Lamp - Lamp and LampX4 Applications

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Lamp - Lamp Application

Lamp - 2-tier Non-scalable Web Application

Latest Version: 2.0.1-1

The illustration shows the architecture of the Lamp 2-tier non-scalable web application.

Functional Overview

The Lamp reference application is a simple 2-tier Web application that makes it easy for a user to port their applications onto CA AppLogic® for System z. This reference application drastically reduces the entry barrier for using CA AppLogic® for System z grids.

The Lamp application consists of a single web server, a database server, a file server, a gateway for external network access and an input gateway for user access. In addition, the application contains a monitor which allows the administrator to monitor various aspects of the application (for example, CPU/memory usage, hit rate on a website, and so on).

With this Lamp application, in only a few simple steps, the user can port their application onto CA AppLogic® for System z with ease. Simply provision the Lamp application, SSH into the web server (via the CA AppLogic® for System z web shell), install the necessary software and the application is ready for production.

Lamp is made for simple applications that do not require:

Any build tools such as GCC
Write access to the usr directory in the web servers

Boundary

Properties

Property Name	Type	Description
hostname	String	Host name under which the Lamp application is accessible. This is the name that users point their browsers at: http://hostname/. This name should resolve to the IP address specified in in_ip. Default: (empty; no hostname is used).
in_ip	IP	This is the IP address at which the Lamp application provides services to users. If the hostname property is not empty, it should resolve to in_ip. This property is mandatory.
out_ip	IP	This is the IP address that is used by the Lamp application to access an external network that resides outside of the application (that is, the internet). This property is mandatory.
netmask	IP	Network mask for the network on which in_ip and out_ip reside. This property is mandatory.
gateway	IP	Defines the IP network gateway (router) that is used for all outgoing traffic to the external network via in_ip and out_ip. This property is mandatory.
dns1	IP	IP address of the primary DNS server used for host name resolutions. This property is mandatory.
dns2	IP	IP address of the backup DNS server used for host name resolutions. Default: (empty; not used).
timezone	String	Specifies the time zone used in the application. If this property is empty, the timezone is not modified and left as-is. A list of supported time zones is available here. Default: empty

Important! The IP addresses configured in the in_ip and out_ip properties must be IP addresses available on your CA AppLogic® for System z grid. You can find them, together with the netmask, gateway and DNS servers on the dashboard of your grid. We are working to make it possible for CA AppLogic® for System z to provide these addresses automatically.

Resources

Lamp

Resource	Minimum	Maximum	Default
CPU	0.4	56	1.05
Memory	736 MB	100 GB	1.531 GB
Bandwidth	5 Mbps	10 Gbps	900 Mbps

Application Volumes

The application itself uses several volumes. They are part of the application and are already configured into the appliance instances.

Volume	Description
mysql	Volume for the database data storage. This volume is assigned to the MYSQL appliance. By default, an empty volume named mysql is supplied for the application to use.
fs	This volume is used to store the Lamp application's web pages, code and scripts (plus anything else that is needed by the application). It is also used to store the web server and database logs. This volume is assigned to the NAS appliance. By default, an empty volume named fs is supplied for the application to use.
mon	This volume is used to store monitoring data for the application. There is no reason for the user to access/modify this volume; this volume is used internally by the MON appliance. By default, a volume named mon is supplied to store the application monitoring data.

Operation

This section describes how to use and operate the Lamp application. It is geared towards both administrators and regular CA AppLogic® for System z users. The initial setup and maintenance of the Lamp application requires access to an CA AppLogic® for System z grid.

Lamp is designed to allow the user to quickly port their application over to CA AppLogic® for System z.

Initial Application Setup

Use the following steps to get your own Lamp application up and running on an CA AppLogic® for System z grid. This example creates a scalable Lamp application named mylampapp.

Follow these steps:

Provision the Lamp application using the following command.
This command provisions a new Lamp application named mylampapp based on the Lamp reference application. All properties are set to their appropriate values (IPs, DNS servers, and so on). The sizes of the fs and mysql volumes are increased.
```
app provision Lamp mylampapp hostname=www.myapp.com in_ip=1.2.3.4 out_ip=1.2.3.5 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=1.2.3.1 dns1=1.2.3.50 dns2=1.2.3.51 fs.size=100MB mysql.size=250MB
```
CA AppLogic® for System z will provision the mylampapp application and start it on the grid.
Wait for the application to start; this may take several minutes.
You can now access your application using a browser.
Open up a browser and point it to the configured hostname and you will see a test web page from the Apache web server. If you do not see a test page, verify your IP addresses are configured correctly and restart the application if needed.
You now have a running Lamp application on your grid.
Install your specific application onto the application volumes.
Your application will be ready to go.

Install Your Application

The application is designed to allow you to quickly port your existing applications to a CA AppLogic® for System z grid.

To install your own software on your Lamp application, SSH into the web appliance from within the CA AppLogic® for System z shell: ssh mylampapp:main.srv.srv1

From within the web server, you can now download and install software directly from the internet (as you would typically do if working on your own private server).
If needed, you can also access the MySQL database using the db hostname (for example, mysql -h db). The default database that is set up automatically when the application is first created has sufficient permissions for the root user of any of the web server appliances.
You can use /mnt/fs to store any files/folders you need for your application (this is the path to your fs application volume). This volume is also used to store all of the apache files (/var/www/html is linked to /mnt/fs for example).

Note: After all of your software is installed and configured, there is no need to restart the application (unless the software you installed requires a reboot).

You should now be able to access your application by using the configured hostname or IP address (in_ip).

Notes

The web servers used in the Lamp application do not have a GCC build environment or a writable usr directory tree.
There is a known incompatibility between the web and mysql servers related to user authentication (SCR 1564). If a mysql user other than root is used in your lamp application, the user must not have an associated password (password authentication does not work due to a mysql client/server version mismatch between the web and mysql server). For more details, see SCR 1564.