Table of Contents

• What is Tanzu Application Platform - TAP
• Components
• Prerequisites
• Instructions
  • Introduction
  • How to install TAP
  • Testing TAP
• Additional information
  • Using a private registry
  • Tanzu Client
  • Review what it has been installed
  • Change TAP configuration
• Clean

What is Tanzu Application Platform - TAP

Tanzu Application Platform - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Tanzu-Application-Platform/1.5/tap/overview.html is according to VMWare a modular, application-aware platform that provides a rich set of developer tooling and a prepaved path to production to build and deploy software quickly and securely on any compliant public cloud or on-premises Kubernetes cluster.

The first TAP version (1.0.0) has been released in January 2022.

Note: The full list of the releases and their EOL support is available from the releases page.

By supporting the Supply Chain choreograph pattern, TAP allows to decouple the path (build, deploy, scan, test, ...) to move a microservice to different kubernetes environments from the development lifecycle process followed by the developers.

Components

TAP rely on the following components which are installed as versioned packages from OCI bundles.

Note: You can get more information about the packages (version, description) from this page:

• CNCF Buildpacks builder images able to convert your source code into a secure, efficient, production ready container image
• CNCF Knativeserving and eventing,
• kpack controller able to build images using Buildpacks,
• CNCF Contour to route the traffic internally or externally using Ingress
• kapp controller to install/uninstall k8s resources using templates (ytt, ...)
• Application Live & Application Accelerator to guide the Architects/Developers to design/deploy/monitor applications on k8s.
• Tekton pipelines and FluxCD to fetch the sources (git, ...)
• Convention controller able to change the Workloads according to METADATA (framework, runtime, ...)
• Service Binding & Toolkit able to manage locally the services,
• Cartographer which allows App Operators to create pre-approved paths to production by integrating Kubernetes resources with the elements of toolchains (e.g. Jenkins, CI/CD,...).
• CNCF Crossplane control plane which dynamically deploy service instances (e.g. AWS RDS) with Services Toolkit and the pre-installed Bitnami Services.
• Bitnami service Helm charts supported by TAP (MySQL, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ and Redis)
• Application Configuration Service component provides a Kubernetes-native experience to enable the runtime configuration of existing Spring applications (instead of using Spring Cloud config server)
• Spring Cloud Gateway component able to route internal or external API requests to application services that expose APIs.

Prerequisites

The following installation guide explains what the prerequisites are.

TL&DR; It is needed to:

• Have a Tanzu account on https://network.tanzu.vmware.com/ to download the software or to access the registry registry.tanzu.vmware.com,
• Accept the needed EULA
• Have a kind cluster >= 1.24 installed with a private docker registry. Use this script
• Have a Linux VM machine with at least 8 CPUs, 8 GB of RAM and 100Gb (if you plan to use locally a container registry)
• Private container registry such as docker registry

Instructions

Introduction

The instructions of the official guide have been followed to install the release 1.5.0.

To simplify your life, we have designed a bash script which allows to install the different bits in a VM:

1. Tanzu client and plugins (package, application, secret, etc)

2. Cluster Essentials

   • Carvel tools: ytt, imgpkg, kbld, kapp
   • Kapp controller,
   • Secretgen controller

3. TAP Repository

   A repository is an image bundle containing different k8s manifests, templates, files able to install/configure the TAP packages. Such a repository is managed using the Tanzu command tanzu package repository ...

4. TAP Packages

   The packages are the building blocks or components part of the TAP platform. Each of them will install a specific feature such as Knative, cartographer, contour, cnrs, ... They are managed using the following command tanzu package available | tanzu package installed ...

NOTE: Some additional kubernetes tools which are very helpful (e.g: k9s, helm, krew) can be installed using the command ./scripts/tap.sh kube-tools

How to install TAP

To install TAP, create first a kind cluster and secured container registry using this script:

curl -s -L "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snowdrop/k8s-infra/main/kind/kind.sh" | \
  bash -s install \
    --secure-registry \
    --skip-ingress-installation \
    --registry-user admin \
    --registry-password snowdrop \
    --server-ip <VM_IP>

Tip: Use the -h of the kind.sh script to see the others options !

Warning: If you deploy TAP on a remote VM, then it is mandatory to specify the option --server-ip to expose the kubernetes API server to access it remotely !

Next, execute the tap.sh bash script locally and configure the following parameters:

• LOCAL_REGISTRY: Boolean used to tell if we will use a local registry. Default: false
• INSTALL_TANZU_CLI: Boolean used to install the Tanzu tools: pivnet and Tanzu client. Default: true
• REGISTRY_SERVER: registry DNS name (docker.io, ghcr.io, quay.io, registry.harbor.<VM_IP>.nip.io:)
• REGISTRY_OWNER: docker user account, ghcr.io ORG owner, container project (e.g: tap - registry.harbor.<VM_IP>.nip.io:<PORT>/tap)
• REGISTRY_USERNAME: username to be used to log on to the registry
• REGISTRY_PASSWORD: password to be used to log on to the registry
• REGISTRY_CA_PATH: Path of the CA certificate used your container registry (optional)
• TANZU_REG_SERVER: Tanzu registry from where packages, images can be pulled (e.g: registry.tanzu.vmware.com)
• TANZU_REG_USERNAME: user to be used to be authenticated against the Tanzu registry
• TANZU_REG_PASSWORD: password to be used to be authenticated against the Tanzu registry

Warning: As the script will download different products from https://network.tanzu.vmware.com/ using pivnet, then it is mandatory to configure the following parameter and to have a Tanzu network account like an API account:

• TANZU_PIVNET_LEGACY_API_TOKEN: Token used by pivnet CLI to login to the Tanzu products website

Finally, define the home directory and IP address of the VM hosting TAP and the kubernetes cluster:

• REMOTE_HOME_DIR: home directory where files will be installed within the VM. Default: $HOME
• VM_IP: IP address of the VM where the cluster is running

IMPORTANT: We recommend to relocate the TAP repository images to your registry from the Tanzu registry before to perform the installation to speed the process if you re-install it.

In this case, set the COPY_PACKAGES parameter to TRUE the first time you will install TAP as the images will be copied using imgpkg tool.

Tip: Use the -h of the ./scripts/tap.sh script to see the others options we currently support !

Example of installation

VM_IP=<VM_IP>
LOCAL_REGISTRY="true"
REGISTRY_SERVER=<REGISTRY_SERVER>
REGISTRY_OWNER=<REGISTRY_OWNER>
REGISTRY_USERNAME=<REGISTRY_USERNAME>
REGISTRY_PASSWORD=<REGISTRY_PASSWORD>
REGISTRY_CA_PATH=<REGISTRY_CA_PATH>
TANZU_REG_SERVER=<TANZU_REG_SERVER>
TANZU_REG_USERNAME=<TANZU_REG_USERNAME>
TANZU_REG_PASSWORD=<TANZU_REG_PASSWORD>
TANZU_PIVNET_LEGACY_API_TOKEN=<TANZU_PIVNET_LEGACY_API_TOKEN>
COPY_PACKAGES="false"
INSTALL_TANZU_CLI="true"
./scripts/tap.sh

or 

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_server_private_key snowdrop@10.0.77.176 -p 22 \
    REMOTE_HOME_DIR="/home/snowdrop" \
    VM_IP="10.0.77.176" \
    LOCAL_REGISTRY="true" \
    REGISTRY_SERVER="10.0.77.176.nip.io:5000" \
    REGISTRY_OWNER="tap" \
    REGISTRY_USERNAME="admin" \
    REGISTRY_PASSWORD="snowdrop" \
    REGISTRY_CA_PATH="/home/snowdrop/.registry/certs/kind-registry/client.crt" \
    TANZU_REG_SERVER="registry.tanzu.vmware.com" \
    TANZU_REG_USERNAME="<TANZU_REG_USERNAME>" \
    TANZU_REG_PASSWORD="<TANZU_REG_USERNAME" \
    TANZU_PIVNET_LEGACY_API_TOKEN="<TANZU_PIVNET_LEGACY_API_TOKEN>" \
    COPY_PACKAGES="false" \
    INSTALL_TANZU_CLI="true" \
    "bash -s" -- < ./scripts/tap.sh

Wait till you will see the list of the packages installed:

##################################################
## Wait till TAP installation is over
##################################################
TAP installation status: Reconcile failed
TAP installation status: Reconciling
...

##################################################
## List the TAP packages installed
##################################################

  NAME                                                 DISPLAY-NAME
  accelerator.apps.tanzu.vmware.com                    Application Accelerator for VMware Tanzu
  api-portal.tanzu.vmware.com                          API portal
...  

NOTE: If the imgpkg client is already installed on the machine, you can also copy the images to a tar file and next upload them to the private docker registry using this command:

./scripts/tap.sh relocateImages

Testing TAP

Create first a namespace using the command

./scripts/tap.sh populateUserNamespace demo0

or 

ssh -i ${SSH_KEY} ${USER}@${IP} -p ${PORT} \
    "bash -s" -- < ./scripts/tap.sh populateUserNamespace demo0

Next deploy a Web Application using the tanzu client and a workload

tanzu apps workload create tanzu-java-web-app \
  --git-repo https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/application-accelerator-samples\
  --sub-path tanzu-java-web-app \
  --git-branch main \
  --type web \
  --label app.kubernetes.io/part-of=tanzu-java-web-app \
  --yes \
  --namespace demo0

Follow the build/deployment and access the service when finished

tanzu apps workload tail tanzu-java-web-app --namespace demo0 --timestamp --since 1h
tanzu apps workload get tanzu-java-web-app --namespace demo0

Look to the URL of the service to open it within your browser:

🚢 Knative Services
NAME                 READY   URL
tanzu-java-web-app   Ready   http://tanzu-java-web-app.demo0.10.0.77.164.sslip.io

Note: See our demo page here which covers more examples.

Additional information

Using a private registry

As mentioned within the previous section, when we plan to use a private local registry such as Harbor, docker registry, etc some additional steps are required such as:

1. Get the CA certificate file from the registry and set the parameter REGISTRY_CA_PATH for the bash script

2. Get the TAP packages and push them to the private registry

imgpkg copy -b registry.tanzu.vmware.com/tanzu-application-platform/tap-packages:1.5.0 --to-tar packages.tar
imgpkg copy --tar packages.tar --to-repo <REGISTRY_HOST>/tap/tap-packages

3. Define the TAP shared key within the tap-values.yaml file to pass the ca_cert_data (see doc)

shared:
  ca_cert_data: |
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIDFDCCAfygAwIBAgIRAJqAGNrteyM97HLF2i1OhpQwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAw
      FDESMBAGA1UEAxMJaGFyYm9yLWNhMB4XDTIyMDYwMzEwMDc1M1oXDTIzMDYwMzEw
      ...
      H1H7yyFbxeaRK33ctKxXq2FzEYePYQ0BdTw36O8/R5CXwTMYvbG+kRMmNlRNHhD7
      82elfYZx4DxrWcap2uqrvrR8A8jnV5oa/sBoqcY6U1rIXG2mkVXvuvihOjIm8wHy
      8dHt3pESuqbOo2aDt9uP77sBIjho0JBT
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
...      

NOTE: The steps 2 and 3 are managed by the install.sh script !

Tip: You can set up a docker registry using our kind secured script :-)

Tanzu Client

FYI: The install.sh bash script installs the Tanzu client as described hereafter like the carvel tools: imgpkg, kapp, kbld, pivnet !

The Tanzu client can be installed locally on a machine having access to the k8s cluster running TAP using the pivnet tool.

According to the TAP release that you would like to install, select the appropriate product-file-id and release-version from the download page of the Tanzu Application Platform product/release - https://network.tanzu.vmware.com/products/tanzu-application-platform.

Next, install the tool using by example the following instructions on a Mac machine.

Note: The instructions are equivalent on Linux except the TAR file to be downloaded !

pivnet download-product-files --product-slug='tanzu-application-platform' --release-version='1.5.0' --product-file-id=1212837
tar -vxf tanzu-framework-darwin-amd64.tar
install cli/core/v0.11.4/tanzu-core-darwin_amd64 /usr/local/bin/tanzu
export TANZU_CLI_NO_INIT=true
tanzu plugin install --local cli all
tanzu plugin list

Review what it has been installed

• Check the status of the TAP packages installed and if all the packages are well deployed

tanzu package installed list -n tap-install
/ Retrieving installed packages...
  NAME                      PACKAGE-NAME                                  PACKAGE-VERSION  STATUS
  accelerator               accelerator.apps.tanzu.vmware.com             1.0.0            Reconcile succeeded
  appliveview               run.appliveview.tanzu.vmware.com              1.0.1            Reconcile succeeded
  appliveview-conventions   build.appliveview.tanzu.vmware.com            1.0.1            Reconcile succeeded
  buildservice              buildservice.tanzu.vmware.com                 1.4.2            Reconcile succeeded
  cartographer              cartographer.tanzu.vmware.com                 0.1.0            Reconcile succeeded
  cert-manager              cert-manager.tanzu.vmware.com                 1.5.3+tap.1      Reconcile succeeded
  cnrs                      cnrs.tanzu.vmware.com                         1.0.0            Reconcile succeeded
  contour                   contour.tanzu.vmware.com                      1.08.2+tap.1     Reconcile succeeded
  conventions-controller    controller.conventions.apps.tanzu.vmware.com  0.5.0            Reconcile succeeded
  developer-conventions     developer-conventions.tanzu.vmware.com        0.5.0-build.1    Reconcile succeeded
  fluxcd-source-controller  fluxcd.source.controller.tanzu.vmware.com     0.16.0           Reconcile succeeded
  ootb-delivery-basic       ootb-delivery-basic.tanzu.vmware.com          0.5.1            Reconcile succeeded
  ootb-supply-chain-basic   ootb-supply-chain-basic.tanzu.vmware.com      0.5.1            Reconcile succeeded
  ootb-templates            ootb-templates.tanzu.vmware.com               0.5.1            Reconcile succeeded
  service-bindings          service-bindings.labs.vmware.com              0.6.0            Reconcile succeeded
  services-toolkit          services-toolkit.tanzu.vmware.com             0.5.0            Reconcile succeeded
  source-controller         controller.source.apps.tanzu.vmware.com       0.2.0            Reconcile succeeded
  spring-boot-conventions   spring-boot-conventions.tanzu.vmware.com      0.3.0            Reconcile succeeded
  tap                       tap.tanzu.vmware.com                          1.0.0            Reconcile succeeded
  tap-gui                   tap-gui.tanzu.vmware.com                      1.0.1            Reconcile succeeded
  tap-telemetry             tap-telemetry.tanzu.vmware.com                0.1.2            Reconcile succeeded
  tekton-pipelines          tekton.tanzu.vmware.com                       0.30.0           Reconcile succeeded
  
# or individually
tanzu package installed get -n tap-install <package_name>

Change TAP configuration

• If some parameters should be changed, you can first check the list of the available values for a package:

tanzu package available get ootb-supply-chain-basic.tanzu.vmware.com/0.5.1 -n tap-install --values-schema

• Next edit and change the tap-values.yaml file created
• Update finally the TAP package using the following command:

tanzu package installed update tap -p tap.tanzu.vmware.com -v 1.0.0 --values-file tap-values.yml -n tap-install

• To install a package individually, use the following documentation page

Clean

To uninstall the TAP repository and the packages, execute this command ./scripts/tap.sh remove.

Tip: If you want to clean everything (e.g demo namespaces), then create a new kind kubernetes cluster ;-)

That's all !