bsl-appcli 2.4.0

A library for adding CLI interfaces to applications in the brightSPARK Labs style

BSL Application CLI Library

A library for adding CLI interfaces to applications in the brightSPARK Labs style.

Overview

This library can be leveraged to add a standardised CLI capability to applications to:

• Handle system lifecycle events for services (service [start|shutdown]).
• Allow running arbitrary short-lived tasks (task run).
• Manage configuration (configure).
• Upgrade to a newer version of the application (upgrade|migrate).
• And more.

The CLI is designed to run within a Docker container and launch other Docker containers (i.e. Docker-in-Docker). This is generally managed via a docker-compose.yml file.

The library exposes the following environment variables to the docker-compose.yml file:

• APP_VERSION - the version of containers to launch.
• <APP_NAME>_CONFIG_DIR - the directory containing configuration files.
• <APP_NAME>_DATA_DIR - the directory containing data produced/consumed by the system.
• <APP_NAME>_GENERATED_CONFIG_DIR - the directory containing configuration files generated from the templates in <APP_NAME>_CONFIG_DIR.
• <APP_NAME>_BACKUP_DIR - the directory to use for system backups.
• <APP_NAME>_ENVIRONMENT - the deployment environment the system is running in. For example production or staging. This allows multiple instances of the application to run on the same Docker daemon. Defaults to production.

NOTE: The APP_NAME variable is derived from the app_name passed in to the Configuration object in the main python entrypoint to the application. In order for the application to work, the app_name is forced to conform with the shell variable name standard: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z_0-9]*. Any characters that do not fit this regex will be replaced with _. See here or here for details.

The docker-compose.yml can be templated by renaming to docker-compose.yml.j2, and setting variables within the settings.yml file as described in the Installation section.

Stack variables can be set within the stack-settings.yml file as described in the Build configuration template directories section.

Quick Start

Refer to the quick start guide to get a basic application running.

Otherwise refer to the Installation section below to see all options.

Installation

Add the library to your python CLI application

pip install git+https://github.com/brightsparklabs/appcli.git@<VERSION>

Define the CLI for your application myapp

Note for appcli version 1.1.3 and below: Import paths to access to appcli internal classes and methods is now by a full path, rather than being exposed at the root. This was done to allow access to all methods and classes using python3 implicit namespaced packages.

    # filename: myapp.py

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
    # # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

    # standard libraries
    from pathlib import Path

    # vendor libraries
    from appcli.cli_builder import create_cli
    from appcli.models.configuration import Configuration
    from appcli.orchestrators import DockerComposeOrchestrator

    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    # CONSTANTS
    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    # directory containing this script
    BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).parent

    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    # PRIVATE METHODS
    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    def main():
        configuration = Configuration(
            app_name='myapp',
            docker_image='brightsparklabs/myapp',
            seed_app_configuration_file=BASE_DIR / 'resources/settings.yml',
            application_context_files_dir=BASE_DIR / 'resources/templates/appcli/context',
            stack_configuration_file=BASE_DIR / 'resources/stack-settings.yml',
            baseline_templates_dir=BASE_DIR / 'resources/templates/baseline',
            configurable_templates_dir=BASE_DIR / 'resources/templates/configurable',
            orchestrator=DockerComposeOrchestrator(
                # NOTE: These paths are relative to 'resources/templates/baseline'.
                docker_compose_file = Path('docker-compose.yml'),
                docker_compose_override_directory = Path('docker-compose.override.d/'),
                docker_compose_task_file = Path('docker-compose.tasks.yml'),
                docker_compose_task_override_directory = Path( 'docker-compose.tasks.override.d/'),
            ),
            mandatory_additional_data_dirs=['EXTRA_DATA',],
            mandatory_additional_env_variables=['ENV_VAR_2',],
        )
        cli = create_cli(configuration)
        cli()

    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    # ENTRYPOINT
    # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()

A lot of the fields in the appcli constructor can be defaulted, resulting in less code.

configuration = Configuration(
    app_name='myapp',
    docker_image='brightsparklabs/myapp',
)
cli = create_cli(configuration)
cli()

NullOrchestrator

For applications with no services to orchestrate, the NullOrchestrator can be used. This is useful for appcli applications which consist only of the launcher container containing various additional CLI command groups. The NullOrchestrator disables commands related to managing services.

orchestrator=NullOrchestrator()

Custom Commands

You can specify some custom top-level commands by adding click commands or command groups to the configuration object. Assuming 'web' is the name of the service in the docker-compose.yml file which you wish to exec against, we can create three custom commands in the following example:

• myapp ls-root which lists the contents of the root directory within the web service container and prints it out.
• myapp ls-root-to-file which lists the contents of the root directory within the web service container and dumps to file within the container.
• myapp tee-file which takes some text and tees it into another file the web service container.

def get_ls_root_command(orchestrator: DockerComposeOrchestrator):
    @click.command(
        help="List files in the root directory",
    )
    @click.pass_context
    def ls_root(ctx: click.Context):

        # Equivalent command within the container:
        # `ls -alh`
        cli_context: CliContext = ctx.obj
        output: CompletedProcess = orchestrator.exec(cli_context, "web", ["ls", "-alh", "/"])
        print(output.stdout.decode())

    return ls_root

def get_tee_file_command(orchestrator: DockerComposeOrchestrator):
    @click.command(
        help="Tee some text into a file",
    )
    @click.pass_context
    def tee_file(ctx: click.Context):

        # Equivalent command within the container:
        # `echo "Some data to tee into the custom file" | tee /ls-root.txt`
        cli_context: CliContext = ctx.obj
        output: CompletedProcess = orchestrator.exec(cli_context, "web", ["tee", "/my_custom_file.txt"], stdin_input="Some data to tee into the custom file")

    return tee_file

def get_ls_root_to_file_command(orchestrator: DockerComposeOrchestrator):
    @click.command(
        help="List files in the root directory and tee to file",
    )
    @click.pass_context
    def ls_root_to_file(ctx: click.Context):

        # Equivalent command within the container:
        # `ls -alh | tee /ls-root.txt`
        cli_context: CliContext = ctx.obj
        output: CompletedProcess = orchestrator.exec(cli_context, "web", ["ls", "-alh", "/"])
        data = output.stdout.decode()
        orchestrator.exec(cli_context, "web", ["tee", "/ls-root.txt"], stdin_input=data)

    return ls_root_to_file

def main():
    orchestrator = DockerComposeOrchestrator(Path("docker-compose.yml"))
    configuration = Configuration(
        app_name="appcli_nginx",
        docker_image="thomas-anderson-bsl/appcli-nginx",
        seed_app_configuration_file=Path(BASE_DIR, "resources/settings.yml"),
        stack_configuration_file=Path(BASE_DIR, "resources/stack-settings.yml"),
        baseline_templates_dir=Path(BASE_DIR, "resources/templates/baseline"),
        configurable_templates_dir=Path(BASE_DIR, "resources/templates/configurable"),
        orchestrator=orchestrator,
        custom_commands={get_tee_file_command(orchestrator),get_ls_root_command(orchestrator),get_ls_root_to_file_command(orchestrator)}
    )
    cli = create_cli(configuration)
    cli()

Build configuration template directories

• Store any Jinja2 variable definitions you wish to use in your configuration template files in resources/settings.yml.
• Store any application context files in resources/templates/appcli/context/
• Store any appcli stack specific keys in resources/stack-settings.yml.
• Store your docker-compose.yml/docker-compose.yml.j2 file in resources/templates/baseline/.
• Configuration files (Jinja2 compatible templates or otherwise) can be stored in one of two locations:
  • resources/templates/baseline - for templates which the end user is not expected to modify.
  • resources/templates/configurable - for templates which the end user is expected to modify.

Application context files

Template files are templated with Jinja2. The 'data' passed into the templating engine is a combination of the settings.yml and all application context files (stored in resources/templates/appcli/context, and referenced in the Configuration object as application_context_files_dir). Application context files that have the extension .j2 are templated using the settings from settings.yml.

These are combined to make the data for templating as follows:

{
  "settings": {
    ... all settings from `settings.yml`
  },
  "application": {
    <app_context_file_1>: {
      ... settings from `app_context_file_1.yml`, optionally jinja2 templated using settings from `settings.yml`
    },
    ... additional app_context_files
  }
}

As a minimal example with the following YAML files:

# ./settings.yml
main_settings:
  abc: 123

# ./resources/templates/appcli/context/app_constants.yml
other_settings:
  hello: world

# ./resources/templates/appcli/context/app_variables.yml.j2
variables:
  main_abc_setting: {{ settings.main_settings.abc }}

The data for Jinja2 templating engine will be:

{
  "settings": {
    "main_settings": {
      "abc": 123
    }
  },
  "application": {
    "app_constants": {
      "other_settings": {
        "hello": "world"
      }
    },
    "app_variables": {
      "variables": {
        "main_abc_setting": 123
      }
    }
  }
}

Configure application backup

Appcli's backup command creates backups of configuration and data of an application, stored locally in the backup directory. The settings for backups are configured through entries in a backups block in stack-settings.yml.

The available keys for entries in the backups block are:

key	Description
name	The name of the backup. Must be unique between backup definitions and use kebab-case.
backup_limit	The number of local backups to keep. Set to 0 to disable rolling deletion.
file_filter	The file_filter contains lists of glob patterns used to specify what files to include or exclude from the backup.
frequency	The cron-like frequency at which backups will execute.
remote_backups	The list of remote backup strategies.

# filename: stack-settings.yml

backups:
  - name: "full"
    backup_limit: 0
    file_filter:
      data_dir:
        include_list:
        exclude_list:
      conf_dir:
        include_list:
        exclude_list:
    frequency: "* * *"
    remote_backups:

Backup name

The backup name is a short descriptive name for the backup definition. To avoid problems, we highly recommend name be:

• unique between items in the backups list
• use kebab-case

Examples of good names:

• full
• conf-only
• audit-logs

Without a unique name, backups from different items in backups will overwrite each other without warning.

Using kebab-case is necessary to avoid some issues with click and filesystem naming issues.

When using the backup command, you are able to supply the name of the backup to run. If you have a backup name with a space in it, the click library cannot interpret the name as a whole string (even with quotes), so you will be unable to run the backup individually.

If the backup name doesn't use kebab-case, it may use some characters that are incompatible with file and directory naming conventions. Appcli will automatically slugify the name to something compatible, but this may cause collisions in the folder names of backups to be taken which will lead to backups being overwritten. e.g. s3#1 and s3&1 will both translate internally to s3-1.

Backup limit

A rolling deletion strategy is used to remove local backups, in order to keep backup_limit number of backups.

If more than backup_limit number of backups exist in the backup directory, the oldest backups will be deleted.

Set this value to 0 to keep all backups.

File filter

The file_filter block enables filtering of files to backup from conf and data directories. For more details including examples, see here.

# filename: stack-settings.yml
# Includes all log files from data dir only

backups:
  - name: "full"
    backup_limit: 0
    file_filter:
      data_dir:
        include_list:
          - "**/*.log"
        exclude_list:
        conf_dir:
          include_list:
          exclude_list:
            - "**/*"
    frequency: "* * *"
    remote_backups:

Freqency

Appcli supports limiting individual backups to run on only specific days using a cron-like frequency filter.

When the backup command is run, each backup strategy will check if the frequency pattern matches today's date. Only strategies whose frequency pattern match today's date will execute.

The input pattern pattern is prefixed with "* * " and is used as a standard cron expression to check for a match. i.e. "* * $pattern".

Examples:

• "* * *" (cron equivalent "* * * * *") will always run.
• "* * 0" (cron equivalent "* * * * 0") will only run on Sunday.
• "1 */3 *" (cron equivalent "* * 1 */3 *") will only run on the first day-of-month of every 3rd month.

Remote backup

Appcli supports pushing local backups to remote storage. The list of strategies for pushing to remote storage are defined within the remote_backups block.

The available keys for every remote backup strategy are:

key	Description
name	A short name or description used to describe this backup.
strategy_type	The type of this backup, must match an implemented remote backup strategy.
frequency	The cron-like frequency at which remote backups will execute. Behaves the same as local backup frequency.
configuration	Custom configuration block that is specific to each remote backup strategy.

N.B. remote backups will only run for a local backup that has run. Therefore the frequency of the local backup will apply first, followed by the frequency of the remote backup. This means that it's possible to write a remote backup frequency that will never execute. e.g. Local * * 0 and remote * * 1.

Strategies

AWS S3 remote strategy

To use S3 remote backup, set strategy_type to S3. The available configuration keys for an S3 backup are:

key	Description
bucket_name	The name of the bucket to upload to.
access_key	The AWS Access key ID for the account to upload with.
secret_key	The AWS Secret access key for the account to upload with. The value must be encrypted using the appcli encrypt command.
bucket_path	The path in the S3 bucket to upload to. Set this to an empty string to upload to the root of the bucket.
tags	Key value pairs of tags to set on the backup object.

# filename: stack-settings.yml

backups:
  - name: "full_backup"
    backup_limit: 0
    remote_backups:
    - name: "weekly_S3"
      strategy_type: "S3"
      frequency: "* * 0"
      configuration:
        bucket_name: "aws.s3.bucket"
        access_key: "aws_access_key"
        secret_key: "enc:id=1:encrypted_text:end"
        bucket_path: "bucket/path"
        tags:
          frequency: "weekly"
          type: "data"

Restoring a remote backup

To restore from a remote backup:

1. Acquire the remote backup (.tgz file) that you wish to restore. For S3 this can be done by downloading the backup from the specified bucket.
2. Place the backup myapp_date.tgz file in the backup directory. By default this will be /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/production/backup/
3. Confirm that appcli can access the backup by running the view-backups command
4. Run the restore command ./myapp restore BACKUP_FILE.tgz e.g. ./myapp restore APP_2021-02-02T10:55:48+00:00.tgz. The restore process will trigger a backup.

Define a container for your CLI application

# filename: Dockerfile

FROM brightsparklabs/appcli

ENTRYPOINT ["./myapp.py"]
WORKDIR /app

# install compose if using it as the orchestrator
RUN pip install docker-compose

COPY requirements.txt .
RUN pip install --requirement requirements.txt
COPY src .

ARG APP_VERSION=latest
ENV APP_VERSION=${APP_VERSION}

Build the container

# sh
docker build -t brightsparklabs/myapp --build-arg APP_VERSION=latest .

(Optional) Login to private Docker registries and pass through credentials

It is possible to login to private Docker registries on the host, and pass through credentials to the CLI container run by the launcher script. This enables pulling and running Docker images from private Docker registries.

Login using:

docker login ${REGISTRY_URL}

The credentials file path can be passed as an option via --docker-credentials-file or -p to the myapp container.

View the installer script

# sh
docker run --rm brightsparklabs/myapp:<version> install

# or if using a private registry for images
docker run --rm brightsparklabs/myapp:<version> \
  --docker-credentials-file ~/.docker/config.json \
  install

While it is not mandatory to view the script before running, it is highly recommended.

Run the installer script

# sh
docker run --rm brightsparklabs/myapp:<version> install | sudo bash

The above will use the following defaults:

• environment => production.
• install-dir => /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/production/.
• configuration-dir => /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/production/conf/.
• data-dir => /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/production/data/.
• backup-dir => /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/production/backup/.

You can modify any of the above if desired. E.g.

# sh
docker run --rm brightsparklabs/myapp:<version> \
    --environment "uat" \
    --configuration-dir /etc/myapp \
    --data-dir /mnt/data/myapp \
    install --install-dir ${HOME}/apps/myapp \
| sudo bash

Where:

• --environment defines the environment name for the deployment. This allows multiple instances of the application to be present on the same host. Defaults to production.
• --install-dir defines the base path for launcher and the default locations for the configuration and data directories if they are not overrideen (see below). Defaults to /opt/brightsparklabs/${APP_NAME}/${ENVIRONMENT}/ (where ${ENVIRONMENT} is defined by --environment above).
• --configuration-dir defines the path to the configuration directory. Defaults to ${INSTALL_DIR}/conf/ (${INSTALL_DIR} is defined by --install-dir above).
• --data-dir defines the path to the data directory. Defaults to ${INSTALL_DIR}/data/ (${INSTALL_DIR} is defined by --install-dir above).

The installation script will generate a launcher script for controlling the application. The script location will be printed out when running the install script. This script should now be used as the main entrypoint to all appcli functions for managing your application.

Migration from appcli version <=1.3.6 to version >1.3.6

As a result of supporting application context files, all references to settings in template files have moved.

All settings in settings.yml used in templating are now namespaced under settings. All templates will need to change their references to use this new namespacing scheme. For example, in templates that refer to settings, change the references like so:

• my_app.server.hostname -> settings.my_app.server.hostname
• my_app.server.http.port -> settings.my_app.server.http.port

Usage

This section details what commands and options are available.

Top-level Commands

To be used in conjunction with your application ./myapp <command> e.g. ./myapp configure init

Command	Description
backup	Create a backup of application data and configuration.
configure	Configures the application.
encrypt	Encrypts the specified string.
init	Initialises the application.
launcher	Outputs an appropriate launcher bash script.
migrate	Migrates the configuration of the application to a newer version.
orchestrator	Perform docker orchestration
restore	Restore a backup of application data and configuration.
service	Lifecycle management commands for application services.
task	Commands for application tasks.
version	Fetches the version of the app being managed with appcli.
view-backups	View a list of locally-available backups.

Options

Option	Description
--debug	Enables debug level logging.
-c, --configuration-dir PATH	Directory containing configuration files. [This is required unless subcommand is one of: install.
-d, --data-dir PATH	Directory containing data produced/consumed by the system. This is required unless subcommand is one of: install.
-t, --environment TEXT	Deployment environment the system is running in. Defaults to production.
-p, --docker-credentials-file PATH	Path to the Docker credentials file (config.json) on the host for connecting to private Docker registries.
-a, --additional-data-dir TEXT	Additional data directory to expose to launcher container. Can be specified multiple times.
-e, --additional-env-var TEXT	Additional environment variables to expose to launcher container. Can be specified multiple times.
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command: backup

Creates a backup .tgz file in the backup directory that contains files from the configuration and data directory, as configured in stack-settings.yml. After the backup is taken, remote backup strategies will be executed (if applicable).

usage: ./myapp backup [OPTIONS] [ARGS]

Option	Description
--pre-stop-services/--no-pre-stop-services	Whether to stop services before performing backup.
--post-start-services/--no-post-start-services	Whether to start services after performing backup.
--help	Show the help message and exit.

The backup command optionally takes an argument corresponding to the name of the backup to run. If no name is provided, all backups will attempt to run.

Command Group: configure

Configures the application.

usage: ./myapp configure [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]

Command	Description
apply	Applies the settings from the configuration.
diff	Get the differences between current and default configuration settings.
get	Reads a setting from the configuration.
get-secure	Reads a setting from the configuration, decrypting if it is encrypted. This will prompt for the setting key.
init	Initialises the configuration directory.
set	Saves a setting to the configuration. Allows setting the type of value with option --type, and defaults to string type.
template	Configures the baseline templates.
edit	Open the settings file for editing with vim-tiny.

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command: encrypt

Encrypts the specified string.

usage: ./myapp encrypt [OPTIONS] TEXT

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command Group: init

Initialises the application.

usage: ./myapp init [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]

Command	Description
keycloak	Initialises a Keycloak instance with BSL-specific initial configuration.

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command: launcher

Outputs an appropriate launcher bash script to stdout.

usage: ./myapp launcher [OPTIONS]

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command: migrate

Migrates the application configuration to work with the current application version.

usage: ./myapp migrate [OPTIONS]

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command Group: orchestrator

Perform tasks defined by the orchestrator.

usage: ./myapp orchestrator [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]

All commands are defined within the orchestrators themselves. Run ./myapp orchestrator to list available commands.

For example, the following commands are available to docker-compose:

Command	Description
ps	List containers for the appcli project, with current status and exposed ports.
compose	Run a docker compose command. See docker compose.

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit

Command: restore

Restores a specified backup .tgz file from the configured backup folder.

usage: ./myapp restore BACKUP_FILE

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command Group: service

Runs application services. These are the long-running services which should only exit on command.

usage: ./myapp service [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]

Command	Description
logs	Prints logs from all services.
shutdown	Shuts down the system. If one or more service names are provided, shuts down the specified service(s) only.
start	Starts the system. If one or more service names are provided, starts the specified service(s) only.
restart	Restarts service(s) (shutdown followed by start). Optionally run a configure apply during the restart with the --apply flag. If one or more service names are provided, restarts the specified service(s) only.
status	Lists all containers for the appcli project, with current status and exposed ports. If one or more service names are provided, lists the status and
exposed ports of the specified service(s) only.

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command Group: task

Runs application tasks. These are short-lived services which should exit when the task is complete.

usage: ./myapp task [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]

Command	Description
run	Runs a specified application task. Optionally run in the background with -d/--detach flag.

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Command: version

Fetches the version of the app being managed with appcli.

usage: ./myapp version

Command: view-backups

View a list of all backups in the configured backup folder.

usage: ./myapp view-backups

Option	Description
--help	Show the help message and exit.

Usage within scripts and cron

By default, the generated appcli launcher script will run the CLI container with a virtual terminal session (tty). This may interfere with crontab entries or scripts that use the appcli launcher.

To disable tty when running the launcher script, set NO_TTY environment variable to true.

NO_TTY=true ./myapp [...]

or

export NO_TTY=true
./myapp [...]

If required, you can also disable interactive mode with the NO_INTERACTIVE environment variable.

NO_INTERACTIVE=true ./myapp [...]

or

export NO_INTERACTIVE=true
./myapp [...]

Development

This section details how to build/test/run/debug the system in a development environment.

Prerequisites

The following must be installed and in the PATH:

• make
• python 3.7+
• virtualenv
• git

Build

make all

Install

pip install -e .

Running unit tests

make test

Usage while developing your CLI application

While developing, it may be preferable to run your python script directly rather than having to rebuild a container each time you update it.

• Ensure docker is installed (more specifically a docker socket at /var/run/docker.sock).

• Set the environment variables which the CLI usually sets for you:

    export \
        MYAPP_DATA_DIR=/tmp/myapp/data \
        MYAPP_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/myapp/config \
        MYAPP_GENERATED_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/myapp/config/.generated \
        MYAPP_BACKUP_DIR=/tmp/myapp/backup \
        MYAPP_ENVIRONMENT=dev
  

• Run your CLI application:

    ./src/myapp.py \
          --debug \
          --configuration-dir "${MYAPP_CONFIG_DIR}" \
          --data-dir "${MYAPP_DATA_DIR}" \
          --backup-dir "${MYAPP_BACKUP_DIR}" \
          --environment "${MYAPP_ENVIRONMENT}
  

Contributing

When committing code, call make all to automatically run code formatting/ linting/testing.

Appcli uses the python code formatter black with default settings. This ensures that PR diffs are minimal and focussed on the code change rather than stylistic coding decisions.

Install with pip install black. This can be run through VSCode or via the CLI. See the black documentation for details.

Licenses

Refer to the LICENSE file for details.

This project makes use of several libraries and frameworks. Refer to the LICENSES folder for details.