Determine Your Host and Hostname Values

For the rest of this example we will refer to a special variables called $hostname. Please choose one of the two methods for building your $hostname.

Option 1: Standard Installation

For a standard installation that includes deis-router, you can calculate the hostname value using its public IP address and a wildcard DNS record.

If your router IP is 1.1.1.1, its $hostname will be deis.1.1.1.1.nip.io. You can find your IP address by running:

kubectl --namespace=deis describe svc deis-router

If you do not have an load balancer IP, the router automatically forwards traffic from a kubernetes node to the router. In this case, use the IP of a kubernetes node and the node port that routes to port 80 on the controller.

Deis workflow requires a wildcard DNS record to dynamically map app names to the router.

Option 2: Experimental Native Ingress Installation

In this example, the user should already have DNS set up pointing to their known host. The $hostname value can be calculated by prepending deis. to the value set in controller.platform_domain.

Register an Admin User

The first user to register against Deis Workflow will automatically be given administrative privileges.

Use the controller $hostname to register a user in the cluster.

$ deis register http://$hostname
username: admin
password:
password (confirm):
email: jhansen@deis.com
Registered admin
Logged in as admin
$ deis whoami
You are admin at http://$hostname

You have now registered your first user and you are ready to deploy an application.

Deploy an Application

Deis Workflow supports three different types of applications, Buildpacks, Dockerfiles and Docker Images. Our first application will be a simple Docker Image-based application, so you don't have to wrestle with checking out code.

Run deis create to create a new application on Deis Workflow. If you do not specify a name for your application, Workflow automatically generates a friendly (and sometimes funny) name.

$ deis create --no-remote
Creating Application... done, created proper-barbecue
If you want to add a git remote for this app later, use `deis git:remote -a proper-barbecue`

Our application has been created and named proper-barbecue. As with the deis hostname, any HTTP traffic to proper-barbecue will be automatically routed to your application pods by the edge router.

Let's use the CLI to tell the platform to deploy an application and then use curl to send a request to the app:

$ deis pull deis/example-go -a proper-barbecue
Creating build... done
$ curl http://proper-barbecue.$hostname
Powered by Deis

Note

If you see a 404 error, make sure you specified your application name with -a <appname>!

Workflow's edge router knows all about application names and automatically sends traffic to the right application. The router sends traffic for proper-barbecue.104.197.125.75.nip.io to your app, just like deis.104.197.125.75.nip.io was sent to the Workflow API service.

Change Application Configuration

Next, let's change some configuration using the CLI. Our example app is built to read configuration from the environment. By using deis config:set we can change how the application behaves:

$ deis config:set POWERED_BY="Docker Images + Kubernetes" -a proper-barbecue
Creating config... done

=== proper-barbecue Config
POWERED_BY      Docker Images + Kubernetes

Behind the scenes, Workflow creates a new release for your application and uses Kubernetes to provide a zero-downtime rolling deploy to the new release!

Validate that our configuration change has worked:

$ curl http://proper-barbecue.104.197.125.75.nip.io
Powered by Docker Images + Kubernetes

Scale Your Application

Last, let's scale our application by adding more application processes. Using the CLI you can easily add and remove additional processes to service requests:

$ deis scale cmd=2 -a proper-barbecue
Scaling processes... but first, coffee!
done in 36s
=== proper-barbecue Processes
--- cmd:
proper-barbecue-v18-cmd-rk644 up (v18)
proper-barbecue-v18-cmd-0ag04 up (v18)

Congratulations! You have deployed, configured, and scaled your first application using Deis Workflow.

Going Further

There is a lot more you can do with Deis Workflow, play around with the CLI:

Important

In order to have permission to push an app you must add a SSH key to your user on the Deis Workflow. For more information, please check Users and SSH Keys and Troubleshooting Workflow.