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Overview

FlexDeploy is a Java web application which requires an Application server (Tomcat) and an Oracle or PostgreSQL database. FlexDeploy is accessed by Browser and can be integrated with various Directory Servers and SSO providers for Authentication and Authorization, an internal local security realm is also provided by FlexDeploy.

FlexDeploy uses a built-in File-System-based Artifact Repository to store build artifacts like jar, ear, war, zip etc. Build artifacts are versioned and used during deployment.

FlexDeploy connects to target servers using the REST, HTTPS or SSH protocol and only requires a Temporary Working Directory and Java for execution on target servers. SSH connectivity to Windows servers is established using native SSH server found in Windows 2019 and higher or Cygwin for older endpoints.

FlexDeploy can be installed On-Premise or in the Cloud (AWS, Azure, Oracle, etc) and can be used to perform Build / Deploy / Test / Utility executions on targets which are On-Premise or in the Cloud as only SSH connectivity is required. You can also use the FlexDeploy Docker container from docker hub for installation.

FlexDeploy has a plugin architecture which allows for integration with various technologies. FlexDeploy comes with many out-of-the-box plugins and customers can to developer their own plugins using the Plugin SDK.

Database Tier

Supported Platforms

  • Microsoft Windows

  • Unix/Linux (and its variants, such as OEL, RedHat, Solaris, AIX, etc.)

Supported Databases

FlexDeploy requires one of the following databases to be installed and running.

  • PostgreSQL 11, 12, 13, 14

    • Requires a user with CreateDB privileges or superuser privileges. Prior to FlexDeploy 6.0.0.2, superuser was required.

  • Oracle XE, version 18, 19, 21

  • Oracle Standard, version 12.1, 12.2, 18, 19, 21

  • Oracle Enterprise, version 12.1, 12.2, 18, 19, 21

Application Tier

Supported Platforms

  • Unix/Linux (and its variants, such as OEL, RedHat, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX etc.)

  • Microsoft Windows

Supported Application Servers and Requirements

FlexDeploy is a Java web-based application which runs on Tomcat 9.

  • Tomcat 9.0.64 is included with FlexDeploy download media. You do not have to separately install Tomcat because it is included in all downloads.

  • 8GB of RAM

  • 1+ CPU

  • At least 16384 available file descriptors (ulimit).

  • JDK 8 installed

There are several JDK options available when installing FlexDeploy.  The main requirement is that the version of Java used is version 8. if your Linux distribution includes a build of OpenJDK 8 you can use that version.

  • Optional - consider Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) unlimited strength policy files to avoid SSH issues when using strong ciphers.

  • You can allocate 4GB space for install of Tomcat with FlexDeploy. This includes space for logs that will be generated during execution of application. See additional disk requirements below.

  • Time series database InfluxDB is installed as part of installation process for Metrics and Insights.

Target Endpoints

  • JDK version 1.6 or higher must be installed. Java 7, 8, and 11 is supported for Endpoints. See Plugin Java Requirements for details.

  • Typically FlexDeploy references the actual JAVA_HOME folder, or the java version that is used by the technology that is being deployed (if any)

    • The JDK Home can be a symlink if desired to make Java upgrades easier. A symlink is not required or preferred by FlexDeploy, but works.

      • On Windows, a symlink can be created with the mklink /D <target> <source> command where <target> is set as JDK Home in the endpoint settings of FlexDeploy, and <source> is the actual Java install location.

        • If the Java install path is changed, then use rmdir <target> to delete the symlink. Then recreate the symlink with the new <source> folder.

      • On Unix, a symlink can be created with the  ln -sT <source> <target> command where <target> is set as JDK Home in the endpoint settings of FlexDeploy, and <source> is the actual Java install location.

        • If the Java install path is changed, then use rm <target> to delete the symlink. Then recreate the symlink with the new <source> folder.

  • Some plugins require newer versions of Java. Please see the plugin guides for this information.

  • Disk space on each endpoint of 4GB to be used as temporary working directory. You can start with 1GB space and expand as necessary.

    • There is no need to monitor this file system as FlexDeploy will automatically perform cleanup.

    • Local disk storage is preferable, but a shared file system can be used.

    • As this file system contains only temporary files, there is no reason to backup this directory.

    • Files in the working directory are transient in nature and will be purged by FlexDeploy after one day. The actual size of the directory will depend on the number of projects and deployments, but 1GB is a good starting point.

    • Make sure that there is no scheduled purge job setup on endpoint working directory. FlexDeploy will automatically manage this folder

  • Optionally, rsync can be installed on BOTH, the endpoint and the FlexDeploy host and expect can be installed on the FlexDeploy host if you wish to use the rsync protocol to transfer files instead of using scp. SCP is the default transfer method.

  • SSH connectivity from FlexDeploy application tier using one of the following options

    • User & Password

    • User & Password with sudo

    • SSH key

    • SSH key with passphrase

    • Supported Algorithms for SSH

    • FlexDeploy supports the following ciphers for SSH connections.  FlexDeploy will automatically negotiate this with the SSH server on the endpoint.

High Availability Considerations

Here are some guidelines on Active Passive configuration for FlexDeploy, as running more than one server process for FlexDeploy is not yet supported. You can choose to setup Cluster for Application or Database or Both.

  • Install FlexDeploy application on two separate Physical Server or Virtual Machines.

    • Tomcat

      • Install two separate Tomcat as per Installation instructions.

      • Both installation will have configuration for JDBC connection to RAC database.

  • Setup Database cluster for FlexDeploy. This would be RAC cluster for Oracle database. Follow guidelines setup by database vendor for clustering.

  • Make sure to use JDBC connect string for database cluster nodes when defining Data Source definitions.

  • Use shared file systems for the Artifact Repository directory and the plugins subdirectory of the server Working directory, so that active node and passive node will have access to the files.

    • The Artifact Repository location is specified in the flexagon.fd.repository.root Java system property of the server.

    • The Working Directory location is specified in  the flexagon.fd.install.root Java system property of the server. There is no need to place the entire working directory on a shared file system. The requirement is for the plugins subdirectory only.

  • Configure Load Balancer to route all FlexDeploy users to Active Application Server. You can automate the process of fail over to Passive node if necessary.

  • Make sure that only one of the Application Server process is running. This is absolutely necessary even when Load Balancer is routing traffic to only one of the server.

    • This can be achieved by leaving out some configuration details on the Passive node. For example, you can omit Data Source configuration on Passive node, so that it does not start processing request if it is started by mistake.

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