Hyperkube provides a collection of utilities, libraries, and configurations to operate Hyperleder Fabric as a Kube-native platform.
This project is very new and currently in genesis / experimental status. Contributions, feedback, and reviews are both welcome and encouraged.
Hyperkube provides:
- Reference patterns for deployment to provider-agnostic Kubernetes clusters.
- Simplified operational practices for common fabric activities (network, channel, and chaincode lifecycle.)
- A common, unified approach for configuration, connection profiles, and remote administration.
- Kube Native (but not Kube Only) operational practices.
- A Fabric reference network, equivalent to test-network, suitable for local application development.
- A focused environment for development and management of external chaincode smart contracts.
- Build and maintain momentum for a migration from Docker (compose/swarm/virtualbox) to Kubernetes
- Provide vendor-agnostic patterns for running Fabric on Kubernetes.
- Study of fabric configuration : catalog for fragmented configuration files, utilities, and patterns.
- Constrain / eliminate reliance on local Docker daemon (and docker-in-docker) to advance chaincode as a service deployment practices.
- Provide near-term value with local, CLI-based Kubernetes control interfaces.
- Provide long-term value by aligning with the kube-native "Operator Pattern"
Hyperkube provides the fabctl
command for instantiating and manipulating hyperledger networks running somewhere "in
the cloud." In traditional fabric networks, a network administrator is responsible for crafting a configuration,
determining port mappings, managing crypto certificates and key specs, managing the lifecycle of application components,
and running a series of peer
CLI binaries to reflect updates and configuration across a collection of machines.
This administration burden is tremendous!
fabctl
reduces the complexity of operations by providing a single entrypoint for common fabric objectives, communicating
entirely with the Kubernetes API Controller to affect changes in a remote cluster. By implementing fabric
activities as Kube API calls, the system is entirely vendor-agnostic, language-neutral, and compatible with community
best practices for remote cluster management.
Hyperkube is NOT a Kubernetes Operator. In early
genesis, this project is an assembly area for cataloging reference practices, codifying an API bridge to k8s, and
providing a practical gateway for interacting with a remote Fabric network. With this in mind, it is a stated goal
of this project to align with the operator pattern, such that the routines and functionality implemented by fabctl
may be refactored into a first-class controller and collection of K8s CRDs.
The general structure of fabctl
divides Fabric administration activities into three functional sub-areas:
network
channel
chaincode
To affect changes in a fabric network, the administrator applies a series of local configuration files, selects a
connection profile, and issues fabctl
commands to reflect the change in a remote cluster. All API updates to k8s
are made via a Kubernetes API client, inheriting the current kubectl
context and configuration.
- Developed in golang as a go neophyte. (Would consider Java + Fabric8 for rapid development, but chose to align with Fabric patterns.)
- Hyperkube will use the Tekton Operator to run
Tasks
on K8s. (Currently k8s batch Job CRDs) - Consider using Argo Workflows to run
Workflows
on K8s (not Jobs, not tkn Tasks, ...) - Hyperkube uses KIND as a development platform. Write a KIND.md or QUICKSTART.md
- Start with test-network-kind and use
fabctl
to emulatenetwork.sh
- Install asset-exchange-basic and integrate with rest-sample-application to illustrate high-level dev activities.
- Supplement / Pattern on Fabric Getting Started - Run Fabric - reduce to minimal fabctl activities.
- Link up with practices from weft for management and conversion of fabric connection descriptors.
- Link up with IDE integration (e.g. VSCode extension)
- Link up with ephemeral Fabric instances on cloud (e.g. fab-playground)