Quickstart

Dispatch depends on kubernetes. To get stared quickly we recommend using minikube, however there are some gotchas with regards to exactly how to configure minikube. Please see Installing Kubernetes via Minikube for Dispatch. You should now have a working kubernetes cluster.

If you have any issues during installation, please see Troubleshooting Dispatch.

Download Dispatch CLI

Get the dispatch command, make it executable, and put it in your path (if you are using the Linux VM from the minikube instalation, you may skip this step):

Get the Latest Release Version

export LATEST=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/vmware/dispatch/releases/latest | jq -r .name)

Note: If you don't have jq and don't want to install it, you can just manually parse the JSON response and grab the version.

For MacOS

$ curl -OL https://github.com/vmware/dispatch/releases/download/$LATEST/dispatch-darwin
$ chmod +x dispatch-darwin
$ mv dispatch-darwin /usr/local/bin/dispatch

For Linux

$ curl -OL https://github.com/vmware/dispatch/releases/download/$LATEST/dispatch-linux
$ chmod +x dispatch-linux
$ mv dispatch-linux /usr/local/bin/dispatch

Configure and install Dispatch:

Fetch the IP address of minikube as this will be used the host for dispatch services.

export DISPATCH_HOST=$(minikube ip)

Configure the installation (note: you must substitute the IP address where $DISPATCH_HOST is specified in the below config.yaml):

$ cat << EOF > config.yaml
apiGateway:
  host: $DISPATCH_HOST
dispatch:
  host: $DISPATCH_HOST
  debug: true
  skipAuth: true
EOF

$ dispatch install --file config.yaml
...
Config file written to: $HOME/.dispatch/config.json

Your dispatch config file $HOME/.dispatch/config.json will be generated and have the following:-

cat $HOME/.dispatch/config.json
{
    "host": "<DISPATCH_HOST>",
    "port": <port>,
    "organization": "dispatch",
    "cookie": "",
    "insecure": true,
    "Json": false
}

Get the Examples

To get the examples, you will need to clone the dispatch repository https://github.com/vmware/dispatch.git (if you're using the Linux VM, the examples are in ~/code/dispatch/examples):

$ git clone https://github.com/vmware/dispatch.git
$ cd dispatch

At this point, the environment is up and working. Let's seed the service with some images and functions. In order to get the examples, you will need to clone the repository (if you haven't already):

$ dispatch create seed-images
$ dispatch get images
   NAME   |                    URL                |  BASEIMAGE   |   STATUS    |         CREATED DATE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  nodejs  | dispatchframework/nodejs-base:0.0.8   | nodejs-base  | READY       | Wed Dec  6 14:28:30 PST 2017
  python3 | dispatchframework/python3-base:0.0.8  | python3-base | INITIALIZED | Wed Dec  6 14:28:30 PST 2017

$ dispatch create --file seed.yaml --work-dir examples/
$ dispatch get functions
    NAME   |  IMAGE  | STATUS |         CREATED DATE
------------------------------------------------------------
  hello-js | nodejs | READY  | Wed Dec  6 14:29:05 PST 2017
  hello-py | python3 | READY  | Wed Dec  6 14:28:52 PST 2017

Execute a function:

$ dispatch exec hello-py --input '{"name": "Jon", "place": "Winterfell"}' --wait
{
    "blocking": true,
    "executedTime": 1515624222,
    "finishedTime": 1515624222,
    "functionId": "5138d918-e78f-41d6-aece-769addd3eed7",
    "functionName": "hello-py",
    "input": {
        "name": "Jon",
        "place": "Winterfell"
    },
    "logs": null,
    "name": "b5b3c1f5-fa8a-4b38-b7d1-475c44b76114",
    "output": {
        "myField": "Hello, Jon from Winterfell"
    },
    "reason": null,
    "secrets": [],
    "status": "READY"
}

Add an API endpoint:

$ dispatch create api --https-only --method POST --path /hello post-hello hello-py

Find the port for the api-gateway service (we are using the NodePort service type):

$ kubectl -n kong get service api-gateway-kongproxy
NAME                    CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                      AGE
api-gateway-kongproxy   10.107.109.1   <nodes>       80:31788/TCP,443:32611/TCP   19m

We are looking at the port associated with https/443 => 32611.

$ curl -k "https://$DISPATCH_HOST:32611/dispatch/hello" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name": "Jon", "place": "winterfell"}'
{"myField":"Hello, Jon from winterfell"}

GKE Users

GKE users should use the external IP revealed by:

$ kubectl -n kong get service api-gateway-kongproxy
NAME                    TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                      AGE
api-gateway-kongproxy   LoadBalancer   10.39.244.36   35.203.141.195   80:31074/TCP,443:31589/TCP   8d

and should just use the port associated with the chosen protocol (443 for https, 80 for http).

For the example endpoint

curl -k "http://35.203.141.195:443/dispatch/hello" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name": "Jon", "place": "winterfell"}'
{"myField":"Hello, Jon from winterfell"}

Now go build something!