Deploying Rocket Chat on Kubernetes — A Complete Guide

What is Rocket Chat?

Rocket.Chat is a Web Chat Server, developed in JavaScript, using the Meteor full stack framework. It is a great solution for communities and companies who wants to privately host their own chat service or for developers who are looking forward to build and evolve their own chat platforms.

The Rocket.Chat is an open-source chat platform. It have various features which include -

• Help Desk Chat
• File Sharing
• Video Conference
• Voice Messages
• Link Preview
• API Integration

Prerequisites

To follow this guide you need -

• Kubernetes Cluster
• GlusterFS Cluster
• Rocket Chat Application

Step 1 — Create a Rocket Chat Container Image

Create a file name “Dockerfile” for Rocket.Chat. This image contains our custom code for rocket chat and docker file which will look like -

FROM node:4-slim
MAINTAINER XenonStack
COPY bundle/ /app/
RUN cd /app/programs/server \&&  npm install
ENV PORT=3000 \
ROOT_URL=http://localhost:3000
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "/app/main.js"]

Rocket Chat Docker image has a base image of Node.js Version 4. After that, we put our custom code to the container and install all the required dependencies in Rocket Chat container.

Later we put MongoDB URL as the environment variable for the database connection. Rocket Chat application is started in the dforeground mode so that we can see logs in “stdout” of the container.

Step 2 — Build Rocket Chat Docker Image

$ docker build -t dr.xenonstack.com:5050/rocketchat:v1.0

Step 3 — Create a MongoDB Container Image

Create a file name “Dockerfile” for MongoDB and docker file will look like -

FROM ubuntu
MAINTAINER XenonStack
RUN apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 7F0CEB10 && \
echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu   trusty/mongodb-org/3.0 multiverse" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.0.list && \
apt-get update && \
apt-get install -y mongodb-org
VOLUME ["/data/db"]
WORKDIR /data
EXPOSE 27017
CMD ["mongod"]

MongoDB Docker image has a base image of Ubuntu. We have created this dockerfile for MongoDB Version 3.0 for some compatibility issues with Rocket Chat.

Next, we mount Volume “/data/db” for persistent storage of container.

Next, we expose 27017 port for incoming requests to MongoDB server. Then, we start MongoDB server in dforeground mode so that we can see logs in “stdout” of the container.

Step 4 — Building a MongoDB Docker Image

$ docker build -t dr.xenonstack.com:5050/mongo:v3.0

Step 5 — Create a Storage Volume (Using GlusterFS)

Using below mentioned command we create a volume in GlusterFS cluster for MongoDB. As we don’t want to lose our Database data just because a server dies in the cluster, so we put replica, 2 or more if we want the higher availability of data.

$ gluster volume create apt-cacher replica 2 transport tcp k8-master:/mnt/brick1/mongodb-disk  k8-1:/mnt/brick1/mongodb-disk
$ gluster volume start mongodb-disk
$ gluster volume info mongodb-disk

Step 6 — Deploy MongoDB on Kubernetes

Deploying MongoDB on Kubernetes have following prerequisites -

• Docker Image: We have created a Docker Image for MongoDB in Step 4
• Persistent Shared Storage Volume: We have created a Persistent Shared Storage Volume in Step 5
• Deployment & Service Files: Deployment & Service Files: Next, we will create Deployment & Service Files.

Now let’s create a file name “deployment.yml” for MongoDB.

This deployment file will look like -

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: mongodb3
namespace: production
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
metadata:
labels:
k8s-app: mongodb3
spec:
containers:
- name: mongodb3
image: dr.xenonstack.com:5050/mongo:v3.0
imagePullPolicy: "IfNotPresent"
ports:
- containerPort: 27017
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /data/db
name: mongodisk1
volumes:
- name: mongodisk1
glusterfs:
endpoints: glusterfs-cluster
path: mongodb-disk
readOnly: false

We also need to create a file named “service.yml” for MongoDB. This service file will look like -

Read The Full Article at — XenonStack.com/Blog