vRealize Automation - Code Stream Header

vRealize Automation 8.5 – Code Stream – Unexpected character (‘\\’ (code 92))

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The Issue

When running certain REST Tasks in Code Stream, the pipeline execution fails on this task with:

Unexpected character ('\\' (code 92)): was expecting double-quote to start field name \n at [Source: (io.netty.buffer.ByteBufInputStream); line: X, colume: X]"
vRA 8.5 Code Stream - Unexpected character was expecting double-quote to start field name - Error
The Workaround

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MongoDB Container data loss issue – A Journey

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Over the past month or so I noticed an issue with my Pac-Man Kubernetes application, which I use for demonstrations as a basic app front-end that writes to a database back end, running in Kubernetes.

  • When I restored my instances using Kasten, my Pac-Man high scores were missing.
  • This issue happened when I made some changes to my deployment files to configure authentication to the MongoDB using environment variables in my deployment file.

This blog post is a detail walk-through of the steps I took to troubleshoot the issue, and then rectify it!

Summary if you don’t want to read the post

If you are not looking to read through this blog post, here is the summary:

  • I changed MongoDB images, I needed to configure a new mount point location to match the MongoDB configuration
  • New MongoDB image is non-root, so had to use an Init container to configure the permissions on the PV first
Overview of the application

The application is made up of the following components:

  • Namespace
  • Deployment
    • MongoDB Pod
      • DB Authentication configured
      • Attached to a PVC
    • Pac-Man Pod
      • Nodejs web front end that connects back to the MongoDB Pod by looking for the Pod DNS address internally.
  • RBAC Configuration for Pod Security and Service Account
  • Secret which holds the data for the MongoDB Usernames and Passwords to be configured
  • Service
    • Type: LoadBalancer
      • Used to balance traffic to the Pac-Man Pods

Pac-Man Kubernetes Diagram

Confirming the behaviour

The behaviour I was seeing when my application was deployed:

  • Pac-Man web page – I could save a high score, and it would show in the high scores list
    • This showed the connectivity to the database was working, as the app would hang if it could not write to the database.
  • I would protect my application using Kasten. When I deleted the namespace, and restored everything, my application would be running, but there was no high scores to show.
  • This was apparent from deploying the branch version v0.5.0 and v0.5.1 from my GitHub.
  • Deploying the branch v0.2.0 would not product the same behaviour
    • This configuration did not have any database authentication setup, meaning MongoDB was open to the world if they could connect without a UN/Password.
Testing the Behaviour

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vRealize Operations – Creating interactions between separate dashboards

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Whilst reading some of the older vRealize Operations documentation, I stumbled on something I didn’t think was possible.

  • The ability to create interactions between separate dashboards.

At first, I thought could not be correct? I don’t remember seeing this option. But sure enough it’s there. So, I thought I’d write a quick blog about it and share to the world.

  • You can apply sections or context from one dashboard to another. You can connect widgets and views to widgets and views in the same dashboard or to other dashboards to investigate problems or better analyze the provided information.
Configuring Interactions between Dashboards

First, I’ve created two dashboards, which are based on the old troubleshooting dashboards. Both dashboards have an Object Picker List to filter the various related objects on each dashboard.

  • Dashboard-1 – Troubleshoot Cluster
  • Dashboard-2 – Troubleshoot VM

The premise is simple, when I select a Cluster object from Dashboard-1, I want the list of VMs to be filtered in Dashboard-2, to those only in the selected Cluster.

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Data Management For VMware Tanzu API Postman Collection

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Whilst working with the “Data Management for VMware Tanzu” product, I decided to have a stab at working with the API as well.

Using my favourite API tool, Postman, I created an easy-to-use collection.

I’ve posted this here:

The commands in this collection are built from the Swagger API, which can be accessed from the following URL:

The official documentation for the API can be found here.

So far, I’ve created the following areas/use cases:

Operations Covered in this Collection:

    Login
    Get Provider Health
    Get Organsation
    Users
        Get Users
        Create Users
        Change Password for Current User
    Databases
        Get Databases
            Specific Database
            Get Root & Admin User Passwords
            Get Database Alerts
            Get Database Version
        Create Database
        Delete Database
        Backup
            Create & Restore (inc. Point in Time Restore)
        Logs
            Create, Download, Delete
    Get Environment
    Get Templates
    Instance Plans
        Get All, Create and Delete
    Get Tasks, Events and Alarms
    Get All Backups
    Get Audit Logs
Variables inside the collection

The main variables you will need to set before use are:

  • baseUrl
  • userName
  • Password

Data Management for Tanzu - API Postman Collection - Variables

Getting Started

Under the login folder, run the “Get Access Token” request. This has a test configured, so that from the returned data, it will copy the Bearer Token and OrgId for the User Account to the Environment Variable collection that is active.

Data Management for Tanzu - API Postman Collection - Get Access Token

Some API requests are only valid for certain Authenticated role types, such as creating Databases can only be successful with a user role of Org_Admin or Org_User.

How did I create this?

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Data Management for VMware Tanzu – Self-Service DBaaS

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In my first blog post, I covered the prerequisites and how to deploy the components for the Data Management for VMware Tanzu platform.

In this blog post we will cover using this new infrastructure for Self-Service Database-as-a-Service deployment and configuration.

Configure Database Templates and Instance Plans
  • Log into your Provider Appliance as the Provider administrator account.

The last actions to configure are publishing the database templates and configuring Instance Plans. (If you have setup your Organisation to use instance plans).

  • Click Templates from the left-hand navigation pane
  • Select your Template which has been sync’d from the Tanzu Net (Or repo as air-gap configuration).
  • Publish the Template

Data Management for Tanzu - Publish Template

  • Click Instance Plans from the left-hand navigation pane
  • Click “Add New Plan”
  • Configure as necessary

Data Management for Tanzu Instance Plans

Configure additional Org Users

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