Setting up redis and nat-connector with FaasD

Lets look at how we expand our faasd server to include a couple of services. We'll first add a redis server and some simple ruby code to add a counter, and then we'll build and add the nats-connector to be able publish and subscribe to events.

About /var/lib/faasd/docker-compose.yaml

This looks like a docker-compose file, and I believe that it actually does use the same code that parses the file of that name, but it doesn't use docker to set up the containers. This is what faasd does. The biggest difference I've noticed is how it treats networking. The short of it is that you need to use the ip address of the main faasd gateway to access the servers, not the name of the service in the file. So, instead of pointing your client to redis or gateway you point them to 10.62.0.1.

Redis

Setting up Redis

First thing is we need to log into our faasd server, and create the storage directory with the right user.

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/faasd/redis/data
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /var/lib/faasd/redis/data

Then we need to add the redis instance in /var/lib/faasd/docker-compose.yaml:

  redis:
    image: docker.io/library/redis:6.0.10-alpine
    volumes:
      # we assume cwd == /var/lib/faasd
      - type: bind
        source: ./redis/data
        target: /data
    cap_add:
      - CAP_NET_RAW
    entrypoint: /usr/local/bin/redis-server --appendonly yes
    user: "1000"
    ports:
      - "10.62.0.1:6379:6379"

Note that if you get a "Background saving error" this is probably because you have an open redis port and someone is scanning you.

The 10.62.0.1 is the default network that faasd sets up.

Then we restart:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart faasd

We can look at the logs using:

sudo journalctl -t openfaas:redis -f

Writing our function

Back on our machine, lets create a simple ruby function that increments and returns the value from redis.

faas-cli new counter --lang ruby

Inside of the counter directory, we need to add the redis gem:

cd counter
bundler add redis

And now we can write our handler:

  require 'redis'

  class Handler
    def run(req)
      redis = Redis.new( host: ENV['redis_host'] )
    
      redis.incr "test_key"
    end
  end

And inside of our counter.yml file we can add the following environment variable so we don't hard code the address of the redis instance in our container.

  counter:
    lang: ruby
    handler: ./counter
    image: wschenk/counter:latest
    environment:
      redis_host: "10.62.0.1"

You'll want to replace that wschenk with your docker user.

Then we can load it:

faas-cli up --filter counter

And run it:

echo | faas-cli invoke counter

And you should see a number go up and up!

Publishing and subscribing to messages

The nats-connector is a way to have functions called when messages are sent to certain topics in your nats instance. Lets see how that works.

Installing the nats-connector:

I couldn't find the latest version of nats-connector on docker, so here's how to build it:

git clone https://github.com/openfaas/nats-connector
cd nats-connector
docker build . -t wschenk/nats-connector:0.2.4
docker push wschenk/nats-connector:0.2.4

Pretty simple. (Change wschenk to be your username.)

Setting up docker-compose.yaml

Back on your faads server, lets first open up nats to our functions and then add in the nats-connector:

This section should already be there:

  nats:
    image: docker.io/library/nats-streaming:0.11.2
    command:
      - "/nats-streaming-server"
      - "-m"
      - "8222"
      - "--store=memory"
      - "--cluster_id=faas-cluster"
    ports:
      - "10.62.0.1:4222:4222"
      - "10.62.0.1:8222:8222"

And then add:

  nats-connector:
    image: docker.io/wschenk/nats-connector:0.2.4
    environment:
      upstream_timeout: "1m2s"
      gateway_url: "http://gateway:8080"
      topics: "nats-test,topic-foo,"
      print_response: "true"
      print_body_response: "true"
      basic_auth: "true"
      secret_mount_path: "/run/secrets/"
      topic_delimiter: ","
      asynchronous_invocation: "false"
    volumes:
      # we assume cwd == /var/lib/faasd
      - type: bind
        source: ./secrets/basic-auth-user
        target: /run/secrets/basic-auth-user
      - type: bind
        source: ./secrets/basic-auth-password
        target: /run/secrets/basic-auth-password
    cap_add:
      - CAP_NET_RAW
    depends_on:
      - nats
      - gateway

Be sure to change the image name to your build, if you don't want to use mine.

Publish

faas-cli new publishtest --lang ruby --append stack.yml
cd publishtest
bundle add nats-pure

And then a simple handler

  require 'nats/io/client'

  class Handler
    def run(req)
      puts "Trying to connect to #{ENV['nats_host']}"

      nats = NATS::IO::Client.new
    
      nats.connect(ENV['nats_host'])
      puts "Connected to #{nats.connected_server}"

      puts "Sending message"
      nats.publish('nats-test', 'You done?')

      puts "Flushing"
      nats.flush(1)
      nats.close
    end
  end

And then in stack.yml:

  publishtest:
    lang: ruby
    handler: ./publishtest
    image: wschenk/publishtest:latest
    environment:
      nats_host: "10.62.0.1"

Receive

faas-cli new receivetest --lang ruby --append stack.yml

And inside of stack.yml add an annotations section

  receivetest:
    lang: ruby
    handler: ./receivetest
    image: wschenk/receivetest:latest
    annotations:
      topic: "nats-test"

We don't need to do anything particular with this handler, we just want to look at the logs to see if it gets triggered.

Running

On your dev machine:

faas-cli up

Then on the faasd server:

journalctl -f

(Or if you want to be more targeted:)

journalctl -t openfaas-fn:receivetest -f

And on your client machine:

echo | faas-cli invoke publishtest

References

1. https://github.com/openfaas/faasd

2. https://gumroad.com/l/serverless-for-everyone-else

3. https://github.com/docker-library/redis/issues/128

4. https://github.com/docker-library/redis/issues/44#issuecomment-274287156

5. https://github.com/openfaas/nats-connector

6. https://twitter.com/alexellisuk/status/1318841881439199233/photo/1