Set up the Private Synthetic Agent in Minikube

To set up the Private Synthetic Agent in Minikube, follow the steps given below:

Create the Kubernetes Cluster.
Build and customize the Docker image.
Save Images to Minikube's Docker Daemon.
Deploy the Private Synthetic Agent.
Monitor the Kubernetes cluster.

This document contains links to Kubernetes documentation. AppDynamics makes no representation as to the accuracy of Kubernetes documentation because Kubernetes controls its own documentation.

Create the Kubernetes Cluster

To create a Kubernetes cluster in Minikube:

Install Minikube following these instructions.
To start the cluster, enter:
```
minikube start --kubernetes-version=v1.x.x --cpus <number-of-cpus> --memory <amount-of-ram>
```
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Minikube installs the latest version of Kubernetes available at the time of Minikube release by default. For latest information on supported versions, see OldestKubernetesVersion and NewestKubernetesVersion in constants.go.

Access the Cluster

To access the Kubernetes cluster, follow these instructions to install kubectl, a utility to interact with the cluster.

To verify that the cluster is running, enter:

kubectl get nodes

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Build and Customize Image

You can download the zip file for Simple Synth PSA installation from the Appdynamics Downloads Portal or from the beta upload tool. This file contains Dockerfiles for sum-chrome-agent, sum-heimdall, and Helm charts used to install the agent and set up monitoring. To build an image for sum-chrome-agent and sum-heimdall, ensure that Docker is installed. If it is not installed, you can download and install Docker from here.

For sum-chrome-agent:

Unzip the zip file to access the sum-chrome-agent directory.

Navigate to the directory and run the following command:

docker build -f Dockerfile-PSA -t sum-chrome-agent:<agent-tag> .

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For sum-heimdall:

Unzip the zip file to access the sum-heimdall directory.

Navigate to this directory and run the following command:

docker build -f Dockerfile-PSA -t sum-heimdall:<heimdall-tag> .

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You can use any value for <heimdall-tag> and <agent-tag>, but ensure that you use the same value in the subsequent steps.

Add Custom Python Libraries

In addition to the available standard set of libraries, you can add custom Python libraries to the agent to use in scripted measurements. You build a new image based on the image you loaded as the base image.

Create a Dockerfile and create RUN directives to run python pip. For example, to install the library algorithms you can create a Dockerfile:

# Use the sum-chrome-agent image we just loaded as the base image
FROM sum-chrome-agent:<agent-tag>
  
# Install algorithm for python3 on top of that
RUN python3 -m pip install algorithms==0.1.4
  
  
# We can add more RUN directives for installing more libraries
# RUN python3 -m pip install ...

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You can create any number of RUN directives to install the required libraries.

To build the new image, enter:
```
docker build -t sum-chrome-agent:<agent-tag> - < Dockerfile
```
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The newly built agent image contains the required libraries.

Save Images to Minikube's Docker Daemon

You must tag and push the images to a registry for cluster to access it. Execute the following command to save the images to Minikube docker:

docker save sum-heimdall:<heimdall-tag> | (eval $(minikube docker-env) && docker load)
docker save sum-chrome-agent:<agent-tag> | (eval $(minikube docker-env) && docker load)

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Deploy the Private Synthetic Agent

The application is deployed to the cluster after the images are in the Registry. You use Helm chart to deploy and create all Kubernetes resources in the required order.

Install Helm following these instructions.

Create a new measurement namespace where Heimdall, Postgres database, and measurement pods will run.

To create a new measurement namespace, enter:

kubectl create namespace measurement

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Using a single command, you can deploy the Helm chart which contains the deployment details. To deploy the agent, you use the Helm chart sum-psa-heimdall.tgz in the zip file that you downloaded previously. Before you deploy the Private Synthetic Agent, you must set some configuration options. To view the configuration options, navigate to the previously downloaded sum-psa-heimdall.tgz file and enter:

helm show values sum-psa-heimdall.tgz > values.yaml

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These are the configuration key value pairs that you need to edit in the values.yaml file:

Configuration Key	Value
`heimdall > repository`	`sum-heimdall`
`heimdall > tag`	`<heimdall-tag>`
`heimdall > pullPolicy`	`Never`
`agent > repository`	`sum-chrome-agent`
`agent > tag`	`<agent-tag>`
`shepherd > url`	`Shepherd URL`
`shepherd > credentials`	`credentials`
`shepherd > location`	`agent location`

You can leave the rest of the values set to their defaults or configure them based on your requirements. See Configure Private Synthetic Agent for details on shepherd URL, credentials, location, and optional key-value pairs.

To deploy the Helm chart using the above-mentioned configuration, navigate to the previously downloaded sum-psa-heimdall.tgz file and enter:
```
helm install heimdall-onprem sum-psa-heimdall.tgz --values values.yaml --namespace measurement
```
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All the Kubernetes resources are created in the cluster and you can use Heimdall. After a few seconds, Heimdall initializes and is visible in the Controller.
To verify if the pods are running, enter:
```
kubectl get pods --namespace measurement
```
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To make any changes to the values.yaml after the initial deployment, navigate to the previously downloaded sum-psa-heimdall.tgz file and enter:
```
helm upgrade heimdall-onprem sum-psa-heimdall.tgz --values values.yaml --namespace measurement
```
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To remove the deployment:
helm uninstall heimdall-onprem --namespace measurement

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This is not recommended unless it required.

Monitor the Kubernetes Cluster

The Helm chart sum-psa-monitoring.tgz in the zip you downloaded installs the monitoring stack. This Helm chart installs kube-prometheus-stack along with a custom Grafana dashboard to monitor the Private Simple Synthetic Agent.

Monitoring the deployment is optional; however, we highly recommended that you monitor the cluster to periodically check its health.

Install the Monitoring Stack

To create a separate monitoring namespace, enter:
```
kubectl create namespace monitoring
```
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To review configuration options, enter:
```
helm show values sum-psa-monitoring.tgz > values.yaml
```
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This generates a values.yaml file which contains all the configuration options. To modify and pass the generated values.yaml file while installing the Helm chart, enter:
```
helm install psa-monitoring sum-psa-monitoring.tgz --values values.yaml --namespace monitoring
```
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After the monitoring stack is installed, you can Launch Grafana (which runs inside the cluster) to view the dashboard. To access Grafana from outside of the cluster, you can configure port forwarding or set up Ingress. To configure port forward to access it locally, enter:
```
kubectl port-forward svc/psa-monitoring-grafana 3000:80 --namespace monitoring
```
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Launch localhost:3000 from the browser and log in using the default credentials with username as admin and password as prom-operator. A dashboard named Private Simple Synthetic Agent displays and provides details about the Kubernetes cluster, Heimdall, Postgres, and running measurements.