catops 0.1.3

Highly trained cats for managing servers.

CatOps

Highly trained cats for managing servers.

What is CatOps

CatOps is a very simple NoOps framework for deploying your own ChatOps bot.

Commands you wish to add to your CatOps implementation are added to a plugins folder in the same directory, and will then be automatically imported and callable using the function name.

Why CatOps

• NoOps.

  • Deploy, rewrite, and redeploy FaaS easily with no worrying about setting up and managing servers.
  • Only charged when CatOps is called.

• Codify common maintenance procedures.

  • Perform high level actions without intimate low level knowledge.
  • Prevent errors doing complicated but routine tasks.

• Unify documentation.

  • CatOps can act as a unified go-to location for help, merging/pooling all documentation into one place.

• Transparency.

  • Team members can see all actions taken by others in solving a problem. Organic learning.
  • No 'go-to' person for certain maintenance tasks.
  • Everyone aware of server changes. No-one surprised that the server is down if they see /meow restart server in the chat.
  • Spread knowledge; everyone becomes equally capable of solving problems.
  • Out of date help messages or documentation is more obvious to everyone.

• Context-aware suggestions, suggest actions and display help depending on context.

  • Docs/procedures/etc are useful, but can be too much to read through, hard to find, not up to date.
  • Reduce clutter when trying to figure out next actions.

• Reduce context switching.

  • No need for bash, Linux, ssh or VPN to fix most server issues.
  • No checking server logs.
  • Easily accesible and readble output.

• Control access.

  • Only gives necessary access, no unnecessary ssh-ing into production!

Features

• Completely NoOps.
• Easily extensible.
• Pay per invocation.
• Provider agnostic.

Example

Python handler

import json
from six.moves.urllib.parse import parse_qs
import requests
import boto3
from catops import dispatch

def respond(event, context):
    """Call handler.main asynchronously and then return instant response."""
    lambda_client = boto3.client('lambda')
    response = {'statusCode':'200'}
    # Call actual function asynchronously
    lambda_client.invoke(
        FunctionName='CatOpsAsyncTest-dev-dispatcher',
        InvocationType='Event',
        Payload=json.dumps(event))
    return response

def main(event, context):
    """Main lamda function logic, to be called asynchronously."""
    # Print prints logs to cloudwatch
    print(event)
    params = parse_qs(event.get('body'))
    try:
        payload = dispatch(params.get('text')[0], params)
    except Exception as err:
        print("Dispatch failed: {}".format(err))
        payload = {
            'statusCode':'200',
            'text':'Kitten dispatch team did not succeed.',
            'headers':{'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
        }
    # Post to Slack channel
    r = requests.post(params.get('response_url')[0], data=json.dumps(payload))
    if not r.ok:
        print(r)
        print(r.reason)
        print(r.text)
    return

Example plugin

"""example.py - example plugin for ChatOps."""

def ping(argv, params):
    """Check is working."""
    payload = {
        'statusCode':'200',
        'text':'@{} Meow!'.format(params.get('user_name', ['CatOps'])[0]),
        'response_type':'in_channel',
    }
    return payload

Serverless configuration

service: CatOps

package:
  include:
    - handler.py
    - plugins/**

custom:
  pythonRequirements:
    slim: true

provider:
  name: aws
  stage: ${opt:stage, 'dev'}
  runtime: python3.6
  profile: serverless
  iamRoleStatements:
    - Effect: Allow
      Action:
        - lambda:ListFunctions
        - lambda:InvokeFunction
        - lambda:InvokeAsync
      Resource: "*"

functions:
  dispatcher:
    handler: handler.main
  respond:
    handler: handler.respond
    events:
      - http:
          path: ping
          method: post

plugins:
  - serverless-python-requirements

Deploy and Test

serverless deploy
serverless invoke --function dispatcher --path /path/to/json/data --log

See examples for more.

Installation

sudo apt-get install npm
sudo npm install -g serverless
npm install serverless-python-requirements
pip install catops

Install serverless-python-requirements in the same dir as serverless.yml.

Limitations

• Passive rather than active; needs to be triggered (e.g. by Slack slash commands (could run it every command))
• Limitations of FaaS
  • Max size (256MB for AWS Lambda)
  • Execution time limit (5 minute for AWS Lambda)
  • No state (recommend using a cloud-based database for state e.g. DynamoDB for AWS)
• No autocomplete inside of Slack.

Slash Commands

BotUser

1. Enable Event Subscriptions
2. Bot Users