Merge branch 'ha-aws' into 'master'

High Availability on AWS

Adds walkthrough for setting up GitLab in AWS in High Availability mode.

Closes https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/University/issues/28

See merge request !46

source/high-availability/aws/index.html.md

+---
+title: University | HA AWS
+---
+
+# High Availability on AWS
+
+GitLab on AWS can leverage many of the services that are already 
+configurable with High Availability. These services have a lot of 
+flexibility and are able to adopt to most companies, best of all is the 
+ability to automate both vertical and horizontal scaling. 
+    
+In this article we'll go through a basic HA setup where we'll start by 
+configuring our Virtual Private Cloud and subnets to later integrate 
+services such as RDS for our database server and ElastiCache as a Redis 
+cluster to finally manage them within an auto scaling group with custom 
+scaling policies. 
+ 
+*** 
+
+## Where to Start
+
+Login to your AWS account through the `My Account` dropdown on 
+`https://aws.amazon.com` or through the URI assigned to your team such as
+`https://myteam.signin.aws.amazon.com/console/`. You'll start on the 
+Amazon Web Services console from where we can choose all of the services 
+we'll be using to configure our cloud infrastructure. 
+
+***
+
+## Network
+
+We'll start by creating a VPC for our GitLab cloud infrastructure, then 
+we can create subnets to have public and private instances in at least 
+two AZs. Public subnets will require a Route Table keep an associated 
+Internet Gateway. 
+
+### VPC
+
+Start by looking for the VPC option on the web console. Now create a new 
+VPC. We can use `10.0.0.0/16` for the CIDR block and leave tenancy as 
+default if we don't require dedicated hardware. 
+
+![New VPC](images/high-availability/new_vpc.png)
+
+If you're setting up the Elastic File System service then select the VPC 
+and from the Actions dropdown choose Edit DNS Hostnames and select Yes. 
+
+### Subnet
+
+Now let's create some subnets in different Availability Zones. Make sure 
+that each subnet is associated the the VPC we just created, that it has 
+a distinct VPC and lastly that CIDR blocks don't overlap. This will also 
+allow us to enable multi AZ for redundancy.
+ 
+We will create private and public subnets to match load balancers and 
+RDS instances as well. 
+
+![Subnet Creation](images/high-availability/subnet.png)
+
+The subnets are listed with their name, AZ and CIDR block:
+
+* gitlab-public-10.0.0.0  - us-west-2a - 10.0.0.0
+* gitlab-private-10.0.1.0 - us-west-2a - 10.0.1.0
+* gitlab-public-10.0.2.0  - us-west-2b - 10.0.2.0
+* gitlab-private-10.0.3.0 - us-west-2b - 10.0.3.0
+
+### Route Table
+
+Up to now all our subnets are private. We need to create a Route Table 
+to associate an Internet Gateway. On the same VPC dashboard choose 
+Route Tables on the left column and give it a name and associate it to 
+our newly created VPC.
+
+![Route Table](images/high-availability/route_table.png)
+ 
+ 
+### Internet Gateway
+
+Now still on the same dashboard head over to Internet Gateways and 
+create a new one. After its created pres on the `Attach to VPC` button and
+select our VPC.
+
+![Internet Gateway](images/high-availability/ig.png)
+
+### Configure Subnets
+
+Go back to the Router Tables screen and select the newly created one, 
+press the Routes tab on the bottom section and edit it. We need to add a 
+new target which will be our Internet Gateway and have it receive 
+traffic from any destination.
+    
+![Subnet Config](images/high-availability/ig-rt.png)
+
+Before leaving this screen select the next tab to the rgiht which is 
+Subnet Associations and add our public subnets. If you followed our 
+naming convention they should be easy to find. 
+
+*** 
+
+## Database with RDS 
+
+For our database server we will use Amazon RDS which offers Multi AZ 
+for redundancy. Lets start by creating a subnet group and then we'll 
+create the actual RDS instance. 
+
+### Subnet Group
+
+From the RDS dashboard select Subnet Groups. Lets select our VPC from 
+the VPC ID dropdown and at the bottom we can add our private subnets.
+
+![Subnet Group](images/high-availability/db-subnet-group.png)
+
+### RDS
+
+Select the RDS service from the Database section and create a new 
+PostgreSQL instance. After choosing between a Production or 
+Development instance we'll start with the actual configuration. On the 
+image bellow we have the settings for this article but note the 
+following two options which are of particular interest for HA:
+
+1. Multi-AZ-Deployment is recommended as redundancy. Read more at
+[High Availability (Multi-AZ)](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.MultiAZ.html)
+1. While we chose a General Purpose (SSD) for this article a Provisioned 
+IOPS (SSD) is best suited for HA. Read more about it at 
+[Storage for Amazon RDS](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_Storage.html)
+
+![RDS Instance Specs](/images/high-availability/instance_specs.png)
+
+The rest of the setting on this page request a DB identifier, username 
+and a master password. We've chosen to use `gitlab-ha`, `gitlab` and a 
+very secure password respectively. Keep these in hand for later. 
+
+![Network and Security](/images/high-availability/rds-net-opt.png)
+
+Make sure to choose our gitlab VPC, our subnet group, not have it public,
+and to leave it to create a new security group. The only additional 
+change which will be helpful is the database name for which we can use 
+`gitlabhq_production`. 
+
+***
+
+## ElastiCache
+ 
+EC is an in-memory hosted caching solution. Redis maintains its own 
+persistance and is used for certain types of application.
+
+Let's choose the ElastiCache service in the Database section from our 
+AWS console. Now lets create a cache subnet group which will be very 
+similar to the RDS subnet group. Make sure to select our VPC and its 
+private subnets.
+
+![ElastiCache](/images/high-availability/ec-subnet.png)
+
+Now press the Launch a Cache Cluster and choose Redis for our 
+DB engine. You'll be able to configure details such as replication, 
+Multi AZ and node types. The second section will allow us to choose our 
+subnet and security group and     
+
+![Redis Cluster details](/images/high-availability/redis-cluster-det.png)
+
+![Redis Network](/images/high-availability/redis-net.png)
+
+***
+
+## Elastic File System
+
+This new AWS offering allows us to create a file system accessible by 

+EC2 instances within a VPC. Choose our VPC and the subnets will be 
+
automatically configured assuming we don't need to set explicit IPs. 
+The 
next section allows us to add tags and choose between General 
+Purpose or 
Max I/O which is a good option when being accessed by a 
+large number of 
EC2 instances.
+
+

![Elastic File System](/images/high-availability/elastic-file-system.png)
+
+To actually mount and install the NFS client we'll use the User Data 
+section when adding our Launch Configuration.
+
+*** 
+
+## Initiate AMI
+
+We are going to launch an EC2 instance and bake an image so that we can 
+later use it for auto scaling. We'll also take this opportunity to add an 
+extension to our RDS through this temporary EC2 instance.
+
+### EC2 Instance 
+
+Look for the EC2 option and choose to create an instance. We'll need at 
+least a t2.medium type and for this article we'll choose an Ubuntu 14.04
+HVM 64-bit. In the Configure Instance section choose our GitLab VPC and 
+a public subnet. I'd choose at least 10GB of storage. 
+ 
+In the security group we'll create a new one considering that we need to 
+SSH into the instance and also try it out through http. So let's add the 
+http traffic from anywhere and name it something such as 
+`gitlab-ec2-security-group`. 
+
+While we wait for it to launch we can allocate an Elastic IP and 
+associate it with our new EC2 instance.  
+
+### RDS and Redis Security Group
+
+After the instance is being created we will navigate to our EC2 security 
+groups and add a small change for our EC2 instances to be able to 
+connect to RDS. First copy the security group name we just defined, 
+namely `gitlab-ec2-security-group`, and edit select the RDS security 
+group and edit the inbound rules. Choose the rule type to be PostgreSQL 
+and paste the name under source. 
+
+![RDS security group](/images/high-availability/rds-sec-group.png)
+
+Similar to the above we'll jump to the `gitlab-ec2-security-group` group
+and add a custom TCP rule for port 6379 accessible within itself. 
+
+### Install GitLab 
+
+To connect through SSH you will need to have the `pem` file which you 
+chose available and with the correct permissions such as `400`. 
+
+After accessing your server don't forget to update and upgrade your 
+packages.
+
+    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
+
+Then follow installation instructions from 
+[GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/downloads-ee/#ubuntu1404), but before 
+running reconfigure we need to make sure all our services are tied down 
+so just leave the reconfigure command until after we edit our gitlab.rb 
+file.
+
+   
+### Extension for PostgreSQL
+
+Connect to your new RDS instance to verify access and to install 
+a required extension. We can find the host or endpoint by selecting the 
+instance and  we just created and after the details drop down we'll find 
+it labeled as 'Endpoint'; do remember not to include the colon and port 
+number.
+
+    sudo /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/psql -U gitlab -h <rds-endpoint> -d gitlabhq_production 
+    psql (9.4.7)
+    Type "help" for help.
+    
+    gitlab=# CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;
+    gitlab=# \q 
+
+### Configure GitLab
+
+While connected to your server edit the `gitlab.rb` file at `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` 
+find the `external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'` option and change it 
+to the domain you will be using or the public IP address of the current 
+instance to test the configuration.
+
+For a more detailed description about configuring GitLab read [Configuring GitLab for HA](http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/high_availability/gitlab.html) 
+
+Now look for the GitLab database settings and uncomment as necessary. In 
+our current case we'll specify the adapter, encoding, host, db name, 
+username, and password. 
+
+    gitlab_rails['db_adapter'] = "postgresql"
+    gitlab_rails['db_encoding'] = "unicode"    
+    gitlab_rails['db_database'] = "gitlabhq_production"   
+    gitlab_rails['db_username'] = "gitlab"
+    gitlab_rails['db_password'] = "mypassword"
+    gitlab_rails['db_host'] = "<rds-endpoint>"
+
+Next we only need to configure the Redis section by adding the host and 
+uncommenting the port.
+
+
+
+The last configuration step is to [change the default file locations ](http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/high_availability/nfs.html)
+to make the EFS integration easier to manage. 
+
+    gitlab_rails['redis_host'] = "<redis-endpoint>"
+    gitlab_rails['redis_port'] = 6379
+
+Finally run reconfigure, you might find it useful to run a check and 
+a service status to make sure everything has been setup correctly. 
+
+    sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure  
+    sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:check  
+    sudo gitlab-ctl status  
+
+If everything looks good copy the Elastic IP over to your browser and 
+test the instance manually. 
+
+### AMI
+
+After you finish testing your EC2 instance go back to its dashboard and 
+while the instance is selected press on the Actions dropdown to choose 
+Image -> Create an Image. Give it a name and description and confirm.
+
+*** 
+
+## Load Balancer
+
+On the same dashboard look for Load Balancer on the left column and press
+the Create button. Choose a classic Load Balancer, our gitlab VPC, not 
+internal and make sure its listening for HTTP and HTTPS on port 80. 
+
+Here is a tricky part though, when adding subnets we need to associate 
+public subnets instead of the private ones where our instances will 
+actually live. 
+
+On the secruity group section let's create a new one named 
+`gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` and allow both HTTP ad HTTPS traffic 
+from anywhere. 
+
+The Load Balancer Health will allow us to indicate where to ping and what 
+makes up a healthy or unhealthy instance. 
+
+We won't add the instance on the next session because we'll destroy it 
+momentarily as we'll be using the image we where creating. We will keep 
+the Enable Cross-Zone and Enable Connection Draining active.
+
+After we finish creating the Load Balancer we can re visit our Security 
+Groups to improve access only through the ELB and any other requirement 
+you might have.
+
+*** 
+
+## Auto Scaling Group
+
+Our AMI should be done by now so we can start working on our Auto 
+Scaling Group. 
+ 
+This option is also available through the EC2 dashboard on the left 
+sidebar. Press on the create button. Select the new image on My AMIs and 
+give it a `t2.medium` size. To be able to use Elastic File System we need 
+to add a script to mount EFS automatically at launch. We'll do this at 
+the Advanced Details section where we have a [User Data](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html) 
+text area that allows us to add a lot of custom configurations which 
+allows you to add a custom script for when launching an instance. Let's 
+add the following script to the User Data section:
+ 
+
+    #cloud-config
+    package_upgrade: true
+    packages:
+    - nfs-common
+    runcmd:
+    - mkdir -p /gitlab-data
+    - chown ec2-user:ec2-user /gitlab-data
+    - echo "$(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone).file-system-id.aws-region.amazonaws.com:/ /gitlab-data nfs defaults,vers=4.1 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
+    - mount -a -t nfs
+    - sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure 
+
+On the security group section we can chosse our existing 
+`gitlab-ec2-security-group` group which has already been tested. 
+
+After this is launched we are able to start creating our Auto Scaling 
+Group. Start by giving it a name and assinging it our VPC and private 
+subnets. We also want to always start with two instances and if you 
+scroll down to Advanced Details we can choose to receive traffic from ELBs. 
+Lets enable that option and select our ELB. We also want to use the ELB's 
+health check.
+
+![Auto scaling](/images/high-availability/auto-scaling-det.png)
+
+### Policies
+
+This is the really great part of Auto Scaling, we get to choose when AWS 
+launches new instances and when it removes them. For this group we'll 
+scale between 2 and 4 instances where one instance will be added if CPU 
+utilization is greater than 60% and one instance is removed if it falls 
+to less than 45%. Here are the complete policies:
+
+![Policies](/images/high-availability/policies.png)
+
+You'll notice that after we save this AWS starts launching our two 
+instances in different AZs and without a public IP which is exactly what 
+we where aiming for. 
+
+*** 
+
+## Final Thoughts
+ 
+After you're done with the policies section have some fun trying to break 
+instances. You should be able to see how the Auto Scaling Group and the 
+EC2 screen start bringing them up again. 
+
+High Availability is a very big area, we went mostly through scaling and 
+some redundancy options but it might also imply Geographic replication. 
+There is a lot of ground yet to cover so have a read through these other 
+resources and feel free to open an issue to request additional material.
+ 
+ * [GitLab High Availability](http://docs.gitlab.com/ce/administration/high_availability/README.html#sts=High Availability)
+ * [GitLab Geo](http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/gitlab-geo/README.html)  

source/index.html.md

@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ _University materials don't replace our [Documentation](http://docs.gitlab.com)
 + [OPS6] [High Availability Documentation](https://about.gitlab.com/high-availability/)
 + [OPS7] [Managing LDAP, Active Directory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPMjM-14qa8)
 + [OPS8] [Scalability and High Availability](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXRMJJb6sp4&list=PLFGfElNsQthbQu_IWlNOxul0TbS_2JH-e&index=2)
++ [OPS9] [High Availability on AWS](/high-availability/aws)
 ---
@@ -49,7 +50,7 @@ _University materials don't replace our [Documentation](http://docs.gitlab.com)
 + [GLB4] [Create and Add your SSH key to GitLab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54mxyLo3Mqk)
 + [GLB5] [Repositories, Projects and Groups](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TWfh1aKHHw&index=1&list=PLFGfElNsQthbQu_IWlNOxul0TbS_2JH-e)
 + [GLB6] [Creating a Project in GitLab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p0hrpNaJ14)
-+ [GLB7] [Issues and Merge Requests](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raXvuwet78M)]
++ [GLB7] [Issues and Merge Requests](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raXvuwet78M)
 + [GLB8] [Big files in Git (Git LFS, Annex)](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/University/blob/master/classes/git_lfs_and_annex.md)
 ---
@@ -129,7 +130,7 @@ _University materials don't replace our [Documentation](http://docs.gitlab.com)
 + Others (not created by GitLab)
   + [Dev Ops terminology](https://xebialabs.com/glossary/)
-  + [CI vs CD] [Continuous Delivery vs Continuous Deployment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igwFj8PPSnw)
+  + [Continuous Delivery vs Continuous Deployment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igwFj8PPSnw)
   + [Periodic Table of DevOps Tools](https://xebialabs.com/periodic-table-of-devops-tools/)
   + [State of Dev Ops 2015 Report by Puppet Labs](https://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2015-state-of-devops-report.pdf) Insightful Chapters to understand the Impact of Continuous Delivery on Performance (Chapter 4), the Application Architecture (Chapter 5) and How IT Managers can help their teams win (Chapter 6).
   + [2011 WSJ article by Mark Andreeson - Software is Eating the World](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460)

source/training/end-user/index.html.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ title: Trainings
 ----------------
 This training material is the markdown used to generate training slides 
-which can be found at [End User Slides](http://45.55.216.78:8000/#/) 
+which can be found at [End User Slides](https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/end-user-training-slides/#/) 
 through it's [RevealJS](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/end-user-training-slides) 
 project.