BOSH release of the pcap Cloud Foundry add-on.

As pcap-release is still in active development, information on this page is subject to change and might be outdated.

The goal of this BOSH release is to provide easy access to network traffic data to both Cloud Foundry application developers and CF landscape operators. To achieve this, pcap-release implements CLI-commands to capture tcpdumps (pcap files) from multiple BOSH VMs or CF app-containers in parallel.

• pcap-api is deployed on its own VM.
• pcap-agent is co-located on app-containers.
• pcap-api needs to register its route via route-registrar, part of the cf-routing-release.
• cf-CLI pcap-plugin (TBD/WIP) is used to send capture requests to the pcap-api
• Requests to pcap-api need an authorization header including the OAuth token from UAA. This token is used to gather information about the app from the cloud-controller.
• The pcap-api makes requests to the pcap-agent on corresponding app-container.
• The pcap agent starts a tcpdump using libpcap via the gopacket module and streams the results.

• pcap-api is deployed on its own VM.
• pcap-agent is co-located on BOSH VMs.
• pcap-api needs to register its route via route-registrar, part of the cf-routing-release.
• pcap-bosh-cli (TBD/WIP) is used to send capture requests to the pcap-api
• Requests to pcap-api need an authorization header including the OAuth token from UAA.
• This token is used to gather information about the target VMs from the BOSH Director
• The pcap-api makes requests to the pcap-agent on corresponding BOSH VMs.
• The pcap agent starts a tcpdump using libpcap via the gopacket module and streams the results.

• Check if token is valid by requesting app information from CC/BOSH Director
• Get container address for app instances from CC/BOSH VMs from BOSH Director
• Connect to pcap-agent in app-containers/BOSH VMs
• Stream packets back to client

• Capture packets and stream back to pcap-api

Provided manifests and ops files:

• manifests/ops-files/add-pcap-agent.yml This adds the PCAP agent as an addon to any BOSH deployment.
• manifests/pcap-api.yml This is an example BOSH manifest to deploy the pcap-api.
• manifests/ops-files/expose-route-to-pcap-api.yml This adds bosh dns as an addon to the pcap-api instance group and configures the route for pcap-api route registration.

cp manifests/vars-template.yml manifests/vars.yml
vim manifests/vars.yml (adjust as needed)

bosh interpolate -o manifests/ops-files/expose-route-to-pcap-api.yml -l manifests/vars.yml manifests/pcap-api.yml > manifests/pcap-api-with-exposed-route.yml

bosh -d pcap deploy -l manifests/vars.yml manifests/pcap-api.yml

If a new manifest file has been generated in Step 2, then execute:

bosh -d pcap deploy manifests/pcap-api-with-exposed-route.yml

bosh interpolate -o manifests/ops-files/add-pcap-agent.yml -l manifests/vars.yml cf-deployment.yml > cf-deployment-pcap.yml
bosh -d cf deploy cf-deployment-pcap.yml

This assumes your BOSH deployment name of cf-deployment is called cf

tbd

bosh -d pcap scp <bosh instance of pcap api>:/var/vcap/packages/pcap-api/bin/cli/build/pcap-bosh-cli-linux-amd64 pcap-bosh-cli-linux-amd64
mv pcap-bosh-cli-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/pcap-bosh
pcap-bosh ...

# create a dev release, event if there are changes in the git workspace
bosh create-release --force

# upload the release to the BOSH director
bosh -e bosh upload-release

# adjust the release to a dev release instead of the URL
vim manifests/pcap-api.yml
vim manifests/ops-files/add-pcap-agent.yml

# deploy pcap-agent to the desired deployment(s) (example: diego-cells in cf deployment)
bosh -d cf manifest > cf.yml
bosh interpolate -o manifests/ops-files/add-pcap-agent.yml cf.yml > cf-pcap.yml
bosh -d cf deploy cf-pcap.yml

# deploy pcap-api
cp manifests/vars-template.yml manifests/vars.yml
vim manifests/vars.yml (adjust as needed)
bosh -d pcap deploy -l manifests/vars.yml manifests/pcap-api.yml

Local test execution is described in detail:

• Unit/Integration tests
• Linters
• Acceptance tests