Automate tagging of your entire stack

Pull the deployer locally

$
docker pull ghcr.io/newrelic/deployer:latest

Now, you have a local Docker image, named deployer, which you use throughout the rest of this guide.

Configure your credentials

In this guide, you provision a host on AWS. The deployer uses a configuration file that contains your credentials for each service it communicates with so that it can invoke the necessary APIs.

{
  "credentials": {
    "aws": {
      "apiKey": "my_aws_api_key",
      "secretKey": "my_aws_secret_key",
      "secretKeyPath": "/path/to/my/secretkey.pem",
      "region": "my_aws_region"
    },
    "newrelic": {
      "licenseKey": "my_new_relic_license_key",
      "accountId": "my_new_relic_account_id"
    },
    "git": {
      "username": "my_git_access_token"
    }
  }
}

Name the credentials file creds.json, and store it—along with your [keypair filename].pem file—in a directory called $HOME/configs.

Run the application

$
docker run -it\
>
    -v $HOME/configs/:/mnt/deployer/configs/\
>
    --entrypoint ruby ghcr.io/newrelic/deployer main.rb -c configs/creds.json -d https://raw.githubusercontent.com/newrelic/demo-catalog/main/catalog/hello/hello.aws.json

With this command, you're running the deployer Docker container with the following options:

• -v mounts the $HOME/configs volume (where you stored your configuration files) at /mnt/deployer/configs/ in the container
• --entrypoint sets the default command for Docker to ruby

Finally, you pass a list of arguments to the entrypoint, including:

• -c configs/creds.json: The user credentials configuration file
• -d https://raw.githubusercontent.com/newrelic/demo-catalog/main/catalog/hello/hello.aws.json: The deployment configuration file

Once you run this command, the deployer will create and instrument some specific resources. This may take a few minutes. In the meantime, read on to learn more about what is actually happening during this process.

Locating the user configuration files

Notice, in the Docker command, that -c takes configs/creds.json. Also, you referenced your .pem file from configs/, as well.

This is because you mounted $HOME/configs to /mnt/deployer/configs/ and /mnt/deployer/ is the working directory, according to the deployer's Dockerfile. So, you can access your user configuration files at configs/, which is a relative path from your working directory.

Understanding the deployment configuration file

The deployment configuration file, hello.aws.json, which drives the deployer, contains four sections:

• services
• global_tags
• resources
• instrumentations

These sections describe the actions the deployer executes.

{
  "services": [
    {
      "id": "app1",
      "display_name": "Hello-App1",
      "source_repository": "-b main https://github.com/newrelic/demo-nodetron.git",
      "deploy_script_path": "deploy/linux/roles",
      "port": 5001,
      "destinations": ["host1"],
      "files": [
        {
          "destination_filepath": "engine/data/index.json",
          "content": <some content>
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

services defines one service, app1, which lives on host1 at port 5001. It uses the Demo Nodetron you learned about earlier in this guide as its source.

{
  "global_tags": {
    "dxOwningTeam": "DemoX",
    "dxEnvironment": "development",
    "dxDepartment": "Area51",
    "dxProduct": "Hello"
  }
}

global_tags defines tags for the deployer to apply to all the resources in your stack. These tags are an important part of organizing your New Relic entities.

{
  "resources": [
    {
      "id": "host1",
      "display_name": "Hello-Host1",
      "provider": "aws",
      "type": "ec2",
      "size": "t3.micro"
    }
  ]
}

resources defines one host, host1, which is a small EC2 instance on AWS. This host is referred to in the services section.

{
  "instrumentations": {
    "resources": [
      {
        "id": "nr_infra",
        "resource_ids": ["host1"],
        "provider": "newrelic",
        "source_repository": "-b main https://github.com/newrelic/demo-newrelic-instrumentation.git",
        "deploy_script_path": "deploy/linux/roles",
        "version": "1.12.1"
      }
    ],
    "services": [
      {
        "id": "nr_node_agent",
        "service_ids": ["app1"],
        "provider": "newrelic",
        "source_repository": "-b main https://github.com/newrelic/demo-newrelic-instrumentation.git",
        "deploy_script_path": "deploy/node/linux/roles",
        "version": "6.11.0"
      }
    ]
  }
}

instrumentations configures, as the name implies, New Relic instrumentations for the host1 infrastructure and the app1 Node.js application. These definitions use the Demo New Relic Instrumentation project you learned about earlier.

Generate some traffic

[INFO] Executing Deployment
[✔] Parsing and validating Deployment configuration success
[✔] Provisioner success
[✔] Installing On-Host instrumentation success
[✔] Installing Services and instrumentations success
[INFO] Deployment successful!
Deployed Resources:
  host1 (aws/ec2):
    ip: 52.90.86.109
    services: ["app1"]
    instrumentation:
       nr_infra: newrelic v1.12.1
Installed Services:
  app1:
    url: http://52.90.86.109:5001
    instrumentation:
       nr_node_agent: newrelic v6.11.0
Completed at 2020-08-20 15:11:14 +0000

Visit your application by navigating to the app1 url in your browser:

From there, you can follow the instructions to send traffic to New Relic.

Check your tags

After you've generated some traffic to your Node.js application, use the New Relic search redirect to find the resources you deployed:

Once you have found your resources, select the service you deployed, Hello-App1.

Then, click on the 'tags' button next to the name, which opens the tags widget:

Notice that all the tags in the global_tags section of the deployment configuration show up under Tags:

If you open the tags widget for the host, you'll also see the global_tags.

Tear down your resources

Because you've provisioned resources in your cloud account, you need to decommission them. You can do this with the deployer.

$
docker run -it\
>
    -v $HOME/configs/:/mnt/deployer/configs/\
>
    --entrypoint ruby ghcr.io/newrelic/deployer main.rb -c configs/creds.json -d https://raw.githubusercontent.com/newrelic/demo-catalog/main/catalog/hello/hello.aws.json -t

[INFO] Executing Teardown
[✔] Parsing and validating Teardown configuration success
[✔] Provisioner success
[✔] Uninstalling On-Host instrumentation success
[✔] Uninstalling Services and instrumentations success
[✔] Terminating infrastructure success
[INFO] Teardown successful!