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Configuring target machine

This guide can be used with an AWS AMI instance of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or an Azure VM running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. If you want to use a different base instance there may be some slightly different steps you need to take during the configuration.

Deploying projects over SSH has some slightly different requirements to a standard Tentacle. Although you don’t need to install and run a Tentacle service, there is some configuration that is required to allow Calamari to run on non Windows systems.

Install .NET Core

Authoritative documentation The best and most up-to-date guide to installing .NET will continue to be on the .NET website. More detailed instructions can be found on their website which may change in future versions so check their documentation out for more info.

Register Microsoft key and feed

Before installing .NET, you’ll need to register the Microsoft key, register the product repository, and install required dependencies. This only needs to be done once per machine.

Open a command prompt and run the following commands:

wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

Install .NET SDK

Update the products available for installation, then install the .NET SDK.

In your command prompt, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install aspnetcore-runtime-2.1

Install NGINX

Authoritative Documentation The best and most up-to-date guide to installing NGINX will continue to be on the NGINX website. More detailed instructions can be found on their website which may change in future versions so check their documentation out for more info.

Download the key used to sign NGINX packages and the repository, and add it to the apt program’s key ring:

$ sudo wget https://nginx.org/keys/nginx_signing.key
$ sudo apt-key add nginx_signing.key

Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file, for example with vi:

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Add these lines sources.list to name the repositories from which the NGINX Open Source source can be obtained:

deb https://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ <CODENAME> nginx
deb-src https://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ <CODENAME> nginx

where:

  • The /mainline element in the pathname points to the latest mainline version of NGINX Open Source; delete it to get the latest stable version
  • <CODENAME> is the codename of an Ubuntu release For example, to get the latest mainline package for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial), add:
deb https://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ xenial nginx
deb-src https://nginx.org/packages/mainline/ubuntu/ xenial nginx

Save the changes and quit vi (press ESC and type wq at the : prompt).

Install NGINX open source:

$ sudo apt-get remove nginx-common
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install nginx

Start NGINX open source:

$ sudo nginx

Verify that NGINX open source is up and running:

$ curl -I 127.0.0.1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.13.8

Add user

Rather than connecting and deploying your application as the root user, you should create a custom user account that will be used for the purposes of deployment. The login credentials will then be able to be easily revoked without affecting other users who access the machine. Resources will also be able to be more granularly assigned, allowing greater control if the account is used maliciously.

Security Entire books have been published on the subject of security on Unix based systems. These steps are intended to serve a basic level of security, while making sure you stop and consider the role that it plays in your environment.

In this case we are going to create a simple user account with a password which will be used for both the deployment process and running the application process itself. In your case you may want to use different accounts for each task. Replace <the-password-you-want> with a random password of your choice and remember this value as it will be needed later when configuring the target on the Octopus Server

sudo useradd -m octopus
echo octopus:<the-password-you-want> | sudo chpasswd

By default the AWS Ubuntu AMI only allows authentication via SSH keys and not password. Although passwords are typically less secure, for the purposes of this guide we are going to enable their use.

Enable password authentication in AWS

sudo sed -i.bak -e s/'PasswordAuthentication no'/'PasswordAuthentication yes'/g /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sudo restart ssh

Enable ‘sudo’ access without password

By default sudo requires the user to enter their password, but this won’t work in a non-interactive session such as that of a running deployment. To successfully use the new NGINX feature in Octopus Deploy we need sudo access without password prompt for few commands cp, mv, rm, and nginx and for this guide we will also need to add systemctl to the list of required commands.

So, we need to configure this for our user that we will be using for the purposes of deployment. See Sudo commands for more details on how to disable password prompt for all commands. To enable sudo without password prompt for only the required commands for NGINX, add the following lines into your file and then save the file:

Cmdn_Alias REQUIRED_NGINX_COMMANDS = /bin/cp, /bin/mv, /bin/rm, /bin/systemctl, /usr/sbin/nginx

octopus ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: REQUIRED_NGINX_COMMANDS

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Page updated on Sunday, January 1, 2023

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