    Output:

    {
  "packageFilePath": "/var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm",
  "packageName": "HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch",
  "operation": "INSTALL",
  "packageManifest": {
    "tags": [
      "IAPP"
    ]
  },
  "id": "4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f",
  "status": "FINISHED",
  "startTime": "2017-10-18T14:59:58.389+0200",
  "endTime": "2017-10-18T14:59:58.897+0200",
  "userReference": {
    "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
  },
  "identityReferences": [
    {
      "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
    }
  ],
  "ownerMachineId": "2865e578-0460-44f4-910a-8dc7f220fce1",
  "generation": 3,
  "lastUpdateMicros": 1508331598896783,
  "kind": "shared:iapp:package-management-tasks:iapppackagemanagementtaskstate",
  "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks/4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f"
}
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  4. Check the status field in the output to see if the installation completed as expected. If the package is already installed, you will see FAILED. For example:

    {
  "packageFilePath": "/var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm",
  "packageName": "HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm",
  "operation": "INSTALL",
  "step": "INSTALL_PACKAGE",
  "id": "4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f",
  "status": "FAILED",
  "startTime": "2017-10-18T20:06:32.879-0700",
  "endTime": "2017-10-18T20:06:33.184-0700",
  "errorMessage": "Failed to install /var/config/rest/downloads/HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch.rpm - \tpackage HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch is already installed",
  "userReference": {
    "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
  },
  "identityReferences": [
    {
      "link": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/authz/users/admin"
    }
  ],
  "ownerMachineId": "2865e578-0460-44f4-910a-8dc7f220fce1",
  "generation": 4,
  "lastUpdateMicros": 1494471993184210,
  "kind": "shared:iapp:package-management-tasks:iapppackagemanagementtaskstate",
  "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/package-management-tasks/4d62ae98-5302-41ee-8057-479b28372b9f"
}
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  5. You can check the installation by:

    • Viewing the contents of the folder /var/config/rest/iapps/ on the BIG-IP:

      $ ls /var/config/rest/iapps/
HelloWorld  RPMS
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    • Checking the output of the command (from your Xubuntu Server):

      curl -k -u admin:admin https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/shared/iapp/global-installed-packages | jq .

      You should see something like this:

      {
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "68e109f0-f40c-372a-95e0-5cc22786f8e6",
      "appName": "HelloWorld",
      "packageName": "HelloWorld-0.1-001.noarch",
      "version": "0.1",
      "release": "001",
      "arch": "noarch",
      "tags": [
        "IAPP"
      ],
      "generation": 1,
      "lastUpdateMicros": 1508331598882884,
      "kind": "shared:iapp:global-installed-packages:installedpackagestate",
      "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/global-installed-packages/68e109f0-f40c-372a-95e0-5cc22786f8e6"
    }
  ],
  "generation": 1,
  "kind": "shared:iapp:global-installed-packages:installedpackagecollectionstate",
  "lastUpdateMicros": 1508331598883142,
  "selfLink": "https://localhost/mgmt/shared/iapp/global-installed-packages"
}
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  6. You can also check your restnoded.log file:

     $ tail -10 /var/log/restnoded/restnoded.log

 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: socket 1 opened
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: socket 2 opened
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: socket 1 closed
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: [LoaderWorker] triggered at path:  /var/config/rest/iapps/HelloWorld/nodejs
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: socket 2 closed
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - finest: [LoaderWorker] triggered at path:  /var/config/rest/iapps/HelloWorld/nodejs/hello_world.js
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - info: DEBUG: HelloWorld - onStart request
 Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - config: [RestWorker] /ilxe_lab/hello_world has started. Name:HelloWorld
Wed, 18 Oct 2017 13:27:21 GMT - info: DEBUG: HelloWorld - onStart - the default message body is: { "value": "Congratulations on your lab!" }
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  7. We can see here that our iControl LX Extension has been added to restnoded.

Task 3 - Test our iControl Extension

  1. You can simply redo some of our previous tests to see the outcome:

    curl -k -u admin:admin https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/ilxe_lab/hello_world

  2. The console output should look like this:

    {"value":"Congratulations on your lab!"}

  3. Execute curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -u admin:admin -X POST -d '{"name":"iControl LX Lab"}' https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/ilxe_lab/hello_world

    The console output should look like this:

    {"value":"Hello iControl LX Lab!"}

  4. Execute curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -k -u admin:admin -X POST -d '{"other":"iControl LX Lab"}' https://10.1.1.245/mgmt/ilxe_lab/hello_world

  5. The console output should look like this (the name parameter wasn’t found in the POST payload):

    {"value":"Congratulations on your lab!"}