1. posterid:473083
  2. Buildpack deep dive questions...

Re: Buildpack deep dive questions...

Daniel Mikusa
 

On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 10:45 AM Cade Thacker <cade@...> wrote:
Long time reader... first time poster :D 

I'm really digging and deconstruction a few different buildpacks trying to understand how they really work.  supply, compile, detect, etc.  Especially the multi buildpack POV. 

So I think i'm starting to get the details straight but I have some basic architecture questions. 

1) For example, if the core functionality of the buildpack is a compiled app (like go or java) and not a scripted language but the github repo only contains the source code then somewhere in this process it must be compiled.  If I want to use the buildpack as an online buildpack that means that the buildpack has to be "built" after it is cloned down during staging.  Is this the correct path?  Or should it be built and the binary pushed back with the code into github? This seems wrong. Somebody hit me with the clue stick. 

If your buildpack itself needs to be compiled, you have two choices:

1.) Compile locally, package a buildpack and install with `cf create-buildpack`.
2.) Use a shim script to build then run your buildpack. If you want to support `cf push -b https://git-url/my-buildpack` then you have to do this.


and the script it runs to install Golang.

 

2) Second, somewhat tangent question. I know that CloudFoundry is doing tons of work around envoy/istio, but we have a more pressing need right now.  My company has a need to connect many apps and CloudFoundry is just one small part of our runtime. Would it be possible to write a final build pack for envoy and have it basically bind to PORT and then pass the calls to whatever was the 2nd to last buildpack? java, ruby, go, etc.  Forgive me if this is a silly question, but trying to find the edge of this new multi build pack world. Need to inject some custom ingress/egress rules. 

The final buildpack can basically do what ever it wants, since it gets to dictate the start command. If you want it to start Envoy + some other stuff you can do that. A couple things to keep in mind. First, if you're starting multiple processes in the app container you need to manage them. If one fails, you need to make it so that they all fail, or you'll have unexpected behavior. For example, if Envoy is running but your second process, presumably your actual app, crashes then you need to make sure they all crash so that the platform can detect the crash and restart your app. Second, multiple processes in the container makes it harder to reason about available memory, be especially careful if you're running a Java app. Lastly, only the supply script will run for non-final buildpacks. If you need finalize to run for a non-final buildpack, like to get the proper Java start command, then that's not going to be easy.

Hope that helps!

Dan
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