bbl should optionally provide output in machine-parseable format about bosh-bootloader HOT 17 CLOSED

We have created an issue in Pivotal Tracker to manage this:

https://www.pivotaltracker.com/story/show/120812677

The labels on this github issue will be updated when the story is started.

from bosh-bootloader.

Putting on my engineering hat and thinking about implementation, I've done this in the PivNet CLI - it wasn't that challenging; it just requires models for the presentation layer.

from bosh-bootloader.

I also just ran into this and wished for something better here. Writing a bash chainsaw like, bbl --state-dir ~/.bbl | grep "Concourse LB:" | awk '{print $4}' | tr -d "[]" made me feel 😿 .

from bosh-bootloader.

Thanks @robdimsdale @ryanmoran

Currently lbs is the only command I can think of that is a read operation and doesn't provide output in a scriptable format, e.g. the output of director-address is fine. So we can scope this conversation to lbs. Now, looking at its output, it gives you something like this:

CF Router LB: SomeAWSResourceName [aws-elb-blah.aws.amazon.ec2.com]
CF SSH Proxy LB: AnotherAWSResourceName [foo.bar.ec2.elb.amazon]

Is the AWS resource name even useful? I wonder if the logical name and the URL would be sufficient. Something like:

CF Router LB: aws-elb-blah.aws.amazon.ec2.com
CF SSH Proxy LB: foo.bar.ec2.elb.amazon

Then you'd get:

$ bbl lbs | grep "Router" | cut -f2 -d: | tr -d ' '

vs

$ bbl lbs --output-format=json | jq -r '."CF Router LB"'

At that point, I'm not sure I see a massive amount of value in the output format flag. I could see it being something for future consideration.

from bosh-bootloader.

I was talking with @ryanmoran and he suggested that lbs could optionally accept the lb type and only return that value. So it would be something like

$ bbl lbs --type CFRouter
router.elb.com

And then the lbs command with no argument would exhibit it's current behavior.

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs the resource name is useful when you want to setup an A record with an alias target.

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs in order to get an alias target we would also need the hosted zone id of the ELB.

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs the reason this matters is that sometimes you might need an A record, and without something like an alias target, you can only setup a CNAME record.

from bosh-bootloader.

@ryanmoran when do you want an A record instead of a CNAME?

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs you can't create a CNAME that points to the top-level domain. So, you wouldn't be able to have a CNAME for pivotal.io. You would need an A Record. But you can make a CNAME for pretty much anything else. I don't have this problem, but its worth knowing that you can run into it.

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs we actually ran into this CNAME vs A record issue today. If I have a hosted zone called banana.fruit.example.com and I have setup a hosted zone for banana.fruit.example.com which handles the redirected DNS lookup from some other NS, like fruit.example.com. I can't use a CNAME to set the apex record for the banana.fruit.example.com record. Instead, I need to specify an A record with an alias target that point at the ELB. And even more, I need to know the HostedZoneID that the ELB is in.

So, I propose that bbl include the ELBs HostedZoneID in addition to the other fields that it already includes.

from bosh-bootloader.

@ryanmoran @robdimsdale @zankich How about:

$ bbl lbs
CF Router LB:
  Domain Name: some.elb.com
  AWS Resource Name: SomeAWSResourceName
  AWS Hosted Zone ID: XYZ
CF SSH Proxy LB:
  Domain Name: another.elb.com
  AWS Resource Name: AnotherAWSResourceName
  AWS Hosted Zone ID: ABC

$ bbl lbs --json
{
  "CF Router LB": {
    "Domain Name": "some.elb.com",
    "AWS Resource Name": "SomeAWSResourceName",
    "AWS Hosted Zone ID": "XYZ"
  }, 
  "CF SSH Proxy LB": {
    "Domain Name": "another.elb.com",
    "AWS Resource Name": "AnotherAWSResourceName",
    "AWS Hosted Zone ID": "ABC"
  }
}

Of course, this is very AWS-specific, but we can figure out something similar when we get to our next IaaS.

One question @ryanmoran what is HostedZoneID, and is it different from what I'm calling AWSResourceName?

from bosh-bootloader.

@Amit-PivotalLabs HostedZoneID is a property of the ELB. If you look at the load balancer description page in the EC2 dashboard, you will see something like Z123ABC. We will need that value to setup an A record with an alias target.

from bosh-bootloader.

I think that the proposed solution above would meet all of the needs I have discovered so far, thanks

from bosh-bootloader.

Story created: https://www.pivotaltracker.com/story/show/126362385

from bosh-bootloader.

It would be great if this work was prioritized, we still have to do commands like this to use the output of the lbs command

bbl lbs | grep "CF TCP Router LB" | cut -d " " -f5

from bosh-bootloader.

Why do you get the IP of the CF TCP Router LB? i.e. What do you do with it after you get it?

from bosh-bootloader.