6. Demo

A sample installation of Stork can be used to demonstrate Stork capabilities, and can also be used for its development.

The demo installation uses Docker and Docker Compose to set up all Stork services. It contains:

  • Stork Server
  • Stork Agent with Kea DHCPv4
  • Stork Agent with Kea DHCPv6
  • Stork Agent with Kea HA-1 (high availability server 1)
  • Stork Agent with Kea HA-2 (high availability server 2)
  • Stork Agent with BIND 9
  • Stork Environment Simulator
  • PostgreSQL database
  • Prometheus & Grafana

These services allow observation of many Stork features.

6.1. Requirements

Running the Stork Demo requires the same dependencies as building Stork, which are described in the Installing From Sources chapter.

Besides the standard dependencies, the Stork Demo requires:

  • Docker
  • Docker Compose

For details, please see the Stork wiki at https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/stork/-/wikis/Processes/development-Environment

6.2. Setup Steps

The following command retrieves all required software (go, goswagger, nodejs, Angular dependencies, etc.) to the local directory. No root password is necessary. It then prepares Docker images and starts them.

$ rake docker_up

Once the build process finishes, the Stork UI is available at http://localhost:8080/. Use any browser to connect.

6.2.1. Premium Features

It is possible to run the demo with premium features enabled in Kea apps. It requires starting the demo with an access token to the Kea premium repositories. Access tokens are provided to ISC’s paying customers and can be found on https://cloudsmith.io/~isc/repos/kea-1-7-prv/setup/#tab-formats-deb. The token can be found inside this URL on that page: https://dl.cloudsmith.io/${ACCESS_TOKEN}/isc/kea-1-7-prv/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh. This web page and the token are available only to paying customers of ISC.

$ rake docker_up cs_repo_access_token=<access token>

6.3. Demo Containers

The setup procedure creates several Docker containers. Their definition is stored in the docker-compose.yaml file in the Stork source code repository.

These containers have Stork production services and components:

server
This container is essential. It runs the Stork server, which interacts with all the agents and the database and exposes the API. Without it, Stork is not able to function.
webui
This container is essential in most circumstances. It provides the front-end web interface. It is potentially unnecessary with the custom development of a Stork API client.
agent-bind9
This container runs a BIND 9 server. With this container, the agent can be added as a machine and Stork will begin monitoring its BIND 9 service.
agent-bind9-2
This container also runs a BIND 9 server, for the purpose of experimenting with two different DNS servers.
agent-kea
This container runs a Kea DHCPv4 server. With this container, the agent can be added as a machine and Stork will begin monitoring its Kea DHCPv4 service.
agent-kea6
This container runs a Kea DHCPv6 server.
agent-kea-ha1 and agent-kea-ha2
These two containers should, in general, be run together. They each have a Kea DHCPv4 server instance configured in an HA pair. With both running and registered as machines in Stork, users can observe certain HA mechanisms, such as one partner taking over the traffic if the other partner becomes unavailable.
agent-kea-many-subnets
This container runs an agent with a Kea DHCPv4 server that has many subnets defined in its configuration (about 7000).

These are containers with 3rd-party services that are required by Stork:

postgres
This container is essential. It runs the PostgreSQL database that is used by the Stork server. Without it, the Stork server produces error messages about an unavailable database.
prometheus
Prometheus, a monitoring solution (https://prometheus.io/), uses this container to monitor applications. It is preconfigured to monitor Kea and BIND 9 containers.
grafana
This is a container with Grafana (https://grafana.com/), a dashboard for Prometheus. It is preconfigured to pull data from a Prometheus container and show Stork dashboards.

There is also a supporting container:

simulator
Stork Environment Simulator is a web application that can run DHCP traffic using perfdhcp (useful to observe non-zero statistics coming from Kea), run DNS traffic using dig and flamethrower (useful to observe non-zero statistics coming from BIND 9), and start and stop any service in any other container (useful to simulate, for example, a Kea crash).

Note

The containers running the Kea and BIND 9 applications are for demonstration purposes only. They allow users to quickly start experimenting with Stork without having to manually deploy Kea and/or BIND 9 instances.

The PostgreSQL database schema is automatically migrated to the latest version required by the Stork server process.

The setup procedure assumes those images are fully under Stork’s control. Any existing images are overwritten.

6.4. Initialization

Stork Server requires some initial information:

  1. Go to http://localhost:8080/machines/all
  2. Add new machines (leave the default port):
    1. agent-kea
    2. agent-kea6
    3. agent-kea-ha1
    4. agent-kea-ha2
    5. agent-bind9
    6. agent-bind9-2

6.5. Stork Environment Simulator

Stork Environment Simulator allows:

  • sending DHCP traffic to Kea applications
  • sending DNS requests to BIND 9 applications
  • stopping and starting Stork Agents, and the Kea and BIND 9 daemons

Stork Environment Simulator allows DHCP traffic to be sent to selected subnets pre-configured in Kea instances, with a limitation: it is possible to send traffic to only one subnet from a given shared network.

Stork Environment Simulator also allows sending DNS traffic to selected DNS servers.

Stork Environment Simulator can add all the machines available in the demo setup. It can stop and start selected Stork Agents, and the Kea and BIND 9 applications. This is useful to simulate communication problems between applications, Stork Agents, and the Stork Server.

The Stork Environment Simulator can be found at: http://localhost:5000/ .

For development purposes, the simulator can be started directly with the command:

$ rake run_sim

6.6. Prometheus

The Prometheus instance is preconfigured and pulls statistics from:

  • node exporters: agent-kea:9100, agent-bind9:9100, agent-bind9:9100
  • Kea exporters embedded in stork-agent: agent-kea:9547, agent-kea6:9547, agent-kea-ha1:9547, agent-kea-ha2:9547
  • BIND exporters embedded in stork-agent: agent-bind9:9119, agent-bind9-2:9119

The Prometheus web page can be found at: http://localhost:9090/ .

6.7. Grafana

The Grafana instance is also preconfigured. It pulls data from Prometheus and loads dashboards from the Stork repository, in the Grafana folder.

The Grafana web page can be found at: http://localhost:3000/ .