Install

In this lesson you’ll learn how to install Sync Gateway and Couchbase Server, our NoSQL database server.

Requirements

Three instances with the following:

Centos 7
RAM >= 2GB

Getting Started

This lesson contains some scripts to automatically deploy and configure Sync Gateway with Couchbase Server. Download those scripts on each VM using wget.

ssh vagrant@192.168.34.11
wget https://cl.ly/1q300A3v3R1D/deploy.zip
sudo yum install -y unzip
unzip deploy.zip

Throughout this lesson, you will use different scripts located in the deploy folder.

Architecture

The server-side architecture will be comprised of 2 nodes of Sync Gateway and 1 node of Couchbase Server. Each node will run on a different VM. The diagram below describes the architecture:

Couchbase Server is running VM1
Sync Gateway is running on VM2 and VM3

Install Couchbase Server

To deploy Couchbase Mobile to production you must first get familiar with Couchbase Server. It can deployed on a whole host of operating systems and can scale horizontally with multiple nodes or vertically by increasing the VM specs. The following script downloads Couchbase Server and creates a new bucket called todo.

Try it out

Log on VM1 (couchbase-server).
cd deploy
Run the install_couchbase_server.sh script.
```
sudo ./install_couchbase_server.sh
```
Log on the Couchbase Server Admin Console on http://VM1_IP:8091 with the user credentials that were created above (Administrator/password).

Install Sync Gateway

Sync Gateway is the middleman server that exposes a database API for Couchbase Lite databases to replicate to and from. It connects internally to a Couchbase Server bucket to persist the documents.

In production, the configuration file should look similar to the one used in development except that instead of using walrus: for the bucket it will connect to an instance of Couchbase Server URL as shown below.

{
  "interface":":4984",
  "log": ["HTTP", "Auth"],
  "databases": {
    "todo": {
      "server": "http://localhost:8091",
      "bucket": "todo",
      ...
    }
  }
}

The install_sync_gateway.sh script downloads and installs Sync Gateway 1.3. Then it restarts the sync_gateway service with the configuration file (deploy/sync-gateway-config.json) of the todo application.

Try it out

Log on VM2 (sync-gateway).
cd deploy
Run the Sync Gateway install script passing the IP of VM1 where Couchbase Server is running.
```
sudo ./install_sync_gateway.sh VM1
```

Monitor the log file.

sudo tail -f /home/sync_gateway/logs/sync_gateway_error.log

Send an /{db}/_all_docs request with a user’s credentials. A user (user1/pass) is already defined in the Sync Gateway configuration file.
```
curl -X GET 'http://user1:pass@localhost:4984/todo/_all_docs'
```

Repeat the same steps on VM3 (sync-gateway).

Using a reverse proxy

With two Sync Gateway nodes you can now configure the reverse proxy and update the sync endpoint in the mobile app to start replications pointing to the reverse proxy instead of an individual Sync Gateway instance. In this example the NGINX instance will run on VM4.

Try it out

Log on VM4 (nginx).
cd deploy
Run the NGINX install script passing the IP of VM2 and VM3 where the Sync Gateway instances are running.
```
sudo ./configure_nginx.sh VM2 VM3
```
Send an /{db}/_all_docs request with a user’s credentials to the NGINX port. A user (user1/pass) is already defined in the Sync Gateway configuration file.
```
curl -X GET 'http://user1:pass@localhost:8000/todo/_all_docs'
```

Docker Cloud

In this lesson you’ll learn how to deploy Couchbase Server and Sync Gateway on Docker Cloud behind a load balancer.

Launch node cluster

Launch a node cluster with the following settings:

Provider: AWS
Region: us-east-1 (or whatever region makes sense for you)
VPC: Auto (if you don’t choose auto, you will need to customize your security group)
Type/Size: m3.medium or greater
IAM Roles: None

Create Couchbase Server service

Go to Services and hit the Create button:

Click the globe icon and Search Docker Hub for couchbase/server. You should select the couchbase/server image:

Hit the Select button and fill out the following values on the Services Wizard:

Service Name: couchbaseserver
Containers: 2
Deployment strategy: High Availability
Autorestart: On failure
Network: bridge

In the Ports section: Enable published on each port and set the Node Port to match the Container Port

Hit the Create and Deploy button. After a few minutes, you should see the Couchbase Server vervice running:

Configure Couchbase Server Container 1 + CreateBuckets

Go to the Container section and choose couchbaseserver-1.

Copy and paste the domain name (eca0fe88-7fee-446b-b006-99e8cae0dabf.node.dockerapp.io) into your browser, adding 8091 at the end (eca0fe88-7fee-446b-b006-99e8cae0dabf.node.dockerapp.io:8091)

You should now see the Couchbase Server setup screen:

You will need to find the container IP of Couchbase Server in order to configure it. To do that, go to the Terminal section of Containers/couchbaseserver-1, and enter ifconfig.

docker cloud couchbase container terminal

Look for the ethwe1 interface and make a note of the ip: 10.7.0.2 — you will need it in the next step.

Switch back to the browser on the Couchbase Server setup screen. Leave the Start a new cluster button checked. Enter the 10.7.0.2 ip address (or whatever was returned for your ethwe1 interface) under the Hostname field.

and hit the Next button.

For the rest of the wizard, you can:

skip adding the samples
skip adding the default bucket
uncheck Update Notifications
leave Product Registration fields blank
check I agree ..
make sure to write down your password somewhere, otherwise you will be locked out of the web interface

Create a new bucket for your application:

Configure Couchbase Server Container 2

Go to the Container section and choose couchbaseserver-2.

As in the previous step, copy and paste the domain name (4d8c7be0-3f47-471b-85df-d2471336af75.node.dockerapp.io) into your browser, adding 8091 at the end (4d8c7be0-3f47-471b-85df-d2471336af75.node.dockerapp.io:8091)

Hit Setup and choose Join a cluster now with settings:

IP Address: 10.7.0.2 (the IP address you setup the first Couchbase Server node with)
Username: Administrator (unless you used a different username in the previous step)
Password: enter the password you used in the previous step
Configure Server Hostname: 10.7.0.3 (you can double check this by going to the Terminal for Containers/couchbaseserver-2 and running ifconfig and looking for the ip of the ethwe1 interface)

Trigger a rebalance by hitting the Rebalance button:

Sync Gateway Service

Now create a Sync Gateway service.

Before going through the steps in the Docker Cloud web UI, you will need to have a Sync Gateway configuration somewhere on the publicly accessible internet.

Warning: This is not a secure solution! Do not use any sensitive passwords if you follow these steps

To make it more secure, you could:

Use a Volume mount and have Sync Gateway read the configuration from the container filesystem
Use a HTTPS + Basic Auth for the URL that hosts the Sync Gateway configuration

Create a Sync Gateway configuration on a github gist and get the raw url for the gist.

Make sure to set the server value to http://couchbaseserver:8091 so that it can connect to the Couchbase Service setup in a previous step.
Use the bucket created in the Couchbase Server setup step above

In the Docker Cloud web UI, go to Services and hit the Create button again.

Click the globe icon and Search Docker Hub for couchbase/sync-gateway. You should select the couchbase/sync-gateway image.

Hit the Select button and fill out the following values on the Services Wizard:

Service Name: sync-gateway
Containers: 2
Deployment strategy: High Availability
Autorestart: On failure
Network: bridge

In the Container Configuration section, customize the Run Command to use the raw URL of your gist, eg: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/tleyden/f260b2d9b2ef828fadfad462f0014aed/raw/8f544be6b265c0b57848

In the Ports section, use the following values:

In the Links section, choose couchbaseserver and hit the Plus button

Click the Create and Deploy button.

Verify Sync Gateway

Click the Containers section and you should have two Couchbase Server and two Sync Gateway containers running.

Click the sync-gateway-1 container and get the domain name (eca0fe88-7fee-446b-b006-99e8cae0dabf.node.dockerapp.io) and paste it in your browser with a trailing :4984, eg eca0fe88-7fee-446b-b006-99e8cae0dabf.node.dockerapp.io:4984

You should see the following JSON response:

{
   couchdb:Welcome,
   vendor:{
      name:Couchbase Sync Gateway,
      version:1.3
   },
   version:Couchbase Sync Gateway/1.3.1(16;f18e833)
}

Setup Load Balancer

Click the Services section and hit the Create button. In the bottom right hand corner look for Proxies and choose dockercloud/haproxy

docker cloud create load balancer service1

General Settings:

Service Name: sgloadbalancer
Containers: 1
Deployment Strategy: High Availability
Autorestart: Always
Network: Bridge

Ports:

Port 80 should be Published and the Node Port should be set to 80

Links:

Choose sync-gateway and hit the Plus button

Hit the Create and Deploy button

Verify Load Balancer

Click the Containers section and choose sgloadbalancer-1.

Copy and paste the domain name (eg, eca0fe88-7fee-446b-b006-99e8cae0dabf.node.dockerapp.io) into your browser.

You should see the following JSON response:

{
   couchdb:Welcome,
   vendor:{
      name:Couchbase Sync Gateway,
      version:1.3
   },
   version:Couchbase Sync Gateway/1.3.1(16;f18e833)
}

Congratulations! You have just setup a Couchbase Server + Sync Gateway cluster on Docker Cloud.

Conclusion

Well done! You’ve completed this lesson on installing Sync Gateway and Couchbase Server. In the next lesson you’ll learn how to perform an upgrade on Sync Gateway. Feel free to share your feedback, findings or ask any questions on the forums.